Our reason for coming to this side of the world was to find a piece of land that we could love and protect, not as owners, but as stewards, as participants of  it, as maker of the statement that nature is us and we both needto be protected from absurd exploitations.

Theinitial and most motivating vision was to create a den, a magical environment for us in the next 20+ years. We wanted something special, something that people from all over the world could benefit from, enjoy and appreciate: an eco-resort in a place of pristine character.

For the first two years we roamed and explored and lived in the Peralba forest. Our  stay at the farm was simple, no running or hot water, no electricity, just abandoned fields and … the Atlantic Forest.

We retained a known architect to design what could be the most exotic, exhilarating, intimate and comfortable place in the world, a place from where to start the exploration of our matas. We even went so far as to present a project to a local development bank, which showed interest in financing such a scheme.

Thensomehow, we got distracted. Maybe the complexity of it all or the size of the endeavor – and certainly our unpreparedness -created creeping doubts. Priorities got mixed upand… we got distracted from our original focus.We looked for ways to finance the eco-tourismproject by creating activities that would remunerate us first, and that then  would allow us to build the dream with our own forces… or at least withoutsuch  great financial exposure. And so time passed, four years went by while we experimented with every sort of crop and culture and agro business activity that would give us that independence we imagined. The net result was that we kept postponing a decision to commit to the Eco project, always with a nagging feeling that we should go back and start… always tomorrow…

So much so that in2011 we had to face our procrastination in deciding and … decide:  either the resort or focus on the budding business. We went the business way, again. And now, with the export business thriving, we are looking back again to what could have been and will be.

Now we know:  2019/20 will be the right moment.

We always had in mind several aspects that make such a project very attractive:

This is what we need now… and in the future if we really want to get this project off the ground.

We have been planning to return to this project around2019/2020, when the limes and coffee businesses are solidified. Still, we must think out of the box, out of our box, and conceive a more authoritative project as the one we contemplated in 2005.

For this reason this presentation stops here.

The following are the topics that one day we shall have to present to ourselves and to some new partner, when contemplating a new project of eco-tourism (assuming that the marketing and financial issues are resolved):

• The hill facing the ocean
• The main house or hotel and it dependencies
• The old house of the Coronel Vianna

• The Tiroles(a 4km rope shy-walk)
• The Jacarandá (mahogany) treecolonies
• Sport fishing of Robalo in the Rio da Dona and in the rioJaguaripe
• One night living inside the forest

• The riachoSucupira and its hidden valley
• Searching for miraculous medicinal plants and weeds
• Eating unknown fruits

• Salvador
• Jaguaripe
• Maragojipinho
• Nazaré das Farinhas
• Valença
• Morro de São Paulo

• The Peralba Forest Trails
• The rapids and the waterfalls of the Tirirí
• The riacho jacaranda and the Urubu waterfall
• The riachoPeralbaand the coffee and limes plantations
• The riachoSucupira Trail and the Paradise valley
• The mahogany colonies

• Limes, coffee and secondary crop plantations
• Primitivemanioc flour and dendé oil factories
• On horseback through the forest
• Eating from the veggie pad and the experimental citric patch
• Meditating when stopping at the lagoons and Peralba’ s rivers
• The Mãe Bernarda ruins
• The spiritual retreat of the Ponte da Felicidade community of São Bernardo

• The fauna observatory in the thick of the forest
• Bird-watching of unknown species

• To be defined…