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Joao pesso:
Praia de Pipa was such a tiny town there was no official bus terminal where we could catch the bus directly to Joao Pesso - we needed to catch the bus all the way back to Natal and then down to Joao Pesso. What! How ridiculous! That's a waste of time and bus fare! SO our cunning plun... was to catch the Pipa-Natal bus to Goianinha (15 min from Pipa), hop off and catch the Natal-Joao Pesso bus south. Brilliant! And it worked with perfect timing - as we climbed off one, the other arrived.
Joao Pesso is home to the most easterly point in the America's - Ponta do Seixas, which is in the area where we decided to find a hostel so we could be closest to home :) It is also considered one of the worlds most greenest cities (like top 3 or so) due to to 7kms of forest land within the city.
So the big deal in Joao Pesso besides the point and the forest, is to make your way to Praia do Jacare (a river edge) and hear saxophonist Jurandy play at sunset. The procedure to get there from the city was pretty straight forward, except that our final bus waited 20min before leaving! Time was a ticking and the sun was a setting... I was getting more and more anxious...then irritated... then to the point of swearing at the guy...but he finally started the engine and we jumped off the bus and ran down to the rivers edge where we could hear the sax playing already. As typical of most touristy places you cannot get to the sight for all the restaurants lined along the rivers edge.
I'm darting in and out of people trying to figure out where the noise is coming from to know which restaurant would have the best view of him... But NOooo! Tim whips out his beloved lonely planet book and starts reading to me about their recommended restaurant, holding up the book to me so I can see where he has it all HILIGHTED and suggests we walk up and down trying to find the blimmen place! FORGET it! The sun was almost set dammit! So I darted in the closest place, left Tim at the door being held up by security scrambling for money to pay the cover charge, half speed walking and half running straight to the deck with camera hoisted in the air in front of me trying to take pictures over every other damn tourist taking pictures! I got 1 pic of him playing...and he stopped...kissed the crowd goodbye and then paddled his boat back to shore! CAN YOU IMAGINE if we had searched up and down for the recommended lonely planet place... (on our return we're having a huge bonfire where I'm going to burn all 5kgs of our lonely planet books that we have to lug around! If you're keen inbox me!)
We didn't visit any other major tourist attraction while we were there but we enjoyed walking around the area we were staying - Tambau. We bought delicious, juicy pineapples from the vendor just outside our hostel who cut the pineapples into lollipops so you can bite into it with out too much sticky juice running down your chinny chin chin. Almost every person we met would offer their help in finding the right bus, where to eat, where our hostel was...I was genuinely impressed with the people of Joao Pesso and their willingness to go out of their way to assist you. We even had one woman who obviously thought we were lost causes because she walked us to the correct bus station, got on the bus with us, then got off with us at the correct stop and had to continue with her day from there. I wouldn't do that, my goodness.
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