Bissau, 14 Nov (Lusa) -- O New York Times propôs aos norte-americanos o arquipélago dos Bijagós, na Guiné-Bissau, como destino turístico, três meses depois de ter expirado um alerta do Governo dos EUA a pedir aos seus cidadãos para evitarem deslocações ao país.
Entre Novembro de 2008 e Junho de 2009, o Governo dos EUA emitiu cinco alertas, mas o editor do New York Times para a África Ocidental, Adam Nossiter, visitou a capital guineense e a parte insular do país e numa reportagem de três páginas, trazida à capa do Travel, suplemento de viagens daquele diário, recomenda a Guiné-Bissau para férias.
"Bijagós, um paraíso tranquilo numa terra instável" é o título que caracteriza o edílico cenário daquele arquipélago guineense, desconhecido da maior parte dos turistas do mundo, mas já considerado património protegido pelas Nações Unidas.
SOME tropical destinations have long since been discovered and made familiar; others may yet be found, by a few anyway, but are unlikely to change much anytime soon. Too much separates us from them, in culture, space and time.
The Archipelago of the Bijagós is such a place, a spattering of 88 palm-fringed-islands in the Atlantic Ocean, only 23 of them inhabited, off the coast of one of West Africa’s most dysfunctional yet beguiling states, Guinea-Bissau.
To just say that these verdant tropical specks have miles of deserted, spectacular beaches, peculiar feats of nature like a rare herd of saltwater hippopotamuses, and unusual customs like one of the world’s few functioning matriarchies — women have traditionally chosen their mates, with little right of refusal, on the island of Orango — is to do them an injustice. Because to arrive in the Bijagós after the two-hour ride in a small speedboat from the decrepit yet ingratiating capital of the country, Bissau, is to enter another world and another century, though it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly which ones.
In a village on the island of Soga, the little children pinched my white skin to see if it was real, as they emerged from mud-walled, thatched-roofed huts; on the main island of Bubaque, on my evening run past the tall palms and the mango trees, down the long airstrip used by Latin American drug-runners, the children called out softly, “Branco, branco!” — “white man, white man” in Portuguese — not out of hostility, but because I was a curiosity.
On the tiny uninhabited island of Anguruma, sheets of fiddler crabs scattered on the sand as I debarked in a world of pure white, blue and green. And back on Bubaque, at the graceful old arcaded Portuguese administrative building, part of the roof was gone but Bissau functionaries had simply pitched a tent on the second-story balcony to compensate and carry on. Poking around its sister structures — a school, crumbling stuccoed office buildings — an official came out to greet us and question us about America. He offered, in the friendliest way, to show us around.
I had gone to Guinea-Bissau to cover the presidential elections there last June — an event not normally considered newsworthy in a place this small (population only 1.5 million), but the old colony of Portuguese Guinea had reached an unusual level of political disintegration. Ministers, a president and the army chief of staff had all been assassinated recently, though little of this turmoil was apparent in nonchalant Bissau.
With the elections over and with flights out of the country sparse, I had several days to kill, and everyone in the capital spoke of the Bijagós as a magical, wild place that must be visited. The Portuguese had not “subdued” them until 1936, and even today, there are islands in the archipelago outsiders never reach.
The Bijagós, with their rich, abundant and untroubled flora and fauna, are classified aUnited Nations World Heritage Biosphere Reserve: apart from the remarkable hippos, there are 155 species of fish, making the islands a premier though rarely frequented destination for adventurous sport fishermen; and there are dolphins, manatees, crocodiles, monkeys and striped antelopes. Of the world’s eight species of tortoise, the World Heritage Center says, five are found there.
The islands are one of the most important nesting places for migratory birds on the continent, with some 96 species. The perils of navigating the narrow channels between the islands, which are loaded with sandbars, have protected the Bijagós from the giant fishing boats that ply the African coast.
This is not a place for a conventional beach vacation. Being there, finally reaching the Bijagós after overcoming the hurdles, translates into a feeling of removal you cannot get by jetting down to the Caribbean.
For all the pleasure of lying on the white sand and not seeing a soul as minutes and hours pass, an even greater pleasure is in being somewhere where you are just as strange to the inhabitants as they are to you. The usual relationship of tourist to native — that mix of wariness, guilt and hostility — doesn’t exist.
That the accommodation ranges from spartan to simple but comfortable (no luxury) helps. The usual large distance between Westerner and West African isn’t grossly amplified by obvious outcroppings of privilege.
– A representante adjunta do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD) na Guiné-Bissau, afirmou que a imprensa em África tem um papel negativo.
