“Let’s see… 36% of rain. So basically, around here, it means it won’t rain at all.”
I love glass-half-full kind of people.
I smiled and decided to be a glass-half-full person as well—a morning person too, considering I would be up at 7 a.m. the next day to go to the beach.
The guide and I did the whole “signing up for a day tour” routine on the sidewalk. He scanned my WhatsApp QR code, texted “Oi!!!”, then the full passeio program with plenty of coconut trees and waves smileys. Meanwhile, I was digging 20 reais out of my wallet, the deposit for the 70 reais ($12) day trip.
“The guide will text you tomorrow at 7 a.m.!”
The “guide” is often technically a guide but don’t expect much of a guided tour. We all sign up for transportation and plenty of beach time, not an in-depth analysis of sand particle size distribution. At best, the guide is more awake than the passengers, plays good music in the van, and offers advice on the best shrimp barraca.
Fine by me.
It poured the entire day I arrived in João Pessoa. It was cloudy and a bit rainy the day after, then it cleared up. By Friday night, the rain was a bad memory, something mentioned with a frown and a careful glance at the sky.
I didn’t use the glance-at-the-sky method, I checked The Weather Network but it was very unhelpful—it kept on killing the mood with North American weather events and offered little advice on my tropical corner of Brazil.
I decided to trust the Brazilian wisdom and math formula—36% chance of rain = 0% chance of rain.
The vendor wasn’t even pushy. None of them are. Just like in Natal, pretty much all tourists sign up for day tours even though João Pessoa offers kilometres of very decent city beaches.
The top three passeios are Litoral Sul 1, Litoral Sul 2 and Litoral Norte. I signed up for Litoral Sul 1 because I love coconut trees and I quite enjoy a nude beach once in a while.
Giant crabs and white sand – Barra de Gramame
Holding a giant crab—or letting a friendly fisherman put it on your head for a picture and bragging rights—sure woke me up. The blinding sun finished the job.
Barra de Gramame isn’t the best place to swim but the beach looks like a Windows screensaver.
We didn’t stay long, it was just an appetizer for beach lovers. There were only five of us on this tour, a young and friendly evangelist couple and a gay couple with a noticeable age difference, both from Recife and staying in the same hotel. And no, they didn’t know each other—they move in different circles, I suppose!
Coconut palms and red cliffs – Praia de Coqueirinho
Praia de Coqueirinho was the main destination of the day. The bay lined with swathes of coconut palms and backed by high red cliffs is probably the most beautiful beach around João Pessoa.
The endless beach to the right of the barracas has rough surf. It’s mostly empty but very picturesque with giant coconut trees and red sand. The beach on the other side is much calmer, this is where everybody hangs out.
The Nude Beach – Praia Naturista de Tambaba
The last stop was Tambaba, the only official nudist beach in the region. The first part of the beach is a regular beach famous for a coconut perched on top of a rock. Then, if you dare, you can climb the stairs leading to the other beach—take off your clothes at the bottom of the stairs, on the other side.
Men may only enter the nude section if they are gay couples, with a woman, or hold an official naturist passport available from the local authorities. Nobody looks at you and it’s quite nice to swim naked for once!
“Did you take pictures?” the evangelist woman asked when I came back from the “clothes off” section.
“What kind of pictures exactly do you want to see, Sofia? Anything… special?”
We all started laughing because even God-fearing evangelists have a sense of humour.
Three beaches in one day, not bad!
