After catching the 6pm bus from Salvador, we arrived in Maceio in the early morning - too early for the hostels we wanted to stay in to be open! So instead we ended up staying in an overpriced hotel where the shower kept giving Jess electric shocks. Recovering with a quick nap, we headed out to explore the small city.

We visited tourist information, who were helpful but we basically discovered Maceio didn't have much to offer really - some nice beaches apparently, and very little else. Yet somehow it's the "South American Capital of Culture"... we wandered around a bit and explored the beach, which was a very interesting colour, then decided to go buy bus tickets to get out of there earlier rather than later.

At the bus station we discovered the bus to Natal leaves at 10pm so we decided to high tail it out of Maceio that night. We had a quick feed, then me and Sal got stoned in preparation for another 10 hour bus journey up to Praia da Pipa, which was recommended in the Lonely Planet as one of the "unmissables" of Brazil. Rocked up here at 7 in the morning, and you know what? It's right!!

The beaches are awesome, the town is a bit pricey but very pretty and we even bumped into some people we met in Salvador here last night. Today has been the best day I've had in a while - we went to the "Bay of Dolphins", met a couple of Israelis on the way and chilled with them on the beach. Then we bought some bananas and orange cake for lunch, and while I was having one of my swims the girls shouted "DOLPHINS" from the beach and plunged into the water dropping clothes and sunnies by the way.

We swam out from the shore quite a distance, and saw a graceful dark shape leaping over a wave nearby. There might have been 2 of them, we weren't sure, but they came fairly close - reckon about 5m at the closest... first time I've swum with dolphins though so it was awesome, and we were all really made up!

Then after we came back up from the beach to catch the bus back into town (a LOT of steps), we saw a few people feeding monkeys sat in the trees by the path to the road! They generously gave us some of their bread and we all gave them bits. They were pretty tame and would lean from the branch to take the bread from your hand, though one of them didn't appreciate it when Sally tried to stroke its tail. They were about 2 feet from head to tail and had tufts of white hair sticking out of the sides of their heads. Very cute.

Internet here is atrocious - or at least, this net cafe is. Slow as dial-up, I can't get back into my email so I'm a bit pissed off at it, but hard to be annoyed when you've just spent an incredible day at the beach and are looking forward to trying surfing the next day, before heading up further along the coast to see more of this amazing country.



Sunset at main beach, Praia da Pipa




Sal in Salvador :)  ¶ 12:03 PM