Bonito at Night: The Reality of a Town Built Around Day Tours

The question of what to do in Bonito, Brazil, at night has a short answer: not much, and by design. Bonito is a town of around 20,000 people whose economy revolves around tours that start between 7 and 8 am. The evening exists for dinner, an ice cream and an early night. Anyone arriving in search of nightlife will be disappointed; anyone expecting a small, quiet town will find exactly that.

That said, there are things to do. This guide lists what actually exists.

Projeto Jiboia: the only fixed evening activity

Projeto Jiboia is an environmental education project in the center of Bonito that gives presentations in the early evening. The format is a talk about snakes, focused on dismantling the fear of them and explaining their role in the ecosystem, followed by supervised handling of a jiboia, the Brazilian boa constrictor. It lasts about 1 hour.

It is an outing that works at any age, does not depend on the weather and fits into any day of the itinerary. Most people do it on the day they arrive or on an evening in the middle of the trip. Like every attraction in town, it is booked through an agency with a single voucher. Worth it, especially with children or with anyone afraid of snakes.

The square and the main street

Bonito’s evening life happens around Praça da Liberdade, the main square, and the main street that crosses it, where restaurants, ice cream parlors, craft shops and agencies are concentrated. In the evening, the square fills with families, and the restaurant terraces become the meeting point.

The typical program is: get back from the tour in the late afternoon, shower, walk to the square, have dinner, get an ice cream and head back. In high season there are more people and more movement in the bars, but the rhythm is the same.

Restaurants

Dinner is the main evening activity. Local cooking revolves around river fish (pintado, pacu, piraputanga and dourado), barbecue and regional dishes with Paraguayan and Bolivian influence, such as sopa paraguaia (a savory corn-and-cheese bake, despite the name) and chipa (a cheese bread). There are also pizzerias, burger joints and pasta restaurants for a change. Restaurants are concentrated in the center and most close around 11 pm.

What to order and where is in what to eat in Bonito and the list of restaurants in Bonito. On Brazilian holidays, the most popular restaurants fill up between 8 and 9 pm; arriving before 8 pm avoids a wait.

Bars, cachaça houses and craft beer

Bonito has bars in the central area, some with live music on weekends and in high season, and cachaçarias, bars that sell and serve artisanal cachaça (Brazil’s sugarcane spirit) from Mato Grosso do Sul and other states, with tastings. There are also local craft beers in some bars and shops. The atmosphere is conversation, not a dance floor.

For couples, a bar or cachaça house is the closest thing to a night out. More suggestions in Bonito for couples.

Ice cream parlors

The ice cream parlor is an institution of the Bonito evening, partly because of the heat and partly because it is what you do after dinner. There are parlors on the square and the main street, several with flavors made from fruits of the Cerrado, Brazil’s central savanna, such as bocaiuva, guavira and pequi. Try at least one regional flavor.

Shopping and crafts

The craft and clothing shops in the center stay open into the early evening. This is where you buy a T-shirt, a hat, sunscreen (for use out of the water) and souvenirs. It is not an outing in itself, but it takes care of whatever is missing for the next day’s tour.

What does not exist

To set expectations:

• Nightclubs with a dance floor: there is no regular offer.
• Night tours on a river or in a cave: the attractions operate by day, with a time slot on the voucher.
• Nightlife at the farms: the attractions close in the late afternoon. Some rural lodges offer dinner and a campfire, but that is accommodation, not a tour.
• Late-night shops: after 11 pm the town is closed, except for convenience stores.

Planning your evenings

A four-night stay in Bonito usually looks like this: arrival evening with Projeto Jiboia and a quick dinner; one long dinner, on the day of an easy tour; one evening at a bar or cachaça house; and one early night before the most demanding tour (the Anhumas Abyss, Boca da Onça or a day in Jardim). The 4-day itinerary shows which days are easy and which call for an early night.

If your accommodation is outside the center, factor in getting around at night: taxis and ride-hailing apps exist, but in small numbers. Staying within walking distance of the square solves that; see where to stay in Bonito.