MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL IN Brazil

Climbing the Serra do Rio do Rastro by motorcycle means tackling Santa Catarina's most photographed postcard: 284 tight curves climbing from 200 to 1,460 meters along the SC-390, with the lookout at the top rewarding you with a view of the entire zigzag.

The road follows the same path once crossed only by mule trains hauling cattle — the range's name comes from the tracks (rastros) those animals left near the river. The route began as a dirt road only in the mid-1950s, and wasn't finished in concrete pavement until 1986, when it became the first highway in Santa Catarina with that kind of surface.

Its 284 curves are packed into just 8km, so every meter demands braking, leaning and accelerating again without a break. It's the ride every motorcycle traveler in southern Brazil does at least once, and the reason the entire Serra Catarinense became the country's motorcycling mecca.

Descending the Estrada da Graciosa by motorcycle from the Curitiba plateau down to the Paraná coast means riding a road inaugurated in 1873, after Emperor Dom Pedro II himself authorized the project following the province's emancipation. Ten engineers took 19 years to finish it, slowed by dense forest, animal attacks and worker illness.

Eight kilometers of its curves still carry the original cobblestones, laid one by one by enslaved hands in the 19th century — a detail most riders today don't know, but that you feel in every brake on the uneven surface.

The stretch of Serra do Mar it crosses was declared a state heritage site in 1986 and is part of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve recognized by UNESCO. Close to Curitiba, it's the classic weekend ride for any local motorcyclist.

Descending the Rota do Sol by motorcycle through the Serra do Pinto means covering an elevation drop of over 700 meters in just 10km of highway — from the nearly 1,000masl of the Campos de Cima da Serra plateau down to the 60masl of Itati, near the coast.

Before this engineering existed, anyone living in the Caxias do Sul metropolitan area had to take a huge detour to reach the sea. The solution was two tunnels carved directly into the mountain rock, the largest nearly 450 meters long, known among gaúcho riders as the 'Túnel da Reversão'.

The Mirante da Serra do Pinto, overlooking the canyon and forested valley below, is the mandatory stop for anyone riding the RS-453: the mountains suddenly open up and the coastline appears as a green strip on the horizon.

Riding the Rio-Santos Highway by motorcycle means hugging 550km of coastline between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on a road that took longer than planned: construction began in 1969, was supposed to finish in 1971, and was only completed in 1975 — without so much as an official opening ceremony.

The route crosses the historic territory of the Tupinambá people, once led by chief Cunhambebe, and today connects beaches that became synonymous with Brazilian motorcycle touring: Paraty, Angra dos Reis, Ubatuba, São Sebastião and, via ferry, the island of Ilhabela.

About 10,000 commercial vehicles travel this same road daily today, much of it hauling fuel from the ports of Santos and São Sebastião — which is why it pays to plan your stops outside truck rush hours. Despite the traffic, most Brazilian riders still call it the most beautiful road in the country.

Riding the Caminho Velho of the Estrada Real by motorcycle means following the route the Portuguese Crown formalized in the mid-18th century to control tax collection on the gold and diamonds leaving Minas Gerais for the port of Rio de Janeiro. In the 17th century, the same distance took a mule caravan led by tropeiros 60 days.

Today the Instituto Estrada Real divides the full route —over 1,630km total, Brazil's longest tourist circuit— into four paths: the Caminho do Ouro, the Caminho dos Diamantes, the Caminho Novo and the Caminho Sabarabuçu. The Caminho Velho, from Ouro Preto to Paraty, is the longest of the four at 710km spread across 27 stages.

Only 18% of the route is paved or cobbled: the rest is dirt, mud and trails narrow enough that, according to rider accounts, some stretches between Ouro Preto and São Bartolomeu were built for bicycles and hikers, not big touring bikes — be ready to backtrack and find a detour.

Crossing the Transpantaneira by motorcycle means riding 145km of dirt road that locals themselves named in tribute to the adventure it promises: the official name is just Highway MT-060, but nobody calls it that.

More than 120 wooden and concrete bridges cross the entire route; some, especially from kilometer 60 onward, are in poor condition or outright burned, and the Mato Grosso government is gradually replacing them with new structures. The 60km/h speed limit isn't just protocol: caimans, capybaras, jabiru storks and even snakes cross the road without warning.

The final stretch, near Porto Jofre, is world-renowned for jaguar sightings — the reason National Geographic and dozens of photo-safari operators chose this exact desolate last section of the Transpantaneira as their base of operations.

Riding the Chapada dos Veadeiros by motorcycle along the GO-239 means crossing the country's oldest highland cerrado: the rocks of the Supergrupo Veadeiros that shape the landscape are between 650 million and 2.1 billion years old, older than the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest.

The road climbs to nearly 1,676 meters at Serra do Pouso Alto, Goiás's highest point, cutting through a national park with over 120 catalogued waterfalls. In 1981 the park lost 90% of its original territory to make way for this very road — today almost the entire GO-239 up to São Jorge is paved, including the village itself, which until recently was dirt streets.

The flip side of riding through a national park is the wildlife: one study counted over 500 roadkill animals in just 16,500km surveyed along the São João da Aliança to São Jorge stretch, including a jaguar in 2016. Ride slow, especially at dusk.

Climbing Morro do Pai Inácio by motorcycle from Lençóis, looping back through Palmeiras, Igatu and Andaraí, means entering the heart of Bahia's Chapada Diamantina via a 28km detour of badly damaged dirt road off the BR-242.

The hill, right off the BR-242, reaches 1,150 meters and rewards you with a panoramic view over the Camelo and Três Irmãos hills — it's the most photographed postcard in the entire national park. Many riders extend the loop to Igatu via the old Estrada do Garimpo, over 26km of stone-paved track left exactly as it was when garimpeiros mined diamonds from the region.

The access road to Morro do Pai Inácio crosses a stream whose flow varies a lot by season: during high water, only certain vehicles manage to cross without getting stuck.

Riding the Rota das Emoções by motorcycle means crossing 14 municipalities across three northeastern states to connect three of Brazil's natural icons: the Lençóis Maranhenses, the Parnaíba Delta and Jericoacoara.

The Lençóis Maranhenses are 155,000 hectares of white dunes dotted with turquoise freshwater lagoons; they reach their fullest between June and August, right after the rainy season. The Parnaíba Delta, in the middle of the route, is the only open-sea delta in all of the Americas — its five arms flow directly into the ocean, a trait it shares only with the Nile and Mekong deltas.

It's a route originally designed for 4x4 vehicles, so on a motorcycle it demands solid loose-sand riding skill: much of the way has no pavement or signage, and tides and wind can change the sand conditions from one day to the next.