Floating Shadows in the Paradise

by Ryan Gimenes (Brazil)

I didn't expect to find Brazil

Astonishing. This was the word that resonated in my mind. I had just come back from an intense day, so I sat and decided to wait for the sunset to shine on the Parrot Peak, a one-kilometer rock whose ridge is twisted enough to receive this name. In front of me, it was the main village, where I was hosted, which held most part of the merely five thousand people living in Ilha Grande - Big Island, a free translation for a 200 km² spot on the sea whose name had been given by natives more than five hundred years ago. Despite its more than one hundred semi-desertic beaches with the most crystalline-turquoise-blue waters anyone had ever seen, I made my mind to come to Ilha Grande, primarily, to explore Lopes Mendes, elected, more than once, one of the most beautiful beaches of the world. To reach it, there is no motorized vehicle: on the island, every locomotion I made was only on foot or by boat. Earlier today, therefore, I went to the pier to take a vessel - the beach is on the oceanic side of the island, and the seaway access is possible only in certain periods of the year - to carry me to my objective. The small ship set off slowly from the pier and ran into the open sea against the sunlight in order to turn around the island. "First time?", Marcel, the pilot, asked me. He had been working there for almost forty years, the skin tanned by sun and salt. "Yes! And I hope to return, there are lots of beaches to discover here!", I answered. "Take your time, but don't take so long...", he said, with a sad face. "Why?", I questioned. "Seems that the government want to revoke pretty damn quickly the ecological reserve status of Ilha Grande to build a resort enterprise in the area.", Marcel told me with a hopeless tone. "That's insane! This island is a paradise precisely due to its non-commercial and rustic environment, intact forests, water conservation...", I replied, outraged. "Look! That's Lopes Mendes!", Marcel said, after thirty minutes of sailing, and, for a moment, my exasperation was gone. "It's so damn beautiful, so large, it doesn't fit in just one sight!", I said, amazed by the view. "The sea is turbulent today, it's impossible anchoring the boat there!", he said, visibly concerned. "But I'm going to try to anchor over there, you'll be able to follow in a trail to safely arrive in Lopes Mendes. I'll be here when you return!", he completed. Then he released me in a tiny beach surrounded by worn stones and with a thin strip of sand, where there was a pathway among the forest that would take me to Lopes Mendes. "Let's go", I said to myself, starting my walk through the trees. Over one hour of ups and downs along the way, I was confident I had been following the right track. However, at the end of the path, I recognized I didn't arrive in Lopes Mendes. Instead, I had an unexpected concrete giant made of walls and columns, where there was a gate with an inscription above. "Supermax Prison of Ilha Grande". I was speechless. The darkness fell heavily at the pier. The lights scintillated only from the lamps on the main village and from the stars on the pellucid sky. There were a lot of tourists floating here in searching for a pacific place in the Atlantic to rest. All this light-hearted buzz contrasted with my freshly discovered choked memories from the other side of Ilha Grande that, for more than a hundred years, had been the place of a tenebrous state jail, home to hundreds of political prisoners, where they had lived and died. I couldn't believe such paradise being a hell for someone, but it happened, and very few visitors had any remote idea of that. Although the damnation site was over, the island seemed to be at risk of a new kind of condemnation: the greed-driven one. So I have been longing to return as much as possible to appreciate the dark and the lights of this wonderful island while there is time to.