Duna do Pôr do Sol

The Duna do Pôr do Sol — the Sunset Dune — is the giant sand dune at the western edge of Jericoacoara village, and the gathering point for the daily sunset ceremony. Every evening from about an hour before sunset, people climb the dune's sandy face to claim a spot on the ridge, and at the moment the sun touches the horizon a cheer goes up. It is completely unironic. The cheer is real, the joy is genuine, and the sight is good enough to justify both.

The dune is high enough to give clear views over the beach, the town, and the Atlantic. It's a ten-minute walk from the centre of the village. The social atmosphere on the dune — hundreds of people sharing food, caipirinha, and that specific collective pleasure of watching something beautiful together — is as much the point as the sunset itself. After dark, the dune is peaceful; it's also a reasonable stargazing spot when the moon is down.

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A story
The Sunset Dune ritual has been going on since at least the 1980s, when the first travellers found their way to Jericoacoara. The dune was already large when they arrived — a constantly moving sand mass advancing slowly inland from the beach — and it was the village fishermen who first gathered there to watch the sun set over the ocean. The tourist version of the ritual is more crowded but the sun still sets in the same place, over the same Atlantic, and it is still, on most evenings, genuinely beautiful.

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