A small girl, walking an alligator down an elegant staircase, is the image that I find myself transfixed by at 6 o’clock in the morning, halfway up a mountain in the Bahia in Brazil. The girl in the black and white photograph is now the 35 year old small framed, but mighty spirited Olivia Taylor, who has invited me on the half day walk up to her peaceful retreat; and as I am beginning to understand the picture tells an interesting story of how she got here.
As we sit drinking caipirihinas the night before I’m intrigued to understand how a girl, who in England had grown up in a wealthy if eclectic household, had left her home to never return. Having set out to travel the world, after 18 months she had not even completed South America she had ended up in the former diamond mining town of Lencois. After returning to the UK and spending 8 months working in an office, she headed back to set up home. Working as a firewoman, estate agent and guide led to her running an ever growing pousada which is a hub for travellers both young and old from around the world. On the surface the story seemed plausible enough, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was more to tell.
Lencois has changed considerably since Olivia first arrived. Then in 1993 the diamond industry was coming to an end after the formation of the Chapada Diamantina national park. Following the abrupt closure of the mines, and 80% of the population of the town out of work, tourism was a natural if at times forced step.
Today tourists, who are predominately made up of Brazilians and backpackers, head to the town on a 6 hour trip from Salvador to experience an area which is 1.8 billion years old. Originally the base of an ocean, sediments laid down in layers and under pressure formed into rock. Then – million years ago tectonic movements pushed the area up into the broken landscape of tabletop mountains, valleys, caves and pools which you will now find. The landscape plays host to an amazing array of wildlife, monkeys, jaguars, parakeets; and plants – woodland, scrub, orchids, amarylliss. The chapada has become a mecca for walking, climbing, mountain biking and horseriding, and finally it seems that the government of Brazil is understanding that the area could be a key attraction for foreign tourists.
And Olivia’s Pousada Dos Duendes is already playing quite a role in the increased awareness of the national park. The house, tucked up on the edge of Lencois, originally started life as a two bedroom mud hut with no electricity. Now it is a 15 room business with a relaxing garden and bar, with a hostel being completed in the gardens behind. During my stay I found a diverse mix of interesting people from New York, Vancover, Geneva and Amsterdam who give this place a welcoming, sociable and (grown up) atmosphere, that I have yet to experience on my travels. It comes from Olivia’s passion for her home, both from where you lay your head to where you walk your feet.
The name of the Pousada again hints at why she is here, Duendes translates as Pixies, and Olivia does seem to have the childish and naughty character that the mythical creatures are known for. She is also an avid Harry Potter fan and an attraction to fantasy literature seems to have started at a young age.
Olivia grew up in Somerset, living in a country house which featured in the television series ‘To the Manor Born’, and which was also the local zoo and a working farm. Her parents had separated when she two, although they still lived together on the estate. Sent off to boarding school she very much felt in the shadow of her older brother, who by the time he was 18 and she 14, was well known for organising the notorious Gatecrasher Balls and then raves and featuring in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. Finding that she was either very much disliked or liked because of brother, but not for herself; and combined with a home life which was anything but nuclear, the travelling started as a way to experience something different from the social norms in the uk which she found so unappealing. Having travelled around the world it was in Brazil and Lencois that she found a place in which she had nothing to prove and where she could establish her life on her own terms.
We finish eating our meal of sweet potato, rice and kale in the light of the glowing embers from the stove. “When I go back to England to visit I no longer feel the outsider that I once did. Then I felt different and was uncomfortable about it where as now I am happy to be different and my life has caught up with how different I felt at the time." I try to finish my drink, but the heady cachaca stops me short. “That’s when you know you’re a proper adult,” I say.
Yet again Apple succeed in blowing my mind and doing it with something that is almost a side comment to them.
OR 
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