SAD TROPICS – BRAZIL

“Not only does a journey transport us over enormous distances, it also causes us to move a few degrees up or down in the social scale. It displaces us physically and also — for better or for worse — takes us out of our class context, so that the colour and flavour of certain places cannot be dissociated from the always unexpected social level on which we find ourselves in experiencing them”. Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955.

Words & Photos Franz Orsi

(This feature originally appeared in the August 2015 issue of Windsurf Magazine. To read more features like this first, Print and Digital subscriptions are available. Prices include delivery globally for 10 x issues a year!)

I remember it clearly. That night as we were dining on a little wooden terrace by the beach somewhere close to Taiba, I saw something that I then later labelled as the most stunning scene from my whole experience in Brazil. We had just finished our dinner and were enjoying our last sips of caipirinha before heading to our lonely pousada when I spotted some microscopic coloured dots out at sea. It was already pretty late by our Brazilian standards as we had to wait a long time for our food. The problem seemed to be that we had ordered fish. We were alone in the little restaurant. The owner – and cook probably – was just going back and forth from the kitchen not bringing any food to us. We then asked what was the problem “quale é o problema? Porque está a demorar assim tanto tempo?”, he never answered clearly; he kept on saying for an hour or more “just five more minutes”.

I was hungry after a whole day spent in the water and the caipirinhas were already causing some effects on my brain. I was probably a little drunk when the food finally arrived. I ate my whole dish in a couple of minutes. It was good but quite different from what I expected. I ordered some grilled fish, while the guy served me some kind of fish filet with curry. Never mind. It was good anyhow, and I was hungry. But it was not fresh fish as I expected.

While I was still drinking my caipirinha on that small terrace I saw some little spots of colour contrasting on the black horizon. Suddenly they became distinguishable objects. That’s when I realized that they were sailboats out at sea in the complete darkness of the tropical night and approaching the shore. Some people then started to gather, in a seemingly spontaneous process from the backstreets of the little village to the beach. Like ants exchanging information with each other, they probably got the news of the arrival of the boats by some mute and inexplicable messages.

As the boats were getting closer to shore I started to recognize their shape and size. They were all small wooden jangadas out at sea by night without any light. Where were they coming from? How much time did they spend out at sea? I couldn’t help feeling intrigued by their story. Jangada is a special kind of hand-made traditional wooden boat used for fishing, or more frequently nowadays, for giving Brazilian tourists an ephemeral taste of the long-lost traditional Ceará way of life. In a way I thought that they were just a remnant of the past, kept alive to please tourists and foreigners alike. What I saw that night radically changed my perspective about jangadas.

The brave fishermen of Ceará
Imagine a small fleet of boats resembling what we would call a raft not more than three or four meters long, with cotton-fabric sails rigged on a mast consisting of a few bamboo sticks appearing from the darkness without any light, and approaching the shore like ghost boats.

I was mesmerized by this view. So I joined the group of men waiting for the boats ashore and as the first jangada arrived to the beach I also helped them carry it up on the dry sand. The boat was very simple. The fishermen who had been sailing on it were completely exhausted to say the least. There was not even a place to sit on that little craft and I imagined they had travelled a long time to get back to the shore. After those few boats landed, the fishermen started to distribute the fish to the crowd as a kind of improvised fish market. In the crowd I also spotted the owner of the restaurant reclaiming some fish for his restaurant. That’s when I realised that the whole delay with our dinner was due to him running out of fresh fish and he was waiting for the boats to come back with their catch.

After all the fish was sold, I found myself talking with some of the fishermen. They were curious to know what a guy like me – a gringo, as they initially called me – was doing there. I approached them in Portuguese and I apologized by not speaking like them. My Portuguese certainly sounded to them like a weird version of their Brazilian Portuguese, but I explained to them I was from Europe, I was there for windsurfing and stand up paddling and I learned my Portuguese in Lisbon, where I live at the moment. Anyhow they were happy to be able to communicate with me and so was I. Responding to my innumerable questions they explained to me how their fishing rituals were structured. And then I asked “how long do you stay out at sea when you fish?”, the answer was unexpected. They told me they were out at sea for at least two days. One almost-full day spent sailing out towards the horizon, then a few hours of
fishing, and then another day of sailing to come back to shore.

Without any lights, any navigation devices, any places to hide from the sun or from the rain, they were just fiercely braving the elements of the Brazilian sea without any modern-day comfort. That was the reason why I was there: more than the good windsurfing, the wind, the waves. I was finally feeling at home among those brave fishermen of Ceará.

“ Not only does a journey transport us over enormous distances, it also causes us to move a few degrees up or down in the social scale ” ^{Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955}

The genesis
I remember being fascinated about a trip to North-East Brazil when some years ago I read a book from 1955 by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss called Tristes Tropiques (French for “Sad Tropics”).

The book documented his travels and anthropological work around Brazil and it is fair to say that was the first spark that fueled my interest for the country. I’ve always been interested in exotic cultures and tales of adventure. A trip to Brazil seemed to be the perfect background for such tales with its extensive rainforests, its huge rivers and never-ending beaches. However the idea of organizing a windsurf trip to Brazil remained pretty unattractive to me until this year due to one specific reason. I knew that if I embarked on the typical windsurf trip to Jericoacoara in search of strong trade winds and a relaxed lifestyle, as many windsurfers do, my image of Brazil as a land of adventure would be instantly shattered.

I wanted to get to know the real essence of Brazil’s North-East without getting distracted by its touristic flavor. I wanted to go there to experience the place, to meet the locals and to learn something new. After all, the best travel is the one that answers questions you didn’t think about at the beginning.

But what could I possibly do to be as much as possible in contact with the true essence of that region? I then remembered about the jangadas, the extensive river deltas, the mangrove forests, the fishermen and I decided to devote my travel to a slow approach to windsurfing, savour the place, the people, the moment. Something pretty new to me, but also something that felt very important to me too. I guess that growing up also means achieving somehow a wider perspective over things. And that’s what was happening to my windsurfing. Travelling to a place to enjoy its great windsurfing conditions didn’t seem quite enough to me anymore. I would rather slow down a bit to enjoy the journey.

I later realized that what was changing in my approach to windsurfing was the experience brought by stand up paddling. After a few seasons spent competing in slalom, travelling around the world to compete in some PWA events, I got in touch with SUP. Immediately this new sport brought to my life a totally different perspective on my relationship with the ocean. Suddenly I was finding myself enjoying the ocean everyday, no matter what the conditions looked like. Any body of water suddenly became a playground for my little adventures. Besides the radical action, I learned how to enjoy simple things such as exploring new places, new bodies of water, cruising around, enjoying the landscape and just being on the water.  When planning a trip that could suit this new approach to windsurfing, two things immediately came to my mind. The inflatable Windsup that the guys at Starboard showed to me during one of our last meetings and the North-East of Brazil’s endless beaches. I thought about all the opportunities of getting lost there, either with a sail in my hands or with a paddle. And then also the flexibility and the mobility I would gain by using an inflatable board paired with a Starboard Compact sail.

So back to my question: what could I possibly do to be as much as possible in contact with the true essence of the Brazilian North-East? I just thought that I wanted to be as close as possible to the experience of those brave fishermen on their jangadas, to tune in with them and their environment as much as possible. And the inflatable windsurf board, with its Dacron sails seemed to be the best option to me.

The trip – a “slow” approach to windsurfing
So in order to be true to my aim, to be able to experience first-hand the aquatic life of those ocean-bounded coastal communities, I planned the trip as a multisport exploration of the Brazilian North-East coast. My girlfriend, Julia, would enjoy some kiting and I would concentrate on windsurfing and stand up paddling. We started our trip from Fortaleza with the intention of heading up the coast through the states of Ceará, Piauí and Maranhão. Our plan was to drive along the coast, living on the road and having fun on the water with our windsup, kitesurf and paddleboard gear. In total we travelled non-stop for 23 days, having as the only rule the one of being flexible and enjoying what the ocean threw at us.

As we moved out of Fortaleza’s extensive outskirts, everything started to make sense. I found myself not worrying about forecasts or conditions, increasingly enjoying more what I had in the moment.

The rhythm of our lives started to melt into the local timeless rhythm made of never-changing collective rituals only affected by the cycles of nature. Of course, there’s a fast, hectic and emerging Brazil out there. But the one we experienced was rather different. We visited countless fishing villages during our trip. One street, a few shops, one church, one soccer field: this was the typical configuration, in most developed settlements of course – otherwise no soccer fields. I think it was the deep nature of our trip that actually allowed us to be in sync with these places and these cultures. There is something magical about sailing through the sunset in a place where only fishermen go sailing and later share a few words with them in their native language, commenting on the wind, the currents, the fishing and ultimately life.

“ Somehow having a rudimentary – yet innovative – Dacron sail in your hands and long inflatable board under your feet makes you naturally able to dial into the rhythms of the
local communities and their habits ” ^{Franz Orsi}

This is what I consider travelling. Not only physical displacement but an immersive experience – actually the most immersive of all – into others’ lives and habits. All this would have proven much more difficult on a “normal” windsurf trip where the car is overloaded with boardbags and the time and plans are dictated by the winds and swells. Somehow having a rudimentary – yet innovative – Dacron sail in your hands and long inflatable board under your feet makes you naturally able to dial into the rhythms of the local communities and their habits, making human to human encounters that give sense to the whole trip.

After a few weeks in Ceará all I can say is that we had the pleasure to live for a while outside of our usual comfort zone, as most people would say, certainly outside of our social class context – as Lévi-Strauss wrote. This feeling of being immersed in an unfamiliar environment just made our days so much more interesting and made for a great life experience, as only good travels can do.  And as only a “slow”, rudimentary, uncomplicated approach to life and to windsurfing can do.

Of course I will continue enjoying my wavesailing sessions at home or somewhere else, but I now know that when I will be in search of a true life experience, I will pack my inflatable windsup and leave all my world behind to go sailing with the anonymous fishermen of the world.

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