Praia de Pipa – The best beach in Brazil?

Pipa is a village to the south of Nata, located at one of Brazils most eastern points in the state of Rio Grande do Norte Pipa is surrounded by beautiful bays and beaches. Pipa became famous after it was discovered in the 80’s by surfers. Now not just popular with surfers, Pipa is a popular place for partying and for couples after a bit of piece and quiet, we fell in to the latter category and it was just perfect.

The village itself was pretty flashy with a cosmopolitan feel, lots of boutiques and nice restaurants, there were some good budget options though and we ate mainly from the pay per plate restaurant on the main street for 6R$. The beaches around Pipa are the real stars though, head down to the beach and walk left up the coast and you’ll find the gorgeous Praia do Curral or Baia dos Golfinhos (Dolphin’s bay) and the praia do Amor (love beach).

Its not called baia dos Golfinhos without good reason, it didn’t take long until we got our first glimpse of a dolphins swimming in the bay just meters away from the sure. We regularly saw 2 dolphins swimming in the bay and on a few occasions they swam right pass us  we swam, a baby dolphin even appeared and performed a back flip to the delight of the onlookers.

A short walk up the main road out of Pipa you’ll find the Ecological Sanctuary, worth a visit at 5R$, though don’t attempt the walk in the midday sun as we did, typical English! The Ecological Sanctuary is a forest situated above the beaches with some great lookout points over the bays, we possibly saw some turtles in the bay below though they might have just been rocks. As we came out the other side of the forest we saw lots of tiny white eared monkeys, we took loads of photos of them playing in the trees before getting back to the Pousada and finding the owner feeding a load more monkeys crackers in the back garden!

We stayed in a fantastic pousada Mar & Sol, (Phone 55.84.3246-2744) 1094 Av. Baia dos Golfinhos located in the centre of the village of the main street, we managed to haggled down from 50R$ to 40R$ per night. Although not noisy at all, there where random explosions of music from neighbouring houses. Breakfast was incredible, so much wonderful fruit that we were able to save our bread,eggs, cheese and ham for our daily beach picnic at baia dos Golfinhos (Dolphin’s bay)

Pipa has something to offer to everyone, and for me the best beach in Brazil.

Pipa Photos

Pipa Information

WHEN TO GO: We visited Pipa at the end of August and it wasn’t at all over crowded,

HOW TO GET THERE: by bus or by car from Natal.

MOVING ON: We got the local bus to Goiraniha and then frm there back to Natal

LINKS: Pipa com.br, Pipa Online, Praia da Pipa com.br

ACCOMMODATION: full listing of hotels and pousadas in Pipa

Map of Pipa

View Larger Map