Pipe? Paradise!

After a long bus journey, the sun sets behind me and my Israeli fellow travellers over the Amazon. Ahead of us, red-hot clouds lie over Pipa. The small village is listed in every travel guide as one of Brazil’s highlights because of its legendary beaches. Travelling highlights have almost always been my biggest failures. This time everything is different.

The route winds its way through small villages and sugar cane fields past children playing football into a small village. There are no big hotels, just a few pousadas, apartments and hostels. The main street is a cobbled road full of life. The Sugar Cane Hostel has never before seen 96.4% positive reviews on Hostelbookers.

I’ve been to the back streets. And I’ve been to magical places. Here, everything is clear at a glance: Pipa is a surfer’s paradise. The welcome is so incredibly friendly that it doesn’t matter at all that I still don’t understand a word of Portuguese despite my best efforts. A good German surfer sits on the hammock-garnished high terrace, the rooms are clean, large and reasonably priced.

The nearby restaurants offer good Brazilian all-you-can-eat food from 4 euros. Rastafarians practise capoeira on the village square. In the inner courtyard, hummingbirds flutter around a tree and at night, bats bat in the light of the lamps on the terrace above. The altar of the small church was built from a surfboard. The village centre shakes at the weekend. Bands play good samba, the dancers in front are even better. The caipi is cold and the people are warm.

The next day, I couldn’t care less that there’s no kitesurfing among the surfers at Praia do Madeiro, which lies on the lee side of a high cliff. I walk 5 kilometres along a deserted beach to Tibao do Sul. The wind stays away. That doesn’t matter either. I take the minivan back to Pipa for a few cents. For the first time in a long time, I’m sure that I’m in exactly the right place.