Sunday 13th to Wednesday 16th August 2006: BRASIL, Pipa

We arrived in Pipa at midday and from the moment we stepped off the bus we knew we would be having a great time here. Pipa is a very small beach town frequented by Brasilians and Europeans and has a real charm to it - small shops line the main street which is made of cobbled stones as is the rest of the town. We managed to get a great deal (cheapest accomodation yet in Brasil!) at a Pousada (small hotel) along the main street which was great for people watching from the balcony. Plus they also had a swimming pool and served a huge variety filled breakfast which we enjoyed a lot!

In Pipa we had our first experience of the Kilo Self Service Restaurants typical of Brasil. At these restaurants are rows of dishes of a huge variety of meat, fish, vegatables and salad and you just choose what you want and then pay for the weight of the food on your plate. We´ve really started to enjoy our food again after not eating much for the past months due to the monotonous food of Central America but here in Brasil the food is much more to our liking as there is greater variety and eating at these kilo restaurants is very cheap and tasty!

Our 3 nights in Pipa were the best time we´ve had at any beach town we´ve visited throughout our honeymoon. The beaches of the North-East of Brasil are so beautiful and uncrowded - long stretches of golden sand and turquoise blue sea! Pipa also has a beach called Dolphin Bay where each day you can swim with the dolphins at low tide as at this time of day they come very close to the shore in order to try and catch the fish being washed up on the shore. Each day we walked the twenty minutes along the gorgeous shore to Dolphin Bay to soak up some rays, to swim and to watch the dolphin display . Sadly were we again unable to catch the dolphins on camera (not for lack of trying - we had about thirty pics of the sea!) but their image will be etched in our minds for a long time yet.

Pipa is also known as a party town for the celebs of Brasil but we didn´t experience any of the big parties, just a few caiprinhas at night in the bars along the main street which have lovely views of the town and beaches. On our first day we also managed to meet up with Ricky for an afternoon of laughter (it´s great hanging out with another person who has an English sense of humour!) but he left the next day to head to Salvador where we´d agreed to meet up in a few days time.

After three wonderful days of complete relaxation by the beach we were sad to leave Pipa but it was time to move on to our next stop of Recife and Olinda, a four hour bus ride away.

Dolphin Bay at Pipa