Confessions of a female mind | Part 1
Part 1: Reconnaissance
Some months ago, when Xander and I were trying to decide whether we should travel to Argentina or Brazil, Xander was leaning towards Argentina and I more towards Brazil.
– “I am not sure, Aliki, Brazil must be amazing, but I have been dreaming to see the glaciers of Patagonia for ever!”
– “Are you sure you don’t prefer to see some hot Brazilian bum instead, baby?”, I answered back, innocently passing my hand over his chest.
Xander is a wise man, but a man nonetheless and my arguments were admittedly very hard to resist.
– “We’ll also take the opportunity to make some research on the blog, baby! Remember the wild stories of Cassandrox about all the women he met in Brazil?” I gave the final nudge.
So the decision was made, the tickets were bought and some months later here we are on the island of Fernando de Noronha. Nature here is breathtaking. Prices even more so. I don’t complain though. The scenery looks like it’s been taken right from Treasure Island. It’s so utterly wild and exotic, that we cannot fully grasp it. Are we really seeing these rocky beaches, is it really a sea turtle and a shark casually swimming next to us?
Unfortunately animals on Fernando de Noronha seem to find us more interesting than other humans. Our interactions with Brazilians are restricted to ordering at restaurants and polite bom dias on the street. Are we blinding them with our northern European whiteness? Or is it the language barrier? Nobody seems to be understanding even basic English and, even with our combined language skills, we simply don’t get to speak Portuguese in a week’s time.
What certainly doesn’t help is that by 22:00 every evening we are utterly exhausted, our internal clock still running on European time. As expected, all nature related activities on the island start ridiculously early in the morning.
I am starting to get an uneasy feeling about it. Is it possible that we are exchanging partying with diving? Am I seriously choosing Brazilian dolphins over Brazilian muscles? Where are all the lovely, flirty, dancing people we were told about? Everybody is nice to us, that’s not it, but they seem to see right through us. What are we doing wrong?
– “Is it me or was I promised more hot bums like this one?”, Xander squeezed me playfully yesterday in bed while I was on top of him. I pretended I was still catching my breath.
I am not openly admitting it yet -I just can’t accept I was wrong in my choice! But I am getting slightly worried. Not that we are not enjoying the holiday. Of course we do. But what if we don’t manage to find -and touch- the famous Brazilian body and soul?
