South American Explorer

Meghan Miller, an aerial artist with Cirque du Soleil and avid scuba diver, finds a little-known tropical island paradise just off the coast of Brazil.

 

With my first steps onto Fernando de Noronha, the island seemed to breathe beneath my feet. I could sense its vitality from the colors alone as our plane descended – lava black rocks, a turquoise sea, green vegetation, like a photosynthetic head of hair. 

 

Fernando de Noronha lives in the soul of all Brazilians and is a source of immense pride.

 

And even while most will never touch its shores, the name alone is almost mythical to them. Outside Brazil, the archipelago is little-known beyond scuba divers and eco-tourists looking for an off-beat adventure. It’s no Hawaii. 

 

In fact, to foreigners the island can seem utterly inaccessible. Just making a reservation for one of the few daily flights from either Recife or Natal is a mess without a Brazilian credit card, some Portuguese language skills, and patience with defunct websites. Prices are surprisingly high for both the flight and lodging in one of the government-run pousadas, plus payment of an Environmental Preservation Tax is required for any length of stay. It’s worth the trek through this tangle, but wise to find a savvy travel agent to help.

 

Since the 1501 expedition of Fernão de Noronha and a visit by Amerigo Vespucci soon after, the archipelago’s history reads like that of an unlucky foster child. 

 

For two and a half centuries it endured a rolling occupation by the English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, the last of which fortified the island and established its first permanent settlement, Vila dos Remédios. 

 

The decision to send prisoners to Noronha in the 1770s meant great damage to the island environment – forests were destroyed to prevent escape attempts via raft and to eliminate hiding spots among the trees. For years it was a constant battle, a fight to subjugate both the convicts and nature itself, and on Noronha, nature is one powerful force to confront. 

 

In 1832, Darwin’s famous Beagle made a stop on the isle and in his journal he recorded one of his first impressions of the tropics. They stayed long enough to harpoon a porpoise for supper and comment on the pretty flowers – nothing like the glory he would later give the Galapagos. 

 

My boyfriend and I had somehow caught wind of the place and planned to spend ten days on the island, unsure what to expect.

 

But then a large part of the charm of Noronha is in its obscurity. The island even has its own time zone. There’s no avoiding instant immersion – humid, swampy submersion – into the island’s way of life. It was May, rainy season, a stretch of the year when life slows to the pace needed to get your boots unstuck. Mud became our new reality. With few paved roads, getting almost anywhere involved a hike through puddles, squishy grass, or reddish sludge. Our lovely, dark-wood pousada lay at the end of a long lane of menacing mud holes; they were working miracles to keep that place clean. 

 

The island’s only lodging option is a pousada, or guest house, which ranges from the decrepit to the deluxe. Hammocks abound, as do plastic fish ornaments. One brochure euphemized, “It is very important to know the conditions of the majority of pousadas. The main characteristic is simplicity”. The marvelous thing about them, though, is that staying in one somehow integrates you into the community, and puts you on level with people in a way that a posh hotel never would. Neighbors offered us rides, grumbled with us over the mud, and knew us by name before long. 

 

Even the food has a homey quality – fresh, unprocessed, and delicious. Every day I sampled a new fruit (from acerola to graviola, caja to caju) and quenched my thirst with the subtly sweet water of young green coconuts. The fish made the shortest possible trip from sea to plate, were roasted over an open fire, and served with lime and farofa (manioc flour). Our favorite spot became the open-air, oddly-named Flamboyant Buffet: a spread of vegetables, beans, rice, meat, and desserts. Simple and satisfying, but we now have a hard time explaining to others at home our hankering for a ‘Flamboyant’ meal.

 

Noronha has an intimate feel, an air of familiarity that pervades the island. The reality of favela poverty, violent crime, and the attendant fierce policing of other Brazilian cities seems worlds away. As a traveler, it was refreshing, and possible, to let my guard down a bit. Everything from guided tours to laundry service was arranged by verbal agreement – honest, generous, and it worked every time. 

 

In keeping with the easygoing spirit of the place, Noronha’s main mode of transit is the dune buggy, rugged cousin of the golf cart. 

 

Incredible for tackling the scourge of muddy roads, they far outnumber other vehicles. Though far from necessary, renting your own buggy does offer a bit more independence and ease to explore the island tip to tip, which we set out to do.

 

 After a call to a friend of a friend of the pousada receptionist, a grinning guy drove up in a battered red buggy, and with a quick lesson on the quirks of the sticky gearshift, it was ours. “Six pm, amanhã,” he instructed, “Leave keys on the seat, you park here,” and he walked away. Just leave the keys on the seat…

 

These clattering, petrol-belching buggies are my biggest problem with Noronha.  Cuteness and convenience aside, they are a sad departure from the island’s professed intention of environmental integrity. The 1970 formation of the National Marine Sanctuary of Fernando de Noronha was an inspiring step towards making it a model of conservation and sustainability. So many measures have been taken to preserve the island’s ecosystems, from limiting the number of visitors to monitoring rare species, but it seems negligent, tragic even to let such blatant pollution continue. 

 

Beaches may be fiercely guarded for the sake of sea turtle nesting, but other efforts at sustainability seem stalled.

 

Case in point is the sad skeleton of the island’s recent attempt at renewable energy – a modern white windmill of the breed covering hills in Europe and elsewhere these days. One of its arms is missing, and lies singed and abandoned at its base. Suspecting faulty wiring, I asked around and got the curious story of a lightning strike; weirder still is that no local Noronhan can remember seeing a bolt of lightning hit the island, ever. 

 

I do, of course, understand economic constraints, but if Noronha is rich in anything, it’s sun and wind. But it’s a dilemma, since investment usually requires exposure, publicity.  How can they open the island to the world but safeguard it, too? 

 

One way has been the campaign for the ‘New Seven Wonders of Nature’, for which Noronha has been nominated and made it into the second round. Signs for ‘Vote Noronha’ dot the island, but no more frequently than posters for the school’s Bingo night. The contest will be decided in 2011 and offers the opportunity to create positive interest in Brazil’s treasured isle. But to take a step back, consider what makes such a tiny Atlantic speck worthy of ‘natural wonder’ status anyway?

 

Fernando de Noronha looks the way you imagine earth should, or did, before we fouled everything up with human civilization. 

 

Yet it is also unimaginable. The clarity of the water (you can look down from a cliff and see a turtle in the bay below) is unreal, while the fervor of plant life borders on scary, a wild explosion of leaf and vine.  The sunset is a psychedelic montage of clouds, sea, and solar glow. The animals thrive in such numbers and harmony with their surroundings; it is awesome to peek into their realm.   

 

Scuba enthusiasts from around the globe make diving pilgrimages to Noronha, supporting three dive shops year round. Visibility hovers near 30 meters and temperatures around 28°C. The waters are ideal for underwater photography and teeming with marine life – carpets of coral, fluorescent fish, graceful sharks, and slinking sting rays. The world’s largest population of Spinner dolphins congregates here and has been known to hang out around the dive boats. As I sank below the surface on my first dive there, I couldn’t help thinking how landscaped it all looked, as if arranged by some aquarium decorator. 

 

The island’s perimeter is a diverse string of beaches, from craggy rocks and crashing waves to tranquil inlets with powdery tan sand. Getting to many of them involves overcoming yet another layer of inaccessibility – a jungle trail, a short swim, or a climb down a perilous ladder through a crack in the cliff.  More of a challenge, yes, but more of a treat when you realize, as I did more than once, that yours are the only human footprints in the sand. 

 

Praia do Boldro was one such place, deserted but for one man selling coconuts and passing the day in an old, rambling bamboo villa. It sits at the base of Noronha’s most prominent rock formation, a giant thumb of lava projecting optimistically upwards. 

 

Baia do Sueste, on the opposite shore, is a sheltered bay with carefully protected coral reefs, a haven for Noronha’s healthy sea turtle population. To minimize impact and damage to the coral, snorkeling is permitted only with a life vest, allowing you to float effortlessly among the turtles, your mask a window into their placid world. They are surprisingly enormous and slow, like aquatic cows; there is something hypnotic in the way they move such mass with such ease. 

 

If there is a lesson to be learned on Noronha, it is that nature is running the show, and not necessarily following your itinerary. 

 

What you see is very dependent on lucky timing and conditions being right, as we learned on our visit to Praia do Atalaia. The beach is precious for its tide-pool environment, home to many unique intertidal species. Only 100 visitors are allowed each day, escorted by a guide from the government’s environmental agency. The visit involves a 40-minute swampy hike, and sunscreen is prohibited to prevent contamination of the fragile pools. Still, sacrificing our skin was no guarantee, as we arrived to find the waves too strong to wade safely and couldn’t see a thing.

 

On our last morning, we made a final trudge through the mud to the farmacia, where, along with a range of medications, they serve up the best cup of coffee on the island. Rain fell in sheets as we sipped, turning gutters to gushing streams and stranding us happily on the covered porch. Suddenly, the sound of deluge gave way to pounding of hooves on pavement, and a bare-backed horse tore by at full gallop, his teenage rider gripping at the mane. Wild, I thought. The embodiment of all that Noronha is: untamed, beautiful, and beyond belief.   

 

 

Meghan Elizabeth Miller is an aerial artist on tour with Cirque du Soleil. She has performed and lived internationally, everywhere from Dublin to Dubai since 2005, and is now working in Brazil. Originally from California, Meghan is a certified yoga teacher, seasoned vegetarian, scuba diver, public radio enthusiast, and avid travel writer.Visit her website at www.meghanemiller.com   

 

 

Marc Andre Roy, who took the amazing photos in this article, currently works as Lighting Director for Cirque du Soleil and has toured worldwide for over six years. With a background in fine arts and a professional training in photography, he is passionate about scuba diving, marine biology, viewing the world through a camera lens, and shipping container architecture. Visit his website at www.maroy.net