Paraiba is third oldest state of Brazil, with the easternmost point of America at all, it is adjoining to the federal states Rio Grande do Norte in the north, Ceara in the west, Pernambuco in the south and it borders on the Atlantic in the east. Two thirds of Paraiba lies on a height of 300 to 900 m and the country has a size of 56.585 square kilometers and around 3,6 million inhabitants, 675.000 of them are living in the state capital Joao Pessoa. Paraiba is hardly to be outbid in versatility. It becomes more and more popular by foreign tourists. In the year 2007 Paraiba reached the brand of one million foreign tourists for the first time, for comparison in 2000 even one million foreign tourists were travelled to whole Brazil. The totally number of domestic and foreign tourists has been 14,5 millions in Brazil last year, around 40 % of them made their holidays in Paraiba.
In the year 1930 the gouverneur Joao Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque has been murdered. To his honour the state capital is called Joao Pessoa and the flag of Paraiba was new created. It is red-black with white letters NEGO. It should show the blood of Pessoa and the grief after the murder of him. The portoguese word NEGO means "I deny", concerning to the protests that erupted in the 1920s.
Eight kilometers from downtown Joao Pessoa, located in the municipality of Bayeux is the Presidente Castro Pinto International Airport, which is currently undergoing remodelling and expansion to raise a number of nearly a million passengers the year.
Paraiba has white sand beaches and a lot of picture postcard charming lagoons, one of the most beautiful is the Lagoa do Umari in Joao Pessoa near the most popular beach Praia Tambaú and the beach of Jacare, where you can listen to the classical music of Bach's violin concerts and Ravell's Bolero instead of Latin rhythms, because this brazilian state is the capital of art and culture also. The only offical permitted nudist beach of Brazil, the Praia de Tambaba, is in Joao Pessoa also, which is called by the UNO the second greenest city of the world, after Paris. On every native comes around 30 m² green area.
From Tambau in northern direction follows the also surely animated Praia Manaira and 3 km farther the Praia do Bessa, which is populary because of her coral reefs by divers. Only by boat you reach the Picaozinho reef with his physical swimming pools and fish dreams as well and the 2 square kilometers big sandy bank of Areia Vermelha, where you can rest in deck chairs.
The beaches are very clean and the most hotels offers many water sports, like diving, surfing, rent a jet-ski, beach volleyball and naturally you can learn all Latin dances. 3 km outside of Joao Pessoa you find a station for helicopter flights, hot air balloon journey, paragliding and tandem parachute jumps. It is possible to make the schedule in the hotel.
In Souza, around 430 km far from the capital, is the paleontological and archaeological park, with footprints and skeletons of dinosaurs with the best paleontology museum in Brazil, the Movissuros - Movimento de Preservacao do Vale dos Dinosauros. Over 150 different footprint tracks are there, the longest one ever found in the world, also, which is 55 meters long.
Most of Brazil's world popular poets and writers came from Paraiba, like Pedro Americo (1843-1905), the early died Augusto dos Anjos (1884-1908), Jose Americo de Almeida, was also Gouverneur of Paraiba in the 1950s (1887-1980), and Jose Lins do Rego (1901-1957). In Areia is the Paraibano Brasileira de Letras, an institute for world autors, with the museum of de Almeida and other poets, where you can see, how and where they lived and worked.
In Batalha is the Mina da Batalha, a world famous gemstone mine, where for the first time blue tourmaline was found in the whole world. The mine is still open for guests and with luck you can find precious stone splinter there and keep them as souvenir.
For visitors is a guide leaded wandering offered through Caatinga, the so called white forest. Here were untill the 1980s cotton plantages. It isn't raining around 9 month a year, but after it rained, the desert change into green in hours and the day after the whole green desert plants get white flowers. Only a few weeks a year you can see these spectacle of nature of the special kind.
In the Borborema mountains wanderers have a great view at the especially formed stone formations, many waterfalls in the nearly untouched nature.
Who's interested in Indians reservoirs should visit Baia da Traicao where are the ruins of Indian's fortresses and where still Indians are living, which sell ecspecially selfmade herbal medicine to visitors and tell them the future.