Beach Bums, Street Pork & Amigos Latinos

11th – 23rd February, 2025

After a little over 5 months on the road, we were more than ready to sit back and do as little as possible for a while. Even though we’d done some beach bumming up the coast of Brazil, we really just needed to stop in one place and go at least a week without having to jump on a long haul bus. We picked the perfect place to do this in the town of Pipa, in Rio Grande do Norte.

Before it was discovered by backpackers and surfers in the 1970s, Pipa was a small fishing village, but today it is one of the most popular beach destinations for Brazilians and foreigners alike. In saying that, they make it bloody difficult to get to. We had to jump off our bus from Recife at some random town on the highway, and apparently had to walk behind some old church to where small buses would be waiting to take us another half an hour to the coast. Thankfully, we met a nice Brazilian girl here that was learning English, and together we were able to find the church, and the buses. We’d heard that most people arrange private transport with hostels or jump in a taxi to make this trip, but taking the bus saved us $30AUD which I was very pleased with. We met an Aussie on the bus from way out in woop woop Queensland who’d been traveling around Brazil while working for the last few months, and he was a great guy to chat to.

We arrived in Pipa to streets packed full of people walking between shops, bars and the beach, and we strapped on our packs to make the extremely sweaty walk up to our accommodation in the insane heat and humidity. The streets here are very narrow, and even though they’re one-way there is hardly enough room for pedestrians as well as vehicles. This makes for a bit of a headache with the constant stop-starting and trying to dodge cars as well as make your way around other pedestrians. It was obvious straight away that this place wasn’t built to hold this many people, it was pretty chaotic for a beach town. We finally made it to our hostel soaking wet, and I was so surprised that this place was as cheap as it was. This was probably the nicest place we stayed in during our entire South America trip. It had a huge pool, a bar and a restaurant, and our private room was like we were back in Spain paying top dollar for an expensive hotel. It was a little too good actually. I really felt like we were staying at a resort here, which didn’t feel particularly interesting and it’s also a popular spot for digital nomads, and they’re not really the most sociable of people but it was a good spot to wind down for a few days. During our stay I continued to abuse my insides with free breakfasts of the usual sausage, scrambled egg, salami, ham and cheese toasted sandwiches drowned in baked beans with a very tiny side dish of papaya and about 5 coffees. Perfect fuel for a long and unbelievably hot walk through town to the beach.

The beaches here were quite beautiful from afar, and from the vantage point of the cliff that most of the town sits upon you can see turtles coming up for air, but again the water wasn’t the cleanest. Also, for such a popular surf destination there were once again no waves to be surfed, so we didn’t really do much except lay on the sand and go for the odd swim. I found a really straight stick on the beach and proceeded to use it as a screed bar to make a big, flat surface for us to lay on which was actually really satisfying and made me realise I need a job. 

Rachael was getting even more sick, which neither of us thought would be possible, so she spoke to an online doctor who gave her a prescription. This time at the pharmacy I was sure to confirm whether or not the medication had Penicillin in it before we paid for it, and we were all good. That afternoon while Rachael was laying motionless in our room, I sat in the outdoor communal area trying to type notes for the blog when a Latino couple sat near me and I overheard some Portuguese that I thought sounded a bit too rapidly spoken to be from a Brazilian. I asked the girl “De onde você é?”, “Where are you from?”, and she told me she was Argentine. I knew it! Sara and her Brazilian boyfriend, Rodrigo, were easily some of the nicest people we have met in our whole trip (digital nomads too!). I sat there trying to practice my Spanish with Sara, who speaks perfect English, which was a massive struggle after learning to speak Portuguese for the last six weeks. Rodrigo was working online while Sara and I chatted, and later I introduced Rachael to them once her medication began to make her feel better. We met up with them in town twice for some cheap beers from a grocery store and watched some Capoeira and other music that was going on. We generally just chatted about each others’ travels and lives and I can’t even begin to explain how great it was to feel like people were actually listening to us, and were interested in what we were saying. Rodrigo carries around a Brazilian flag with him and asks all his new friends to sign it, I think I said “Muito obrigado pelas cervejas”, thank you for the beers, or something to that extent. Sara said that if she sees a photo of herself in this post she’ll react like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc when he sees himself on the cover of that magazine. She’s hilarious!

After three nights at this fancy hostel, we decided that we wanted to stay in Pipa a bit longer to bum around and try to work out how to get back to the Andes. We found a hostel a bit of a hike out of town, but it was half the price of the one we were staying at so we packed up all our crap and went to drop our key off to the receptionist. When we said thanks for having us, catch ya later mate, he said “That’ll be $250R ($70AUD).” I asked him what for and he said the breakfast I’d been gorging myself on wasn’t free at all. I told him that we absolutely would not be paying for what we were told was free food, and I wouldn’t have eaten anything if I knew I had to pay for it, and he nonchalantly said “I’ll just get the receptionist that told you it was free to pay the $250R.” He was trying to guilt trip me into paying. I said good on ya mate and we left. We walked overencumbered, under the beating sun to the far end of town, to a gate on a residential block that said “Kuki’s Hostel”. This place was way more our speed.

Kuki was an absolute darling, and was extremely welcoming of us to her tiny hostel. This place was so quiet and relaxing, with a pool and a big kitchen and a nice little private room for us. Kuki and her Argentine husband had done a great job filling the area with nice plants and it was just such a nice space to sit back and relax in. We loved this place so much that we stayed five nights, without really doing much at all. We walked to a cool, orange cliff overlooking the ocean and a long stretch of beach which was nice but extremely hot out in the sun. We got to know a really nice Tasmanian bloke called Jim who told us how nice the diving is in Tassie, so we’ll have to add that one to the list. I learnt how to hand sew because we needed to patch up our picnic blanket, which I probably wouldn’t have even attempted if I hadn’t just read in the book “Ship of Destiny” that pirates and sailors are great at hand sewing things. I wasn’t expecting to go through a pirate phase during our time in Brazil but that was a nice surprise! I did a lot of cooking in Kuki’s kitchen, and made an incredible dish of pork chops and pesto beans with a cabbage and orange salad. So bloody unbelievable. There was some absolutely amazing fruit at the local grocery store and we ate many enormous mangoes, pineapples and passionfruits. We also spent a TONNE of time trying to book flights from Natal, the next closest city to the north, and Campo Grande, the city closest to the Bolivian border. Due to us not having a cursed CPF, we were unable to even come close to booking this flight. Even changing our VPN to other countries in South America we were still unable to book it, so we thought “Who do we know that has a CPF and would buy plane tickets for us?” Our new mate, Rodrigo. 

We took some beers back to our first hostel to meet up with Sara and Rodrigo and he very easily booked and paid for two plane tickets for us in five days’ time, and we transferred him the money on Wise. He showed us a few websites where we could go to check cheaper flights and connections in between cities which was really helpful, and if it weren’t for him we may still even be catching buses around Brazil to this day. Thank you Ro. 

And with that, we had to say goodbye to our new friends and to Pipa, and catch a bus two hours north to Natal, which translates to ‘Christmas’ or ‘Birth’. It was surprising to find that this city, being so close to Europe compared to most of South America, and being literally along the way as the Portuguese sailed down the coast of Brazil, had relatively little history. The Portuguese had been in Brazil for nearly 100 years before a town was founded here, and today it only has a population of less than 800,000, making it only the 24th largest in the country. It never really developed and picked up steam as a city in the way that the major cities further south did because of its sandy soil, which made it unsuitable to grow sugarcane. That sort of follows on to today, there’s just not a lot happening up here. We stayed in a pretty sad old hotel for a few nights and went for a walk on Natal’s main beach which had been completely rebuilt with imported sand a few years prior. It’s not at all a beautiful city, it’s hot, there’s nothing to do here, but we did meet a few really nice people during our brief stay.

I’d been messaged by a dude called Thiago on the Couchsurfing app who said he’d be happy to host Rachael and I at his place for a night. I was optimistic that this would be a great experience to get to know someone from the area, so we teed up to meet up with him for a beer at his local pub the night before we would stay at his place. He was a nice enough guy, recently becoming a police officer, and he took us to two of his favourite pubs for a few beers. At the second pub we met a bunch of his friends, and spoke at great length to a really nice guy called Eduardo. He spoke great English and despite being unemployed and a bit of a pub rat, he came across as really intelligent and was a great guy to talk to. Thiago stayed out to sink some more beers and Eduardo dropped us back off at our hotel. The following day we were to meet Thiago at 12pm so he could take us to his place when he finished work, so we checked out of our hotel and walked to a laundromat to wash all our stuff before he arrived to pick us up. We ended up waiting three hours for him to finally arrive, which Rachael was understandably quite cranky about. During our time waiting I got a message from Eduardo explaining to me how to get last minute tickets to a gig that he and his friends were going to that night. I secured the tickets and we eventually got picked up by old mate and we arrived at Thiago’s mum’s place. She was an absolute darling and was very happy for me to try and converse with her in Portuguese. Thiago whipped out a few guitars and we had a cool jam, and it was so unbelievably fun to not only be playing guitar, but jamming with someone. I was honestly fighting back happy tears as we played Red Hot Chilli Peppers songs and he showed me some basic samba chord progressions that he soloed over the top of. He is a really good guitarist and it was definitely worth the hours-long wait to get the experience to play samba with someone. This, however, was short lived as Thiago had double booked himself and had a date to go on that night.

Thus proceeded one of the more awkward dinners we’d ever had, as Rachael and I sat opposite Thiago and his date at some super average sushi joint in some random neighbourhood of Natal. Hardly a word was spoken, the food sucked, and I was beyond relieved when he said he’d drive us to the gig. Thiago was also probably one of the worst drivers I’ve ever been in a car with, but he somehow got us to the venue safely. He told us he wasn’t going to come in until later, because he was going to take his date somewhere else, so we said goodbye and he immediately reversed into a car parked behind him. Happy to leave that situation behind, Rachael and I walked into the venue and were greeted by a very sweaty and buzzed Eduardo who had just been on a blocco, parading through the streets of Natal all afternoon, sinking tinnies and dancing. He immediately introduced us to his group of friends who were all some of the most lovely people. Everyone was super stoked to meet a few Aussies, and they all took turns taking us to the bar and ordering us drinks even though I was more than capable of doing that myself (not my first rodeo). We spent a good few hours there watching different acts take the stage and drinking beers while chatting to each other. I was sure that we were all around the same age but it turned out that they were all ten years older than us which was a shock. Eduardo tried to guess how old we were and he said “Well, I have to take into account the harsh Australian sun so… 35?” which was absolutely insane to hear. 

Rachael and I walked out the front to buy a few espetinhos from the nice ladies grilling meat sticks in the street, and I was approached by a few Brazilian guys who shook my hand and called me Thor, which was embarrassing but pretty funny. Eventually Thiago showed up and Eduardo was not impressed in the slightest that he was out chasing skirt instead of partying with his mates. It wasn’t too long after he arrived that the gig began to shut down, and we got a lift with him back to his place. Once again, he dropped us off and went back to the pub to have some beers with his mates. We had a flight to catch the following day so I wasn’t prepared to have a big one and we just went to bed. The following morning we got all our stuff together and ordered an Uber, said goodbye to Thiago’s lovely mother and made our way to a café near the airport. We passed the pub and saw Thiago with his guitar and his mates around the table, still drinking beers at 8am. Crazy Brazilians. 

At the café, I spied a healthy amount of smoke spewing from a marquee on the opposite side of the street, so I ventured over to take a look and found huge barbecues grilling chickens and big slabs of pork ribs. Even though it was 10am, I was in no way going to pass up this opportunity, so I asked one of the ladies working if I could try some costelinha de porco, pork ribs. I doubt they receive any gringos at this random shop on the side of the road, so she was very happy to cut me a nice little ribby, and I munched on that while I waited for them to grill me a box, which also came with a surprise box of chips as well. I walked back across the road, absolutely stoked with my luck, and I couldn’t believe I only paid $6AUD for so much meat and potatoes. I was in heaven, and just so in love with this country. 

Eventually we arrived at Natal airport and caught a 4 hour flight to São Paulo, then another hour flight to Campo Grande, the capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Put together, this hilariously translates to ‘Big Field, of the Thick Bush of the South’. The city is home to one of the largest Japanese populations in the country, and is well known for its Japanese/Brazilian cuisine. It even has a Soba Noodle festival in August. I asked our very kind Lebanese Uber driver if he had a good recommendation for a Japanese place for dinner, and he said he knew just the place. He waited out the front of our hotel while we checked in, and we jumped back in his car and he took us to a food market about 10 minutes away. He parked the car and told us to follow him, and he walked us to an insanely busy food court with many different Japanese restaurants, where he approached the old, Japanese owner of one of them and told him that he had some new Australian friends that wanted to eat. Our Uber driver shook our hands and bid us a good night, he didn’t ask for any money or anything, he was just happy to be helping us out. We were seated and waited quite a while for a bowl of Soba noodles, and another bowl of Yakisoba, both of which were particularly underwhelming, but it was a cool experience nonetheless. After dinner we walked around the market a bit and bought a massive slice of chocolate and coconut cake for dessert. We ate our cake while walking back to our hotel past yet more pre-carnival celebrations in the street. More insanely loud gigs were happening in the back streets and people everywhere were drinking cocktails and sinking tinnies, the music and festivities seemed to be absolutely inescapable.

The following day we had one last bus to catch in Brazil that would take us from Campo Grande to the border town of Corumbá, seven hours away. You hear a lot about how dangerous border towns can be, but judging by the last two months in Brazil, I was pretty confident we could walk the 4km to our hotel instead of paying for a taxi. It was a strange little town, with barely anyone out in the streets and pretty much not a single shop open. We decided to spend a night here instead of crossing the border into Bolivia because the bus from the Bolivian border leaves in the morning, and we probably would have missed it. We checked into a rather unusual hotel, to a massive room with three single beds. The owner of the hotel was a young bloke who invited us out to a brewery for a beer that afternoon, and I wasn’t going to say no. We jumped in his car, picked up his girlfriend from her place and turned up at some random house. We walked down a side gate and were greeted by an old German guy and his 12 year old son, where they had a home-brewery set up and a few tables and chairs under fairy lights. The beers were pretty decent and quite strong, and we chatted to our new Brazilian and German friends for a solid 4 hours before the son got out his box of bird feathers and proceeded to pass them around to us, explaining what birds they were from and even showing us a toucan beak and a caiman skull. It was a pretty strange but quite memorable night, and we left the ‘bar’ to try and find a restaurant that wasn’t already shut for dinner. We found a burger shop and sat down for our last meal in Brazil, reminiscing on the last few months.

It’s hard to put into words just how much I enjoyed our trip through Brazil. This country was so full of surprises, and not at all how I expected it to be. Before we arrived I was certain that it would be pretty dangerous, the food wouldn’t be great, and the beaches would be absolutely incredible. I was wrong on three counts. I never felt like we were in any sort of danger, the food was insanely good, and the beaches were beautiful but nowhere near what we’ve got at home. It was a solid effort to catch as many buses as we did, but I’m so glad that’s the way we decided to get around. We saw so many places that regular gringos would miss out on if they flew everywhere, and there were many, many times where we’d look around and not have another gringo in sight. The people absolutely everywhere were so kind and helpful. Even the Uber and taxi drivers, who are notoriously unhelpful and sly all over the world, were so kind to us here and couldn’t do enough to give us recommendations and advice. I hate it when people say they love a place because of the people. I’ve heard people say it about the most random places too, like “Oh my god I love the Nepalese people, they’re so great!”, and I’ve never understood it. But I have to concede, in hindsight, I think it’s the Brazilian people that make this country as beautiful, vibrant and full of life as it is. Just about everyone, everywhere is having a great time, all the time. On top of that you’ve got beautiful Colonial Portuguese architecture, lush, dense jungle, and yes, some nice beaches, of which are absolutely gorgeous by South American standards. It was great to learn some Portuguese, and I said to Rachael before we left Australia “You know, if we go to Brazil we’ll probably fall in love with it and regret not learning Portuguese instead of Spanish.”, and while that was mostly true, I don’t completely regret not learning it before we left. It was cool to start from absolute zero and then be able to have conversations with people by the end of it. It was a very silly language to hear to the untrained ear, but now whenever we hear it, it brings back so many memories and it always puts the biggest smile on my face.

Writing this after leaving South America, Brazil was far and away my favourite country on the continent. I’d go back in a heartbeat, and I’d do it all over again.