If I had to use only one word to describe Fernando de Noronha (FDN) it would be easy- PARADISE. Its crystal clear water and spectacular landscape this island is considered one of the most stunning places in Brazil, if not the entire world. With little more than 200 plane seats per day available to Noronha, the island is never overwhelmed by tourism. We continuously saw many of the same faces on our plane, at dinner, the bars, beach etc... We made "friends" with some people simply by running into them everywhere. We arrived to the island in the late afternoon, after spending a few hours dealing with some bank issues (see prior posting) we were ready to go out and have a fun night! We headed to Bar do Cachorro "Dog Bar" for its nightly forró. Forró is a couples dance to syncopated music centered on the acordian, triangle and the zabumba (a bass drum of sorts). Mads loves dancing forró but due to her injured ankle she was a little weary of hitting the floor, so at first we sat and watched the other couples dance. After a while a man came up to us trying to get her to dance. She
explained that she couldn't but that he should teach me how to. I was a little creeped out by this guy and didn't want to go - but Mads insisted saying she had been watching him and he was really good. After a few awkward moments of me stumbling around the dance floor to the fast paced 2 x 2 dance beat I got the hang of it. When we returned to our seats Mads was about to heard to the dance floor herself with a hunky local. So she stuck me with the creepy middle-aged man while she waited for a better option to come along...I saw her ways hehe.
My dance partner, Ze Renato, actually ended up being really nice. Though he barely spoke any English/Spanish and I barely speak Portuguese we managed to have a conversation while Mads danced. He told me he was a local born and raised on the island. He now was a scuba instructor and tomorrow (Sayurday) was his only day off and he wanted to take us on a tour around the island. I told him we had already booked a tour and wasn't sure we could cancel and get a refund. This was part lie as we had booked one but hadn't paid any money. He insisted we cancel and told me he'd be at our pousada at 8:30 am. Mads and I went back and forth deciding if this was a good idea. On the one hadnd it would save us $140 reais on the other we could be stuck with a strange guy who could try to make passes at us all day (this is very common with Brazilian men). Saying "no" to the question "Do you have a boyfriend?"
means you're live bait...note to self: lie to creepers and say "yes".
We decided to risk it anyway (remember- I'm poor for the time being). This ended up being one of the best calls of the trip. Aside from a little arm/back touching to both of us girls Ze was harmless. He picked us up in his buggy and took us to several amazing beaches. He was also so careful with Mads' foot and helped her as we hiked through cliffs and down a really gnarly ladder/rocky path to our favorite beach Baía do Sancho. We would definitely not been able to do this on a big tour. The next day we took a boat tour in the morning and then met up with Ze in the afternoon for more sight seeing. He brought along a co-worker, aptly named, Ze Gustavo (to Mads' dismay). This new addition made our tour even more
harmless. The highlight of day 2 was a stop at Cacimba do Padre, this beach is famous as it holds the ASP World Surf tour every March. You could tell this spot gets huge just by the epic womp there at this time of year.
That night Ze Renato invited us to a peixada (fish dinner). I explained that I did not eat fish, but he insisted I would love it the way he prepared it with salt and lime. The two Ze's picked us up
and took us to the deserted beach where they set up a table that they had "borrowed" from the closed restaruant next door. Ze Renato grilled the fish wrapped in a bannan leaf and lo and behold he was right, despite how nervous I was to eat it, I thought it was really good!! When it came time to leave the buggy, which he had driven onto the sand, we discovered it was stuck. We could have told him that would happen when he drove in. After about 20 min of the boys trying to handle it on their own, Mads' stick-shift driving skills came in handy. The two boys pushed the front as Mads reversed out of the hole. Success! We did not have to spend the night on the beach. All in all the decision to hang out with the random from the forró was awesome!
The saying "it's a small world" really came true when Mads ran into Barbara on the beach before snorkeling in Fernando de Noronha. Barbara is a trade show model for Vix (Mads' old company) and they used to share a hotel room together in Miami every year. Barbara hung with a different crop of locals, i.e. really hot boys. After spending Monday morning tanning our bodies while sipping 
caipirinhas and beer on the beach we all went to watch the Brazil v. Chile game. In addition to Barbara's local hottie boyfriend, Cachorrinho or "little dog" whom by the way owned the Dog Bar which we frequented, we also hung out with a group of pro Volcom and Hurley skaters in town for an exhibition. After the amazing victory we went to a festa de São João where we partied in the streets til the wee hours of the morning.
The next day was Dia de São Pedro. Mads and I woke up only to do it all over again early morning style. Today there was to be a church procession honoring the fisherman saint, São Pedro ending in a regatta. Barbara's boy had invited us on a private boat to celebrate. Promising he would get us back to shore on time for our 4pm flight. Getting on the boat was quite a challenge. The first dinghy they sent with our friends capsized because it was too heavy. By that
time the procession had arrived and the port was super clogged. So Cachorrinho had us scaling rocks on the other side to avoid the traffic jam. When we finally got on the boat it was rad, Mads set her alarm so we could party in 
peace for our last few hours on Noronha. Everything was flowing, the regatta was awesome, everybody dancing on their boats and even jumping ship to get on ours. Every so
often we got to cool off in the pristine coves, life was sooo good. When it finally came time to catch our flight, we said our goodbyes and swam ashore. While Cachorrinho gallantly swam with our bag on his head so it would not get wet. I don't know if this trip can ever be topped but Noronha definitely will always be paradise in my mind.
