By Cédric Gygax
"Brazil was love at first sight" my grandfather told me. Belo Horizonte, Brasilia and Rio left a big impression. During a boat trip through the many military-owned islands on the coast of Bahia, they came in contact with a land owner of a small island. “Meeting next day at 8.30 sharp” “Can we make it 9.30?” Finally at 11.30 the person came with a brand new boat that he didn’t know how to ride to go visit the island. Luckily my grandfather is a boat pilot too, so they arrived safely at their destination to visit the place. It was about 1km long and 300m wide, just enough to put a small aircraft landing zone and a big house where they could invite 5 guests at a time flying in to enjoy the fine gold coloured sand and the freshly captured fish who would have stayed in nets under the decreasing water tide.
On the way back, the tank which had never been fuelled, got completely drained and the boat could not reach its destination. The owner went for help on another island leaving my grandparents alone in the boat. My grandmother opened the “boîte à gants” and was horrified to discover a gun in there. They immediately pictured the worst and when the guy came happily back with a one litre of fuel, they were not at ease. It turned out that he was the director of a female prison in Bahia and he needed to keep his service weapon at all times.
I remember my grandma telling me many stories about robberies in Brazil in her hotel room with people sneaking in through the terrace window so maybe that’s why they were looking for an island...
When my grandfather asked proof of ownership in return for a money advance, it got quiet on the line. Or actually “yes yes you will get it, don’t worry” was closer to the response. But the document was never shown. Luckily the money was never transferred because this man was not the effective owner. The property owner was the ex-husband of this man's wife.
So when my grandparents got that information, they dropped the Brazil plan and returned on a quest to find the perfect place in Europe instead.
Now that I’ve visited the country by myself I have to tell you not much changed!
On the quiet Portuguese beaches, my grandmother loved picking up floated wood brought by the sea to make artistic sculptures. They found so many pieces with stories to bring them alive again. They later met a French lady on that same beach who introduced them to a land-owner in Pinheiro... and there it was, the place they would never leave.
They started to do the same with old bricks as with the floated wood: buy old houses and ruins, renovating them to give them a new life. It had more charm than building from scratch and the properties have interesting stories. It generates new ideas as you need to be more creative to work around existing parts keeping an eye on the budget. Don’t be surprised to see a rock integrated into a wall.
of OwnersCédric, the grandson of the founders of Somewhere-Special, with whom he had a strong connection, decided to take over the management of the house rentals after Sylvia.
I have always loved to travel, meet new people, practice outside sport, discover nature and create adventures. I want to promote ecological and nature traveling and be a change actor to make a difference in the mentalities starting by the moment you are in holiday when you are open to try something different. I wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn’t know which product to develop. Nowadays I promote mostly the natural environment.
My family has always been spread all over the place, so I see the world as one big unity and I have always loved travelling alone.
During my engineering studies, I got to know BEST, the Board of European Students of Technology. What was speaking to me was the fact that you could join events alone if your friends were not available and meet your future BEST friends ;-) This has probably changed my life. I experienced connecting easily with students from every country in Europe while traveling cheap, staying, eating, and discovering places with strangers. The only thing which you would trust is the student’s association to bring together similar minds and interests. You bond together when you are far away from everything you know. I got in touch with extreme kindness, and open, warm, and welcoming people and saw the best side of humanity: sharing is caring. I started to enjoy getting lost in new cities, staying at hostels, and meeting new people. I got introduced to Couchsurfing, which is similar but on a worldwide level and with all kinds of people. I wanted to find a way to mix the Airbnb with the Couchsurfing spirit.
In 2017 the idea of having a hostel started to make sense, being the ultimate combination of everything I like to do, and Nature Point X was born. X for all the experiences, localized around an accommodation point in or close to nature.
I wanted to organize thematic holiday weeks around sport, culture, art, nature, cooking, music, environmental cleaning actions, recycling, eco-construction, reducing your ecological footprint,... together with local people and their skills. I think exchange is a good thing and we should learn from each other’s expertise and experiences. Making the world a better place, spread by one traveler at a time ;-) I started with the community of the Amantes da Ria Formosa. Then came the time that the association of French Umami got born with exchange between locals and travelers featuring a cook, musicians and artists. The next big project is the development of a new kite hostel in Fuseta.
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