Our first big outing in João Pessoa and we were off to see a childhood friend of Luzima’s called Peñe. The drive there included a motorway, roadworks, absence of lane markings, hidden speed bumps and inadequate guidance by Google maps but we got there in one piece. Then we got back into the car and drove a bit further up the road because sometimes here the names of the road changes halfway along it so we had the correct house number, but the wrong named bit of road that was on the same road. Confused? Yep, us too.

Below is the trusty Renault Dusty, which seems to have pretty good suspension thank goodness.

This gives an idea of a standard residential street in a normal part of town. Lots of walls, clay tile roofs, cobbled streets, and sloping bits of the footpath designed to trip up people like me. The build of the houses seems to be entirely about keeping the heat out and letting air circulate. Concrete walls and tiled floors, stone backyards instead of lawns and a lot of outside walls painted white to reflect the sun.

The Brazilian hospitality is amazing and we were welcomed into their home, and they even lied so well, telling me my pronunciation of their names was perfect.

Peña made us fresh caju (cashew) juice. The grey bit at the end is the nut, which is what we know the cashew as once it’s shelled and roasted. Who knew there was an entire fruit attached to it? Once it was blended and strained the juice was so good, fruity with a slight taste of cashew without being too sweet. I got a couple of pieces to eat as well and they were a bit fibrous but very juicy, like a more solid apple.

It took a while for us to head away again, leaving Luzimar & Peñe to catch up and headed for a beach; Praia de Amor. It was about this time that I learned that school in Brazil gets out about 12:30, and Google Maps has no concept of “hey, this would be the shittiest time to take these guys through the centre of residential João Pessoa where most of the school traffic will be”. Therefore Google Maps took us through the centre of residential João Pessoa, and most of the school traffic was there. By school traffic I mean busses, vans, scooters with up to 4 children clinging onto an adult, pedestrians and two people on horseback. The roads were okay, with the usual random vehicles stopped on the side of the road blocking the lane but it was the constant awareness you need for every little thing going on around you that is so exhausting. And then there’s a speed bump. There were a lot of those.

After a missed turn and a pretty rubbish U-turn in a small village we turned down a dirt road with a bush fire blazing next to it and arrived at a carpark for the beach. Happily there was an illegal parking attendant in a hi-viz vest charging R$5 to stay there. Given her friendliness, security of our vehicle (I suspect the other locals sitting around cantinas would see off any trouble makers that would impact on their tidy little money earner) and low cost, I thing councils in NZ should hire them to run the carparks and give Wilsons the boot. I didn’t get a photo of it, but here’s the street view. Kind of the same as any rural NZ beach, other than the palm trees and dirt instead of shingle roads.

The beach was well worth the travel, it was so peaceful and warm, the sand was soft and fine. The water was so warm with a good lot of waves but nothing rough. There are a number of little cantinas or food places around, and if you buy drinks or food you can use their tables and umbrellas on the beach. So this is how we spent the afternoon, relaxing, swimming, relaxing some more.

There is a lot of this sort of meal here, as in a shared plate and I love it. All sorts of bits and pieces you can nibble at, without having to have too much of one thing. The big chips are cassava which were a little bit tougher than potato but pretty good. Chicken and Linguiça (sausage), salad, rice and some sort of curry sauce rounded it off. With little places like this all over the place giving us such good, tasty, fresh food, it’s going to be hard getting back to average overpriced NZ food with crap service. The supermarkets definitely need to be broken apart.

On our way back to the car, we spotted a whole bunch of these guys, and hopefully we didn’t stand on any – they were so well camouflaged, I only spotted one when it scuttled into a hole. Wildlife! I haven’t seen much here, a few vultures, pigeons, dogs and cats and now crabs. Definitely no monkeys or more colourful birds on this side of town.

The centre of the waterfront is pretty lively at night, with all sorts going on and families everywhere. And yes, my camera needs a clean.

The restaurant we were going to go to had some guy on a guitar belting out songs so loudly we had trouble talking outside the place. We headed across the road and ended up at what we thought was a flash Italian restaurant. As it turns out, it is a pretentious restaurant, and was pretty ratshit in terms of food and service. It would do well back home. The first warning sign was when we were served an amuse-bouche which was definitely not amusing and more gauche than bouche. The waiter was incredibly crap, and pretty much managed to cock up every aspect of our meal, from dirty glasses, to serving the wrong pizza, to lurking behind us and pouncing immediately when something was amiss and finally being unable to split a bill of R$420 into two. Using the calculator on his phone. The food was pretty rubbish too, my lasagne was a salty watery mess, and the pizzas overloaded with toppings making the bases doughy. To prove a point Louie embraced his New Zealand side and ate his pizza with his hands to the horror of his mother (who was eating hers with her knife and fork of course, as is the Brazilian way) and several staff members who came past to look as well. I just loudly said that’s how we eat it in the rest of the world, and it’s far below the pizza I’ve eaten in Manhattan anyway. Yeah, we had had enough at that point to just behave like Americans.

Overall a great day, meeting some absolutely wonderful people and being in some wonderful places.