We have scheduled a break from training a month out from Brasileiros and 2 months out from Mundials, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. My body was on a verge of breaking down in more places than one and I was seriously fatigued. We have done a very intense block of training for the last 3 months, finally working our bodies up to being able to handle 2 hard sessions per day plus drilling or conditioning. It is very easy for us to be in Brazil and just see the gym and home, but when we spent so much money to come here, we decided we had to see more of this beautiful country. We decided to go up north and visit Praia da Pipa, Jericoacoara and Lençois Maranhenses for 10 days.

We flew to Natal and got a taxi to Praia da Pipa in the state of Rio Grande de Norte, which took around 2 hours. We settled into our posada and explored the cute town, which is full of Argentines, restaurants, jewelry and bikini shops, tapioca, acai and juices I have never imagined even existed. There is a relaxed lazy feel to Praia da Pipa, where most people don’t wake up until 10am and nothing opens until 2pm.

The beach was just incredible. It’s just a long stretch of awesome! The clear waters, cliffs, jungles, rocks, lack of people and coconuts all add up to make it one of my favourite beaches so far. We explored for 2 days, taking long walks and resting when we felt like it.

 Next to Praia da Pipa, is Praia dos Golfinos (Dolphin’s Bay) and it’s famous for being a breeding and feeding ground for dolphins. Best time to see them is at sunrise, so we set our alarm for 6 am, but ended up being too lazy to get out of bed. We did however see them later in the day, jumping across the waves pretty close to the shore.

Since we can’t lose our fitness too much we made sure we did beach based strength and conditioning, which definitely got the heart rate going. We ended up finding jiu jitsu, but just missed the 5pm class, which was a little sad.

After 2 days in paradise we caught the local bus to Natal, which was an experience in itself. We stopped at all the local villages and drove through the sun setting over the fields, which were later lit up by fire flies.

Unfortunately we only had 1 night in Natal, but we still had our fair share of delicious tapioca, different nuts and tasty juices.

Early the next morning, we flew to Fortaleza, from where we started our journey to Jericoacoara.