Itaparica: Wandering in Brazil with Emilio Biggi
Scritto da: Emilio Biggi

We are very sorry to say that the old Emilio Biggi died in summer 2002 in his Itaparica Island

Dear Fiamma,
Feeling a bit out of my depth but as happy as a lord, here I am, 70 if I'm a day, in a "café" full of bright young surfers! I actually came across the site by chance during my first efforts on the Web, which is for the young really, but which I find exciting if a little daunting. Once I'd arrived, the angelic Fiamma took me by the hand and invited me to speak to you. I'm going to talk not about a journey but about a destination. I'll describe an island to you, in the hope that you'll want to discover it for yourselves.
This island, where I landed up after fifty years of voyaging, is called Itaparica: it's a large island off Salvador (of Carnival fame) in Brazil (famous for a whole host of things). In the language of the Indios - who were cannibals, by the way - the name means "surrounded by stones", and the fact that it is in the middle of coral reefs means that the beaches are tranquil and picturesque. In fact it is a bit of the mainland which broke off long ago thanks to the action of tides and flooding from the rivers which pour into this delta.
In this too it has been favoured by God, because while on one side the roaring Atlantic vents itself on the coral reefs, becoming docile, on the other the confluence of rivers and tides creates a vast area of slow-moving brackish water interspersed with groves of "manguezais" where marine life originates. The specific vegetation and fauna of these wetlands has adapted to the tidal ebb and flow and the salinity. In Salvador it is known as The Island, while in the world at large it is quite unknown except to Club Mediterranée clients, who I'm glad to say keep themselves to themselves in their "monde privé". People into this sort of thing maintain that it is a magnet for potent radiations, and as I write two of my guests, mother and son, are spreadeagled down on the beach, so perhaps they're receiving them in mega-doses. All I can say is that it's a place which makes you feel great. I have a tiny hotel here, on the sea, which helps to eke out my meagre pension, although I must say that, rather than worrying about having too few customers, I am much more likely to worry if there are too many and not the right sort.
It is a place full of stories and of history: stories of pirates, shipwrecked galleons, soldiers from Nassau (Dutch, for those of you a bit vague about colonies). These soldiers were such a delicacy for the Indios that they hunted them down and fattened them up, so white and tender!, before they polished them off. Stories of freed slaves who, to stave off starvation, went after whales in canoes, armed only with harpoons. Amazingly they caught so many that they built ovens with tall chimneys for reducing the blubber, and you can still see the mounds of bones from the discarded carcasses. Stories of galleons which were wrecked on the reefs during storms of yore, even here right in front of my house, and stories of youngsters like yourselves who know the whereabouts of a wreck and occasionally visit it in secret to bring out a relic which they can sell to a junk dealer, using the noble vessel as a sort of private savings bank.
Not more than a mile off the coast you can just make out an enormous chain shrouded in seaweed, and you'll have a job convincing the older inhabitants that it is not attached to the plug that keeps the ocean in. Not only stories, but History too. In the township that gives the island its name there is a fort, built opposite another fort on Porto da Barra in Salvador, which, with its pathetic little cannons, guarded the entrance to Bahia de Todos i Santos against marauding pirates. Then there are the churches which the Jesuit missionaries built in every fishing village, simple and schematic like children's drawings, keeping lookout for returning boats or the mood of the sea. One church was not built by the sea but in a wood, on land which the Indios held sacred. Their witch doctors put a curse on it, and it's the only one that has succumbed to the passage of time: the roof has caved in and trees have grown up through the stones, shoring up the crumbling walls, leaving no one in any doubt that the magic of the Indios is more potent than that of the white man.

And then of course there are all the things that you won't find on the island: none of that heaving mass of noisy, malodorous flesh which I witnessed last summer on the beach of Jesolo, the Italian resort where I spent my childhood - how marvellous it was in my time! And this is where the trouble starts, because the things you don't find are just starting to appear, and from this point of view it's not so bad to be old. Perhaps I'll be off before this island becomes just like any other international resort, and before the "pai de santo", the strict custodians of the Africa's religions, turn them into tourist attractions as they've done in Rio. For the time being it is still a little paradise of tranquil, semi-deserted beaches, palm trees doing obeisance to the sea, coral reefs frothing in their efforts to keep the irascible Atlantic at bay - and it can work itself up into a real lather. The inhabitants are simple folk who still live off fishing: for them tourists are just another species of fish which bring in some money when it's the season, but which they have not yet learnt how to lure here.
This is no way for a successful hotelier to speak, and in fact I'm not that at all: I am a retired agronomist who shares his home with whoever likes it here. The sea reminds me of the undulating plateaux of the Matogrosso where I lived for many years, a destination that no backpacker worthy of the name should ignore. Itaparica has another important thing to recommend it: despite its sleepy backwater character, it is just 20 minutes by catamaran or an hour by ferry from Salvador, where you'll find everything they tell you about in the guidebooks and more besides. Then it's only a few hours' bus ride to Lenções, the former diamond capital, a real money-spinner a few centuries ago with its own Dutch, French and German embassies. It's still all there, conserved in the dry air of the Chapada Diamantina, truly one of the great sights in the world. And even Rio San Francisco is not far off, winding its way towards the sea like an enormous serpent through the arid expanses of the "sertão": this too is a Brazil that's well worth getting to know, even if it means having to skip Rio de Janeiro. Along its course the San Francisco forms immense hydroelectric reservoirs, so huge that the dams at the end seem almost incidental. They are veritable inland seas boasting beaches, sailing, fishing and a budding tourist industry.
Here I am, telling you about all sorts of things, but not about my hotel! It's simple, peaceful, it began life as a hostel but I fell out with the Brazilian Youth Hostel Association (coming from peasant stock I rebel against gratuitous taxes), and now it's a simple Pousada. It's attractive, on the water's edge, with a large garden shaded by mangos, banana and avocado trees. It still gives young people a special welcome with four communal rooms, hostel style. If you want to know more, I'm here, inside your computer, at this address (*), and the site of the hotel is:
http://www.geocities.com/marchandsnet/aratuba/
If one day you make it here please mention you're a friend of Fiamma's. I won't roll out the red carpet, but I'll be pleased to know that you probably deserve no less. ATÉ A VISTA!

Emilio Biggi (*)
Pousada Enseada de Aratuba
Ilha de Itaparica - Bahia Brasil

(*) Emilio's email was removed because of is death in summer 2002.
We do not know who is managing the little hotel at the moment, anyway we still leave the link here.

Scritto da:
Emilio Biggi

Note:

Queste pagine sono ideate, costruite e mantenute da
Matteo, Fiamma e Martino, disegni di Matteo.
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