Back from Vacation

These last two weeks were spent travelling in North-Eastern Brazil. First stop was in Olinda, a tiny touristy town just outside of Recife. To be honest, Olinda was a bit of a disappointment in comparation to Salvador. Maybe it was just because it was the down season and there was almost no one there, or because there were no beaches on the coast to go swimming in, but it didn’t seem like there was too much to do. On the other hand, it did have cute little historical buildings, the streets were clean, and it felt a lot safer to go walking around in comparison to Pelourinho (the historical centre of Salvador). The highlight of our stay there was finding a scrawny little black kitten in the street and giving him a shrimp to eat! 

We only stayed in Olinda for one night and headed off to Ilha de Itamaraca the next day, which, according to our guide, was definitely worth the visit with it’s natural pools and ‘peixe-boi’ conservation aquarium. It was about a 45 minute taxi ride to get there – and during the 45 minutes our taxi driver significantly lowered our expectations for where we were headed, probably a good thing. Because there weren’t too many pousadas (hostel/hotel) there, we ended up paying a bit more than expected. The beach was relatively pretty – but nothing too special, and the current was too strong to go out swimming very far.

Peixe-Boi conservation centre

At night we went out downtown to eat – we started out walking, as someone had told us it only takes 45 minutes to get there, and on the way a dog came out and tried to play with us, wagging it’s tail and jumping up beside us. We shooed it away, but it continued on a few steps in front of us for the whole 45 minutes, as if it was looking out for us. After 45 minutes, we realised that we weren’t anywhere near the downtown and decided to hail a cab. As the cab stopped beside us, the dog looked at us and started barking when he saw we were going to leave him. We drove away, and looking behind us, the dog was barking and running at full speed to try and catch up with us – it reminded me of Old Yeller.

Arriving in downtown (it would probably have taken us an hour and a half to two hours to walk) we ate well and cheaply. I had fried aimpim with sausage and chicken. It was delicious! Aimpim is the root of the mandioc plant, which is used to make tapioca. After you boil the root, you mash it with butter and salt to get a consistency similar to mashed potatoes, but even more tasty. There’s always a bit of a risk eating street food, but fortunately that night I was fine afterwards.

We decided to only stay one night in Itamaraca as well because of the expensive hostel, and took the bus the next day to Pipa – a touristy beachtown outside of Natal, further up North. It took us only three and a half hours in a comfortable air conditioned bus to arrive in Goianhias, a city near Pipa, where we had to get off and take a van for three reais for the rest of the way. Goinhias seemed like a really relaxed city with cheap fruit – we got fresh pineapple for one Real (50 cents) and ice cream for the same price. And the van ride was beautiful, along the coast with occasional views of the sea, and lots of peixarias on the way (fish market).

Pipa has over 200 pousadas, making it no problem for us to find a good one and bargain it down to a good price. We decided to stay for three nights, because compared to the other places, Pipa had everything! The town was lively – similar to Morro de Sao Paulo outside of Salvador, with lots of tourists, lots of restaurants and lots of beautiful beaches. The first night there was a BBQ at our pousada, and we went out dancing with others from the pousada. I guess that is one of the things you have to expect when travelling to very touristy places – everything is very Americanized. The music at our pousada was all English, almost everyone in the pousada spoke English, etc, etc. You could stay in Pipa for months and have a very tiny idea of what the Brazilian culture is about. We even met an American who was doing pretty much just that. Living with other gringos, going surfing during the day and partying during the night, getting by on a minimum of Portuguese. At the same time, the idea of having nothing to do but to go surf all day every day did make me a tiny bit jealous. The days at Pipa passed by very quickly, but at the same time I was happy to be back in Salvador after our 4 in the morning plane ride. And now it’s back to studying, with exactly two months left until the end of the first semester.

Pipa Beach