Guarapari

Sunday we decided to take a bus over to Guarapari for the day and check out the beach there. It was about an hour bus ride after all the stops and we were dropped off less than a 10 minute walk away from Praia do Morro (said to be best beach in the city). Maybe we are just getting entirely too spoiled and picky, but we really weren't impressed with the beach or the city. While the water here was fabulous (clear, blue-green water with fun waves) the beach was littered with some trash and had a definitely more touristy (in a bad way) feel to it. It had a lot more beach vendors than Vila Velha, there were boats taking people on banana boat rides, and the sidewalk between the beach and the road had tons of small run-down looking kiosks.

The beach here is really wide and flat. You have to walk out pretty far to get in deep water.
The water was really beautiful and the waves quite powerful.
Adding to the "dirty" feel of the beach was this tall concrete wall painted with murals dividing the sidewalk from the beach.
The rocks along the South end of Praia do Morro made for a fun place to walk around and get some nice views.
But we didn't stick around long after we stumbled upon several other people also enjoying the view and getting h . . . well, let's just say they were in a medicinally-enhanced state. Anyway, that's just not really our scene, you know? So our time on the rocks was short-lived, that's all I'm saying really.

We read about several boat tours that operate out of Guarapari and they might be nice to take and see lots of different beaches in the area. But, generally speaking, I would recommend staying 40 km North and sticking around Vila Velha were everything has a cleaner, nicer feel to it!