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Published: July 16th 2013
Fernando de Noronha…most of you may have never heard about this place. Speak to an Argentinian….or any Brazilian…and you see a huge smile…and the comment goes…I heard it’s beautiful, but I’ve never been. This is the place where a lot of Brazilians do dream of going on honeymoon….and yes, there are a lot of them around...on honeymoon!
Fernando de Noronha is a small archipelago, with the main island something like 10km on maybe 3km maximum. It’s green, it’s very green….and there is some beautiful water around. The Brazilians love theirs beaches, and they consider the best beach of Brazil to be in Fernando, more accurately Praia do Sancho. Having travelled my slight share of beaches, I think we are not far of top 10 in the world!
Then there is the diving, Fernando has the beaches, but they also have the best diving in Brazil. Doesn’t make it the best in South America…that would be easily the Galapagos….but diving here is actually more than decent.
So how was it? Well, it was amazing! We stay here a total of 7 days and six nights. I will come back later on the two
things who hurt in Fernando…the prices…and the mosquitoes…but before…what a great time we had!
As for any paradise, you need first to be patient. We landed a late afternoon….and by the mid-evening…rain started…and it didn’t stop for 36 hours. Even in Asia I’ve rarely seen so much rain. That rain turned into mud…cool to have your flip-flops to go around…anything else would get destroyed. It’s also good to have Tiffany and Leslie being able to keep busy between themselves. Internet was down…so we spent time looking at the rain…and I spent some time reading and napping. We still made the 15 minutes walk to the "supermarkets"….in swimsuits…under the rain.
On the next day, Leslie and I went to dive in the morning…with interestingly enough, a pretty good visibility…and after our little afternoon siesta, the sun came back, and stay for the remaining 4 days of our stay in beautiful Noronha.
We stay at Casa da Mirtes. Lovely little house. They charge 115us a night in a small triple room, including a small private terrace….and a basic bathroom. Put it simply, as a general rule, Fernando is just double price than Brazil….meaning…a
lot more than Argentina. 115usd a night is expensive…double what it should be. Casa da Mirtes has only 4 rooms…so a maximum of 9 guests. But we had the place for ourselves. So this is like renting a little private home, with a proper size lounge and dining area, and a more than decent kitchen. Suddenly what looked expensive, became a pretty nice little deal. We had space...privacy...but not that mnany social encounters...
The island claim to be way forward into ecotourism….well…they should first ban plastic bags in shop! There is one main road, going from one side of the island to the other, we walked it in under 80 minutes. We walked a lot…we also took few times the little bus which go around the same road once an hour.
The signature of the island is all those buggies. Ok, they seem really fun, but I was not going to spend 150usd for a 24 hours period to rent one of them. So we walked…and got few rides by locals and tourists at the back of buggies. And this did also allow us to jump pretty well from beach to beach, making an easy loop
around.
The diving! My original plan was to have Tiffany doing her Junior Open Water Padi here….but than they quoted me 1000usd for it….that’s simply insane…no thanks. And a single bubble maker dive costs…guess…180usd….insane! Well, the diving, if you have your own equipment is actually way more reasonable at around 125usd for 2 dives…not cheap….but you pay more in many places in the world. So we did agree with Tiffany…I was not going to pay those outrageous prices….her PADI will be in December! So during our week, Leslie and I went three morning of double dives.
Slight problem with the diving here….it’s full of open water divers doing one or maximum two days of diving. Good luck for any dive center to get organized around this. Great news, first day was a rainy day…Brazilians do not go out when it rains….or snow (aka Portillo), so there was only three of us on a huge boat, and we could have two really fun dives.
Next day, the sun was back…and we were around 12 on the same boat. So it’s back to open water dives. I don’t really mind as Leslie didn’t
dive properly since May 2012….good news, he didn’t lose it! The two dives sites may have been a little more boring, but these were pretty entertaining dives…average underwater architecture…but a lot of cool encounters down there!
For our last day…another sunny day…and dolphins on the way to the dive sites….but no dolphins while diving. More qualified divers around us…so better dive sites too…and two great dives.
So 6 dives…look at the pictures, they will tell you we had fun. Leslie had his first multiple encounters with nurse sharks, grey reef sharks, white spotted eagle rays. On top of that we saw many sting rays, some of them huge, tens of turtles, many octopus, even more lobsters, generic angels fishes…and thousand of other fishes... next stop for Leslie will be his advanced junior open water…but same thing as for Tiffany, price was outrageous!
Beside the first day, when we were not diving, we went to the beaches. Tiffany and Leslie have grown like their dad…a beach is fun, for maximum an hour per half-day! Well, here it’s really not an issue, there are a lot of beaches, they are all different, so
we went exploring from one to another one…and these beaches…amazing!
Coming here is not cheap, staying here, even less. First, you pay the simple right of accessing the island. Then you pay the park fee for the national park, including most of the beaches, and any diving. That was already 150usd per person, for just 6 nights here. And it’s only starting! The authorities have had the great idea of limiting the number of tourists to a maximum of 400 at any single time on the island. If you count an average stay of 3 nights per person, that’s a grand total of anything between 40,000 and 50,000 visitors a year…nothing for a country the size of Brazil!
The island is just 300km from Brazil in the middle of the Atlantic on the way to either Europe or Africa (closer), but no other way to come here than by plane. They have two flights from Recife each day, one with GOL, the other one with TRIP, plus an additional daily flight with TRIP from Natal. With the limit of 400, it means no flight is ever full….but you may not be able to find
a ticket to reach the island, leaving being never a problem. If an airline cannot have a full plane, they have to charge more…another crazy expensive short flight.
Nothing much is growing on the island as it’s mainly a national park. Which means everything is flown in. So when you find something, it’s double price from Brazil. I was warned about this…and we brought with us 23kg of food and drinks. Thanks to the kitchen in our little home, it was a great idea. It must be also the first time in my life that I have carrots, corn, zucchinis, green peas, onions and garlic in my checking bags….plus a lot of other things including yoghurt and cornflakes for the kids…and few beers for me as well as some wine from Argentina…forget about the wine in Brazil!
We went to restaurant only once…I know…that’s nothing. But food is 4x the price of a decent meal in Argentina….and looking at the plates…I can do way better on my own. And you may not believe it…looking at the pictures….Leslie now eat as much as I do…and Tiffany is catching up pretty fast…
I have to thank Adriana at Myways.com.br…..she sorted out Casa da mirtes for us, and gave me some seriously useful advises. Oh, and do bring serious mosquitoes repellent….those guys are also on holidays…and they are everywhere. I guess that’s in any wonderful beach place!
The walking around was fun, the beaches amazing…and the diving pretty cool too. Fernando de Noronha will remain a highlight for us in South America. I’m so happy we kept it for our last stop of our year in South America. What a year! Next stop for us way North. No more diving, or remote places for a while…we are going cultural…shopping….food and family for the coming weeks…and all that in any order we can put it.
Bye bye South America….and don’t worry, we’ll be coming back soon!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Wow!
Beautiful.