Flipping for Brazil

From Manaus we made a quick stop in Belem, at the mouthof the Amazon, and Sao Luis, known for it´s tile facades on many of the historical buildings. Feeling a little beach deprived we booked it to the coast for some beautiful Brazillian beaches. Weheaded straight to Praia de Pipa, a posh little beach town with beachy bays filled with gold sparkly sand, all kinds of blue surf, andbacked by huge cliffs, sand dunes and Atlantic rainforest. We took our first dip in the Atlantic ocean and soaked up the hot Brazillian sun for days. We climbed over rocks to explore every beach around, as well as an ecological park on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. As we strolled through the park we came to a beautiful lookout point. We were thrilled to see tons of sea turtles in the rocky ocean below taking a quick breather. We could see them perfectly from the enormous cliff through the clear waters as they surfaced and paddled their white flippers and bums back down. We continued on and were amazed to see marmosets jumping through the trees above. We had spent 3 days in the jungle hoping to see these adorable creatures not seeing a single one and now just off the beach the trees were full of them. Only as big as your foot with a long striped tail these curious monkeys kept our attention jumping quickly through the branches all around us. Nick even gave a couple of them a drink of water from the cap of his water bottle. It was so cute to see their entire faces plunged into the bottle cap.

One trip to the beach proved to be especially rewarding when as we had just chosen the perfect place to jump into the ocean a pod of dolphins appeared before us. We dove right in with them and watched as they jumped, flipped and spun on their backs in front of us. We swam within a few feet of these beauties and were able to see them up close and watch their faces as they caught fish. Exhausted fomr trying to follow the dolphins we swam back to shore and watched from there. It was an exciting beginning to our coastal tour of Brazil!