“Gracias!”
“Obrigada! … and by the way, I’m not from Argentina,” I laugh, grabbing my late-afternoon cup of coffee.
“Argentinean” is like the default citizenship when you don’t speak fluent Portuguese here.
“Você e da onde? Uruguay? Eu sei! Venezuela! … Colombia?”
“Mais ao norte!”
“Panamá?”
“Norte!”
“Oh, México!”
“North! The North of the North!”
“… North of Mexico?” the guy says, puzzled. “I really don’t see…”
So I guess I don’t look Canadian, eh. Or French, for that matter. Or maybe both countries no longer exist and I somehow missed the news on CBC or in Le Monde.
I was going to stay four or five days in João Pessoa but I ended up staying a week—it’s not like I have a plan, anyway, may as well linger.
I loved every single minute of it. Okay, maybe not the first night in the shitty Airbnb but it was the price to pay for an otherwise awesome stay.
Every city is like a new country in Brazil, especially if you change state. I didn’t know anything about João Pessoa and the state Paraíba, I just took a chance. Sometimes you get lucky, right?
Well, João Pessoa was everything I was looking for. Cheap, full of friendly people and pandemic friendly since my main activity (and everybody else’s) was to hang out at the beach, walk along the beach or eat on the beach. The city felt like some kind of backpacker paradise, except backpackers are among the species now extinct along with gap-year travellers. Funny thing is, João Pessoa seems to be that place where Brazilians from all over the country end up in and just stay because they fell in love with it. Even banknotes are all crumpled and old here as if they’ve been changing hands forever because nobody comes with new money.
I’d love to tell you about the lovely baroque and art nouveau architecture but I don’t have a clue since I was busy exploring beaches. Sorry.
I can tell you about Praia de Manaíra, picturesque but not so relaxing because the strip of sand is narrow and it feels too close to the main avenue to completely disconnect. Just go to Praia de Cabo Branco, right past the weird Tambaú Hotel—it’s perfect because it’s lively, entertaining yet you can always find a quiet spot away from the crowd.
Or I can tell you about Seixas, the beach behind the Easternmost point of the South American continent—getting there is half of the fun.
Once you’re on top of the cliff, you can clearly see a beach—or rather a series of beaches, the “litoral sul”—but you can’t exactly jump off the cliff to get there.
“How can I get to Seixas?” I asked.
“It takes about five minutes if you go this way,” a guy told me, pointing to dense jungle and the cliff. “But it’s also very dangerous.”
“Right. Is there a… ahem, safer option?”
“Follow this road. It takes much longer, though.”
I kind of like my life so I followed the road. Half an hour later, I reached a gas station where I was told the beach was just down another road. I followed that one too. And there it was, the famous beach! A complete different atmosphere this time with old-style fish restaurants (really, beach shacks), fish boats and bar.
I never feel I walk along the same beach because the ocean looks different every day, every hour even, depending on the weather.
I could have stayed longer.
But it’s time to move on.














































