Aw, hi Tatiana! So glad these old posts are still being found and enjoyed 🙂 “You lay, you pray, you play and that’s is a good day” — I think this needs to be my new motto! Sadly I was leaving town the day the date was offered but in retrospect, all these years later, I’d change my plans and say yes, haha.

Haha, both amazing countries! Loved hearing your experience!

Interesting insight, Jay! Thanks for the swimwear lessons 🙂

Kids wear anything! Parents adore dressing up their kids as much as possible. Adorable matching headbands, bikini tops and bottoms that cover diapers for infants! Any underwear (with bikini top for girls), mini short style underwear, shorts (with bikini top for girls) (there are particular beach shorts too), bikinis with or without tops (more with). Anything goes and there’s no rule per se. But young girls wearing some kind of bikini top rather than nothing is more the norm. Definitely in the north, where it’s seriously burning even for very dark skin, rash vests were being worn by all children of working class and upward families. Children wore rashies with their favourite superhero/disney characters or just in a plain colour – plain black was the most available.
Most available bikinis are tiny and show some part of the butt cheek, even for young girls. It kinda depends – the bigger your butt is, the more obvious that will show in a bikini. So girls pre puberty, often with smaller butts, don’t show much cheek even though they are wearing ‘small’ bikinis (compared to bikinis from other countries).
More self conscious adults wear one pieces but they are usually quite cheeky, low cut at the front and with pieces but out of the side and belly area! I.E not much fabric used at all! This includes older grandmothers.
If you really don’t wanna wear a thong/cheeky then wear one under beach shorts – thin, loose fabric which will basically be see thru when wet. Or wear the thong to dip in water and always have your sarong handy to rapidly wrap around when out of the water!
At a swimming pool (where it might be cooler and might be at a residence) there is a little more modesty/shyness. Not all adults swim and at a pool there may be adults who just stay in the shade. It can be seen as immodest to wear a very small bikini in front of these non-swimming adults. Therefore some may wear shorts/tops/shirts/coverups over their bikinis. However, if the group agrees then it’s clothes off and micro bikinis are okay!
The biggest no no is for a man to wear a t-shirt, shorts and sandals on the beach – it MUST come off! The only exception is to wear a rashie when in the water with your kid – because you’ll be in that water and harsh sun glare for HOURS, so that’s sensible.

Hey Dea! Thanks for sharing a local perspective 🙂 I look forward to returning to Brazil someday and checking out the Northeast! I LOVE Brazilian beach culture!

Ah, I can’t wait to go back and experience it again!