Alcântara is the most rewarding day trip from São Luís, a colonial town across the bay that time forgot. The ferry takes about 90 minutes from the São Luís waterfront terminal. Once a wealthy cotton port, Alcântara declined so completely after the cotton bust that most of its 18th-century buildings simply decayed in place rather than being demolished and replaced.
The result is eerily beautiful: a ruined cathedral, its pillars standing without a roof, engulfed by vegetation; mansions with their facades intact but their interiors open to the sky; a 17th-century pillory column in the main square still tilting at the angle it settled centuries ago. The town has about 20,000 residents, and people live in the midst of all this decay, growing food in the ruins of old gardens. Alcântara is also home to Brazil's main rocket launch facility, established here because the proximity to the equator makes it a prime launch site — the contrast between decayed colonial grandeur and modern aerospace technology is striking.