Eat, pray, love: FERNANDO DE NORONHA: Island tour

DAY 4:
Island buggy tour! We got to ride in a dune buggy!!! I love buggies. We road them across some sand dunes in the northeast last time I was here, and I was SO excited to do so again! You can also rent them, but I mostly like sitting in the back (plus they're stick shift over crazy terrain) so it ended up being perfect to just get a guide to drive us around all day! :)

The day started out early, and we headed to the overlook of Leão (lion) beach, where we could see tons of turtle nests marked by Tamar!

Yes, I know you're all jealous of this fantastic 'do I had going the whole trip.

- Then we went to Sueste beach for snorkeling. So...I had a love-hate relationship with snorkeling after my experience in Tonga, but they said there were lots of sea turtles and fish here and it's supposed to be a great place for snorkeling, so I decided to give it another shot. Well, turns out I still don't love snorkeling itself, but it was SUCH a cool experience! Now unfortunately, even though my Portuguese is definitely improving, it's still been hard to kick the habit of tuning out anyone speaking in Portuguese and assuming I won't understand anyway haha. So I may or may not have missed the memo about there also being sharks in the water...

I SAW FREAKING SHARKS. I just about had a heart attack. The water wasn't very clear so the only way to see the other people in your group is to pull your head out of the water and find them. But when you're actually snorkeling, it's easy to get separated in the strong waves. So I was just off, snorkeling on my own when a freaking shark swam under me! YIKES. My heart was pounding about 500 times faster than it's supposed to be. (Yeah, so if the shark didn't eat me I was pretty much a goner anyway :P ) We also saw a couple sea turtles, which were a lot more fun to see...because, you know, sea turtles don't eat people. [Note: apparently the kinds of sharks in this bay also don't attack people, but, like I said...I missed that memo.] I ended up seeing 4 sharks I think, and all of them looked about 5 feet long (water screws with my perception of things, but I'm pretty sure they were all longer than I am tall; but we'll say 5' to be safe.). Some people only saw a few small ones (like one or two feet long) and I'm not sure why I kept seeing them! *sigh* It's lucky I survived. ;)

I almost died!!!

...but I didn't :D

We had to wait forever for someone to bring us a new buggy after we went snorkeling (our tires were too bald to handle all the mud from the recent rainstorms), which was annoying but then we were off to one of the coolest beaches ever: SANCHO BEACH!

Sancho is the beach where we stopped to snorkel, but we stayed pretty far out in the water on our boat (obviously) and the experience of being on that beach was way cooler! First of all, to get there, you hike on this really neat trail that takes you to some gorgeous overlooks.

Then you have to climb down to the beach via some ladders (literally in the rocks) and crazy steep rock staircases. It's so worth it, though! The beach is beautiful, and literally surrounded by stunning cliffs (hence the complicated descent). The sand was beautiful and the waves were perfect for diving and playing in! On one side of the beach they got a little bit too rough for me, so we mostly stayed on the east side of the beach, but I really love strong waves; for as much time as I've spent living near oceans and beaches, the power of the ocean never ceases to amaze me. I love it.

See? This sign *proves* it's the most beautiful beach in the world ;)

Goin' down the ladder...

...into the rocks...

...through the tunnel...

...down the crazy stairs...

And we made it!! :D

View of Sancho from the overlook (that's the boat we were on a few days ago!)

Lisa and I enjoyed playing in the waves and taking cool pictures of the crabs scurrying around the rocks. We left our stuff in the shade, and when we went to get it found a little guest perched on top. :P

photo cred to Lisa for this sweet crab shot

turns out I like lizards a lot more when they're *not* climbing into my stuff..

such cool wildlife all over the island

Unreal.

For lunch our guide took us back to Flamboyant (the restaurant where I had gotten fish) for a per/kilo buffet which was a little disappointing because we had heard the lunch menu was going to be fish in banana leaves... but the food was still good, so it all worked out. :)

After lunch we headed back out to the port side of the island that Lisa and I had explored a bit before. They took us out to the shark museum and "shark overlook", which was fun to see (and down a little path where I never would have found it on my own!).

I'm SO glad I saw these after my shark encounter haha.

These two (above and below) are from a sawtooth shark. Yikes!

After our time at the port, we went back to Cacima beach (which Lisa and I had been to) but also found out that Baia dos Porcos was just a little further down! So for any of you who figured out what that name is, it is indeed the Bay of Pigs; apparently it looks a lot like the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. It actually ended up being one of our favorite beaches. A little bit harder to get to and walk around because of all the rocks, but it was a bit more secluded than the other beaches. Some of the other beaches we went to had fewer people, but the baia dos porcos felt almost like the whole beach was a secret. Lisa and I decided that the cool rocks and jungle feel of this particular beach felt almost prehistoric :)