Na floresta amazônica, próxima a Manaus

Provavelmente não há muitas regiões do mundo que podem competir com a Amazônia por ser a região mais atraente para eco-turistas e… naturistas! Um clima perfeito e uma natureza linda todo o tempo, em todo lugar…

Presidente Figueiredo é um ponto de partida popular para o eco-turismo na área de Manaus. Você deveria ir a uma agência local de turismo e escolher o que você quer ver e tomar um táxi com um guia. Há vários rios com água limpa,

cachoeiras, cavernas e como tudo isto está na selva amazônica, claro, é fácil encontrar um lugar onde você pode deixar as suas roupas de lado e se aliviar do suor. Do contrário, você estará fadado à sensação desagradável de roupas molhadas em você, como com os turistas têxteis, porque é tão úmido que sem acesso livre ao ar todo o suor fica em você. E este é o lugar certo para sentir o poder e a diversidade da natureza selvagem. Aqui, nesta floresta gigante, você pode ver a si mesmo, um humano, como apenas uma das muitas partes da natureza.

Realmente é relaxante aqui!

Apenas não vá muito longe sem seu guia.Se você for de barco de Manaus até qualquer outra direção, você verá que o rio Amazonas fornece várias praias, muitas das quais podem ser a sua praia particular por um tempo. 

Claro que para qualquer habitante a ideia de nadar no Amazonas soa como loucura, mas demoraria muitas horas até que você visse um crocodilo ou outro animal selvagem. Então provavelmente é mais seguro do que atravessar a rua no Rio de Janeiro. Pelo menos os habitantes que nadam lá com regularidade não aparentam temer crocodilos. Mas você pode encontrar outra companhia muito mais agradável: os botos!
Em Novo Airão há um restaurante às margens do rio onde você pode comprar peixe cortado em pedaços e alimentar os botos enquanto nada com eles. Este é um dos contatos mais incríveis que você pode experimentar com os animais selvagens.
No geral, a região amazônica é com certeza o lugar certo onde um naturista pode se sentir ligado à natureza.
Mas por outro lado, alguns pontos distantes do rio (não nas proximidades de Manaus, se você for mais longe, você deveria perguntar a respeito) são provavelmente o único lugar na Terra que pode fazer sentido usar uma roupa de banho: um pequeno peixe parasita –candiru – pode nadar até sua uretra se você urinar na água. Mas parece que mais um mito do que uma ameaça real, já que houve apenas UM caso documentado e que pode ser facilmente evitado se não urinar enquanto estiver dentro da água na água.
E outra notícia desagradável é que a menos que você esteja num rio menor, a água daqueles rios é escura ou barrenta.
Mas de resto a região é, claro, um lugar fantástico para qualquer naturista.
Text in Portuguese by Gus and Carlos

River Island Nature Retreat (NSW, Australia)

River Island Nature Retreat is about 2.5 hours drive from the centre of Sydney in the Southern Highlands. It’s probably an odd choice of location for a clothing optional retreat as the Southern Highlands aren’t exactly very warm a lot of the time.

view 0001 River Island, New South Wales, AustraliaThe retreat is set on the Wollondilly River and it’s beautiful in a very typically Australian Bush kind of way.You can walk for several kilometres and follow some 4 wheel drive tracks, swim in the river or enjoy the pool, all nude if you like.

naturist 0003 River Island, New South Wales, Australia

The area is home to some wild goats, and it’s at River Island that I finally got to see some of Australia’s native wildlife for the first time in the wild. The platypus and the echidna are very shy animals but along with kangaroos and wombats, they call River Island home.

kangaroo 0000 River Island, New South Wales, Australia

I’ve been three times now, at the very end of last summer and very very early in this Spring and I’ve only seen a couple of other people camping.

naturist 0000 River Island, New South Wales, Australianaturist 0001 River Island, New South Wales, Australia

There are cabins for hire up on the hill near the main complex but it’s too beautiful down on the banks of the river not to camp there.

naturist 0002 River Island, New South Wales, Australia

Text and photos by Brenton, but check out his video about this place too!

Samaria Gorge and beach at Agia Roumeli in South-West Crete

Samaria Gorge and beach at Agia Roumeli provide a perfect combo of adventure and secluded relaxation. Samaria is the longest gorge in Europe, 12.4km, so be prepared to walk for several hours. The good news is that you don’t need to carry water with you (maybe just keep half a liter with you), as there are springs at regular distances. It is a very popular national reserve with regular buses departing from Hania and other towns of Crete. It is better to ask in advance if the gorge is open on the day you want to go there, because it may be closed under some weather conditions.

First, you will descend by very well organized hiking trail with magnificent views over the gorge and mountains around.

view 0000 Samaria gorge, Crete, Greece

The second part of the route lies in the river bed (during summer Samaria River comes to the surface only in some parts) between vertical rock walls up to 300m high.
view 0002 Samaria gorge, Crete, Greece
That is especially impressive in several points where the cliffs from both sides get really close to each other, just few meters apart! It can be dangerous as the signs say, and we heard once quite a terrifying noise of falling rocks somewhere aside.

view 0001 Samaria gorge, Crete, Greece

During the first half of our walk, the trail was often overcrowded with tens, if not hundreds, of people literally rushing one by one. Later we realized why they were in such a hurry: the ferries from Agia Roumeli, a village in the end of the gorge, leave to Hora Sfakion and Paleochora at about 16:30. This is why almost all hikers try to walk the whole way in about 6 hours. Luckily we were going to camp in the end, so we spent almost 10 hours in the gorge and could enjoy all astonishing views.

So, during last 3 hours of our walk, after these settlements, our only encounters were feral goats and kri-kri, Cretan subspecies of wild goats, endemic to the island.

view 0003 Samaria gorge, Crete, GreeceAfter eating in a tavern in Agia Roumeli, we went to look for a camping place. A small pinery just left of the isthmus of the Samaria River was already occupied by half a dozen campers, so we continued looking for a place for our tent further on the beach in the dark… and we found it! An entire cave had been waiting for us exclusively 🙂 What was especially pleasing was that the floor in the cave was of fine dry soft sand, whereas the beach itself was mainly covered by pebbles, many of tennis ball size, very inconvenient to walk on. The cave had accumulated the warmth of the day, so not only did we not need to go inside our tent, we even did not need to cover! Watching the starry sky from the cave felt like in a cinema. The only problem was that the noise of waves echoed in the cave and thus doubled, so don’t expect quiet, but the sound of sea is your thing, you’ll be happy.

 

naturist 0000 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece

In the late morning next day, a few people came to the beach, but the cave remained pretty much our own.

naturist 0007 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece
With quite strong waves, the water there gets full of air bubbles, and it gives it incredibly intensive light-blue color… somewhat resembling the Greek flag =)

naturist 0004 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece
Further to the east lies another beach Agios Pavlos with an old church from Byzantine times, but unfortunately we did not have time to go there – it’s good to keep something for the next time, we thought.

Right next to the cave, there were some interesting rock formations.naturist 0002 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece

While swimming around, we found some rocks offshore with sort of bathtubs on them.

naturist 0006 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece

How cool, after a bathtub, you can dive into the sea!

naturist 0003 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece
And getting back to our cave I couldn’t resist imagining myself as a caveman.

naturist 0000 Agia Roumeli, Crete, Greece

Though it was also nice to just lie down and relax there…

naturist 0001 Agia Roumeli beach, Crete, Greece

Hopefully this place will remain as beautiful and unspoiled as we found it!

Free hiking on Tenerife

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Tenerife has a lot more to offer to naturists than beaches. You can go hiking clothes-free even in a mountain forest, with the subtropical sun and warm temperatures year-round. Here we suggest a route (shown approximately on the map) that we took from Los Organos to Güímar: two days of pure mountain air, pure nature, pure naturism! Three days would work better for a more leisurely hike 🙂 This is not an official nudist area, but given general acceptance of nudism on Canary Islands, nudity is generally not an issue, and this area is anyway large enough to avoid encounters with other hikers. Most probably you will not see other walkers at all, if you do not walk on major trails.

naturist 0007 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

But what you will see is breath-taking views down the valley

naturist 0008 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

and up to the snow-capped mount Teide!

view 0004 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
To get to Los Organos take bus 345 or 348 from Puerto de la Cruz or La Orotava. The bus stops right where the route starts as shown on the map. First, you will walk on a pretty broad road, but already there you may take off the clothes,

and certainly so as soon as you decide to climb by one of the smaller trails up the mountains (see the map, but unfortunately we cannot provide exact details of our hiking route, so please take care which trail to take or just follow the main ones, but then you will need more time (or a bike) to complete the trip).

view 0012 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

This part of the forest, on the northern foothills, is quite humid, with pines and cedars covered by “beards” of lichens.

spanish moss 0003 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

But succulents, more common on the drier southern side of the island, thrived there too,

plants 0006 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

blooming –

plants 0005 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

but not only succulents. I am not sure about seasonality of blooming on Tenerife, but when we were there in the end of March, it seemed like spring was in full swing.

plants 0004 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

There were many flowers,

plants 0001 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

some looked familiar from European gardens. And we were certainly not the only ones to enjoy their colours and aroma.

plants 0002 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

The way up the trail in that part is not dangerous but still challenging. Once you are high enough, you will be rewarded with magnificent views and tranquility. Get some rest and follow a narrow horizontal trail

naturist 0006 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

(hope you’ll find it! But if you keep going up, you cannot really miss it, as it lies across the foothill). In some places, the mountainside is really steep,

view 0005 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

but then there are hand-rails along the path;

naturist 0005 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

or you can hold on to the rocks.

But when you see clouds right below you, you just feel like a god able to float in the sky 🙂 naturist 0009 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Bit by bit the forest was getting drier, and there were some eucalypti among the local flora,

view 0006 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

but pines were predominant,

plants 0008 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

along with bushes that we couldn’t identify.

plants 0007 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

We didn’t see much of fauna, but a robin kept us company on a short lunch break,

robin 0000 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

we saw several Tenerife lizards.

lizard 0000 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

We were stupid enough to get off that horizontal trail  to try a shortcut, and continued climbing up on quite a steep and not very stable surface.

view 0007 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Well, at least we were rewards with absolutely magnificent views as the sun was setting… still above the clouds!

view 0008 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

As we were above the forest line, it took some efforts to find a flat spot to camp for the night; it was by a massive pine tree, which stood solely over the rocks and bushes. At night the wind was very strong and chilly, so our advice is to sleep in the forest and better continue climbing up the mountain range in the morning.

view 0009 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Shortly after we woke up, we reached an asphalted road TF-24 and headed north-west, passing through the border of the national park of mount Teide.

view 0010 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

When we got to an information point with a map, we could confirm we were on the right track. There also was a nice view south, with a small black (sleeping) volcano – this is where we were heading.

After we got off TF-24, we followed a trail again, this time already downhill. We often picked narrow shortcut trails, but along the main wide trail we saw two caves, which could be nice place for an overnight stop if we had more time.

naturist 0003 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

In about an hour after the information point, we finally got to the black volcano. The landscape looked quite surreal – an island of black desert in the green sea of pine forest…

naturist 0001 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

And some more flowers:

plants 0010 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

the white ones, like these on an unidentified bush

plants 0011 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

camomiles stood out against the black background of the volcano;

but their purple relatives

plants 0013 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

and an orange poppy looked beautiful too!

poppy flower 0000 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

And as expected on the drier southern side of the mountains, there were plenty of succulents,

plants 0012 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

including a young specimen of the famous Canary dragon tree.

dragon tree 0014 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Behind the volcano, we finally saw the settlements, the right one being Güímar. But we were still a couple of hours away from there… So, we took some rest and bathed in a tub… filled with chestnuts 😀

naturist 0002 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Maybe you will also be lucky to do the hike in the season of figs or prickly pears (fruits of opuntia cactus), which are a good source of precious liquid (but take care of spines, and if you get some in your fingertips, just stroke your hair, as advices by my Mexican friends). Oh well, at some point you will have to wear your clothes, as gradually you will get back to civilization – starting with some remote villas and then the town of Güímar. When in Güímar, visit black pyramids, but the experience of free-hiking above the clouds is surely much more memorable!!!

naturist 0004 Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

in the Amazon rainforest near Manaus

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Presidente Figueiredo is a popular starting point for eco-tourism in the Manaus area. You can just go to a local tourism agency and choose what you want to see, and take a taxi with a guide. There are plenty of streams,

waterfalls, caves… and as it is all in the Amazon jungle, it is easy to find a place where you can just take off your clothes to get a relief from the sweat (otherwise you will be doomed to have the unpleasant feeling of wet clothes on you, as it is so humid that without free access to the air, sweat just stays on you). Water in the main rivers (Amazon, Rio Negro) is either murky or muddy, so if you want some clearer water you’d better stick to small streams.

In any case, this is the right place to feel the power and diversity of the wild nature: in this giant forest you can see yourself, human, as just one of many particles of nature.

Just don’t go too far without a guide! 😉

If you go by boat from Manaus in any direction, you will see that the Amazon river provides plenty of sandy beaches, many of which can be your private for a while!

I imagine that to most urban dwellers an idea of swimming in the Amazon sounds crazy, but actually you would probably spend many hours looking to see a crocodile or another beast, so my assumption it is safer than crossing a street in busy Rio de Janeiro (not to mention the crime rates). In fact, you can find another, much more pleasant company in those waters – river dolphins botos!

In Novo Airão, there is a restaurant on the river bank where you can buy fish cut in pieces and feed it to the dolphins while swimming together with them. This is one of the most incredible contacts you can experience with wild animals!

On the whole, the Amazon region is surely the right place where a naturist can feel unity with nature.

But on the other hand, some distant spots of the river (not in the vicinity of Manaus, if you go further, you should ask about that) might be the only place on Earth where it really makes sense to wear swimming suit, and the tighter, the better: a small parasite fish candiru is infamous for its alleged ability to swim into the vagina, anus, or even the penis — into the urethra. However, it’s worth mentioning, that there has been only one documented (but still questionable) case of such an incident decades ago…  Otherwise, it is of course a fantastic place for any naturist and naturalist.