Driving through North-East coast in Brazil - Canoa Quebrada, Natal, João Pessoa, Pipa, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas, Aracaju

We had a few weeks road trip from Fortaleza to Salvador. On the way we stopped in several places, in some we stayed just for a night and in some we spent more time. Below you will see our route all the way to Salvador.

Canoa Quebrada

So, as we mentioned in our previous post, we rented a car in Fortaleza. Our first stop was in Canoa Quebrada. We had found a great offer online and stayed two nights at Tranquilandia Village. Our room was a breath of fresh air after Cumbuco's dump - and can you imagine - the price was lower!! The entire hotel area was relaxing and welcoming with grass patios and trees and a nice pool area with a sea view.

This is where our room was

The town was quite small and cozy. The streets were narrow, steep and winding and houses were in relatively good shape. There were a lot of small shops, restaurants and cafes and people were selling handy crafts on the streets.

Street view from Broadway 

On our first night we went to a reggae festival close by. Our hotel's receptionist tipped us on it and we decided to check it out. It was a small festival with few bars and a pizza stand/restaurant and a stage. We were there around 10pm and there were not too many people yet. We sat and listened to the music for a while and watched people dancing and walking by. It looked relaxed and the vibe was good. People were friendly and the music good. We might have stayed longer if Edda's knees hadn't hurt so bad.

The next day we booked a buggy ride to see the coast line formed by erosion. It is quite hard to describe how it looked so we let the pictures talk for themselves 😊 We were mesmerized by the amazing formations and colors. The combination of coral colored sand and turquoise sea just made Edda smile! We drove for some hours and the scenery switched to red rocks which was really interesting too!

Boats waiting for high tide 

Amazing color formations!

This was mesmerizing! The color combination was perfect! 😍

On our way back we stopped at a seafood restaurant because apparently their lobsters were one of the best and cheapest. The restaurant was on the beach so the lobsters were fresh! Markus had his lobster lunch there. 😊

Later on we walked through Canoa's main street "Broadway" and tasted the Brazilian dish, tapioca. We thought they were not so special - the tapioca itself didn't taste like anything. But it was interesting to see how they were made (a bit like crepes) and to taste a local dish.

Then it was time to leave Canoa and move to Natal - but first we had to go to a doctor in Aracati to show Edda's knees. We found one private clinic (a small one) and went inside. No-one spoke English. We managed to talk with the receptionist through Google translate and in apprx. 30 minutes we saw a doctor. Everyone in the waiting room went through him so we guess he was the "main doctor". With Google translate and gestures we got our message through and a nurse cleansed Edda's knees. Then we showed which medication Edda had been taking (the one that the Austrian doctor prescribed) and they just said "Nooo", and showed that the medicine Edda had been taking was for a sore throat or something to do with throat. So, Edda had been eating wrong medicine for one week, great... 😕 Then the doctor prescribed new medicine and other supplies we had to buy. Markus went to the pharmacy to buy everything while Edda waited in the treatment room alone. Then Markus came back and the nurse came with him inside the room. She showed what Edda was supposed to do with everything (she hadn't cleaned her hands nor did she take her jewelry off...) and then we left. Oh, and we paid in cash and received a hand-written receipt 😛

They told us that the private hospitals are much better and nicer than the public...

Natal & João Pessoa

We drove to Natal because we had heard it would celebrate Christmas with plenty of decorations and that it would look beautiful. Natal means Christmas in Portuguese. Well, there were some Christmas lights alongside a few roads and a big Christmas tree but other than that we didn't see much. 😩

Our hotel was close to Praia de Ponta Negra (Ponta Negra beach) and we went the second night for a walk on the beach road. It looked nice with all restaurants and lights. The restaurants weren't anything special - basic tourist restaurants.

We had one full day in Natal and we decided to drive to Praia Pipa (Pipa beach) because Lonely Planet had written that it would be possible to see dolphins there. We drove to Pipa and first there were 5 men trying to shout "park here park here". They were extremely annoying so we drove around and parked a bit further away. We decided to take a bowl of acaí for lunch and walked to the beach.

View from the acaí-restaurant

Streets in Pipa

The beach was actually quite nice and since it was a working day, there were not too many people. We started to walk to Baia dos Golfinhos since we had read that dolphins would appear 2,5 hours on both sides of low tide. We had to walk on rocks because the ocean was still on its way down. It was a bit challenging with Edda's knees but we made it to the beach 😊

We were a bit surprised when we came to the beach because there were many umbrellas and chaira for rental. We had somehow thought it would be more of a natural beach. We stayed on the beach maybe for one hour and walked back. No dolphins 😞 We think maybe all the fisherman boats have scared them away 😟 But the beach itself was beautiful, with high cliffs right on the back.

Beautiful backdrop for a beach, don't you think?

Interesting color combinations on the rocks at Pipa beach

Our stay in Natal was short but we felt it was enough 😛 After two nights we drove to João Pessoa. We had read that it would be a nice, relaxing city for an overnight stay. We stayed at Hotel Casa Branca Unidade 1 and it was a nice, clean place close to the beach. Since we only had one evening there, we just walked around a bit and visited their artesan market. The products were mainly light-colored hammocks, cotton products (such that would fit to Finnish summer cottages), dolls and t-shirts. We didn't find many things there but it was nice to walk around.

For dinner we went to Empório Cafe, one we found on Lonely Planet, too. We were lucky to have the owner (?) next to the counter because she spoke excellent English and helped us with the menu and everything. The service was excellent. While we ate our dinner on the terrace, we watched a capoeira group performing on the street. It was a relaxing and nice evening. And the first day Edda didn't have to take any pain killers since the accident! Woohoo!

Roof terrace at Empório Cafe

Olinda

Afre one night in João Pessoa we drove to Olinda, a preserved colonial city on the East coast. We stayed at Casa Viva Amparo, held by a woman who could retire but wants to do something she likes instead. 😊 She had changed her career completely after working in a law firm. The place was cozy and homy. And the owner, Rita, was friendly and helpful. Finally someone who spoke good English, too! We have been staying in quite many hotels/hostels/guesthouses in Brazil and usually no-one in the staff speaks a single word in English. It has been a challenge for us in many places 😬 Sometimes we have tried in Spanish but they have not spoken Spanish either.

Olinda was a beautiful city with colorful buildings and interesting graffitis. (Unfortunately also many graffiti tags.) Rita had warned that it can be dangerous in Olinda and that we should not have our cellphones with us nor much cash. Also, if we would see a larger group of people walking towards us, we should return and go into a cafe or restaurant and wait until they have passed. Otherwise there might be a risk of getting robbed. But nothing happened to us 😌

Excellent placement for this street art!

And same here!

This artist has also been clever with the placement 😃

We visited a small museum of huge dolls used inthe carnevals. It was creepy to say the least! But fun :D Then we walked around to see the views over Olinda towards Recife, the city next to Olinda. We even got to a perfect spot by chance when the sun went down, see picture below.

Find Edda and Markus

Olinda with Recife on the background

Beautiful setting - colorful Olinda with Recife's skyscrapers and the sun setting down 😍

For dinner Rita recommended Oficina do Sabor whose specialty is filled pumpkins. We took one and it was fine. Nothing special, but good. And the restaurant had brilliant views over the city!

View from Oficina do Sabor

After dinner we went for a short walk and happened to walk by a place where a room filled with mucisians played music. There was a group of people outside hanging around, drinking and dancing. The dance style was something we haven't seen before - looked very interesting and fun! The dance is very typical in Olinda and it's called frevo.

This woman was amazing!

Porto de Galinhas & Aracaju

After one night it was time to move forward again. Why we were in such rush was because we might go to Amazon later and in such case we wouldn't have time to spend many days in each city. The trip to Amazon depends a bit on Edda's knees.

After Olinda we drove to Porto de Galinhas. It is a small town with an endless beach. The biggest tourist attraction is their natural pools that are formed at low tide in front of the city. Most people go by boat there, even if it's only a 100m from the beach. We had read that it is also possible to walk to the pools at low tide but the water was still too high because Edda didn't want to wet her infected knees yet. Darn. Markus went for a short snorkeling session but there was not very much to see - dead corals and tiny grey fish.

Christmas lights in Porto de Galinhas 

So, we decided to continue our trip and drove about 7 hours to Aracaju. It was not a city we had planned to visit but we needed a stop-over and it happened to be in the right spot for that. We just had dinner (very difficult to find anything good) and went to bed.

Next day we drove about 8 hours to Lencois because we wanted to visit the national park of Chapada Diamantina. More about the beautiful park in our next post!