Pipa and Flipper

Pipa and Flipper
Pipa, Brazil

Pipa, Brazil

After leaving Recife we were headed up the coast to Pipa, a little beach town with a big reputation. It is apparently Brazil’s most famous beach. I don’t know about anyone else but I am pretty sure that Rio’s Copacabana or Ipanema hold that title as I had never heard of Pipa but it was about to become our favourite beach in Brazil for sure.

Our journey to Pipa was relatively smooth as far as journeys around Brazil go, we had a 45 minute taxi followed by a 4 hour bus and then a 1 hour collectivo, about half way through the bus journey we faced a road block where some villagers seemed to have blockaded the road and were gathered en-mass in the road armed with sticks, rocks and catapults. They seemed thankfully to be pretty calm and were in negotiations with the police allowing a few cars and buses through the road block at a time so we anxiously awaited our turn and added another hour to our journey. The bus dropped us at the side of a motorway and we made our way into the little town centre in the hope of finding the local collectivos to get us to Pipa. Thankfully despite all the local taxi drivers trying desperately hard to get us into their taxis we made it to the collectivo and an hour later we pulled into Pipa. Thankfully I had my eyes open as we drove through the little cobbled streets I saw our Posada and we managed to jump out right outside the door.

We had received a recommendation for our posada in Pipa and it turned out to be one of our favourite places that we stayed. The hammock on the balcony became Tim’s nest for the next few days and we were amazed that Pipa actually lived up to the amazing reputation that Lonely Planet had given it.

Pipa is a funny little beach town in that only a tiny section of beach is accessible as the town is actually on the edge of a 10 meter cliff with few access points down to the beach. Pipa was a small fishing village until the 1970’s when it was discovered by surfers and backpackers and ever since it has slowly grown and grown and is now one of the most popular beaches in Brazil. It is half way between Natal and Recife and receives lots of locals on weekend breaks but it surprisingly also a lot of foreigners and a fair few expats so it was a welcome change to have hotel and restaurant staff who spoke English and even had English menus.

Aside from being a cute and friendly small little cobbled beach town with streets lined with boutique stores, cafes, bars and restaurants Pipa has something very very special, Dolphin Bay. This bay is only accessible at low tide and requires a 10 minute walk around the base of the 10 meter high cliffs with the tide lapping at your feet. We didn’t know what to expect the first time we went to Dolphin Bay, but what we found was paradise. A horseshoe bay lined with beach chairs, umbrellas and a handful of entrepreneurial beach sales men selling ice creams, beers and caipirinhas. However the real gem of this little bay lay in the water, as we stood in waist high water with the sun setting there were dolphins jumping, spinning and chasing fish within just meters of us. It was by far one of the coolest things that we have ever done.

Pipa was just amazing and somewhere that we would return to in a heartbeat, it was quaint, pretty, friendly, relaxing and even had amazing food. We found the most delicious pizza we have had in Brazil and discovered the delight that is Nutella filled churros topped with chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. This delicious treat containing about 1 million calories was only £1.50. Something that we didn’t realise about Brazil is that it is currently in the midst of a pretty bad recession, the upside for us is that the Pound to the Real is at an all time high. In 2012 there were 2-3 real to the Pound, during our stay we were getting 5-6 real to the Pound doubling our money and making Brazil a very affordable place to visit thankfully.

Our time in Pipa was over far too soon, we could have happily lazed in the hammock and played with the dolphins for another week but our time and visa was fast coming to an end and we had one last place to visit….. Jericoacoara.