This place isn’t your typical postcard beach. The Atlantic smashes the shore here with unapologetic force, and the breeze carries hints of adventure, whispering of something more primal and untamed. As I trudge along the shoreline, feet sinking into the sand, I try to picture it: a rickety plane touching down on the tiny, now abandoned airstrip just over the dunes near the corner of Avenida Campeche and what is now called Avenida Pequeno Principe, or “Little Prince Avenue.” Its engine sputtering to a stop, out steps Saint-Exupéry, his eyes a little more haunted by each transatlantic crossing, but his heart is still pounding. He wasn’t just a pilot; he was a dreamer who danced with danger, as I learned today on this very beach.

The story goes that in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Saint-Exupéry flew with Aéropostale, the French company that turned aviation into a life-or-death experiment. Those mail routes were brutal, the stuff of nightmares—primitive planes, unreliable maps, and vast stretches of nothingness over the ocean. Campeche Beach, with its wild beauty and local fishermen who could spin a hell of a yarn, must have felt like a safe harbor, a place to breathe before another flight that could easily be his last.

Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis took place in 1927. The Aéropostale company had already been established by that point. Their first airmail routes between France and West Africa began in 1918, and by the 1920s, Aéropostale pilots were flying increasingly ambitious routes that started to connect Europe and Africa with South America.

Saint-Exupéry and his colleagues continued to push the limits of aviation through the late 1920s and early 1930s, during the years following Lindbergh’s achievement. Lindbergh’s flight certainly captured the world’s imagination and inspired many in the field of aviation, but the Aéropostale pilots were already pioneers in their own right, braving dangerous routes over oceans and deserts, laying the groundwork for modern long-distance air travel.

The Aéropostale routes from France to South America in the 1920s and 1930s were audacious, spanning thousands of miles over treacherous landscapes and vast oceans. These airmail routes, pioneered by daring aviators like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aimed to connect Europe to the distant corners of South America, speeding up communication across continents.

Their journey would begin in Toulouse, France, which served as one of Aéropostale’s main European hubs. From there, pilots would fly south along the coast, making key stops in Spanish cities like Barcelona and Alicante, and continuing through Casablanca in Morocco. Their routes then crossed the unforgiving terrain of the Sahara Desert, with stops in cities such as Dakar in Senegal. These African outposts were essential for refueling and provided brief reprieves from the brutal conditions, where desert winds and sandstorms could prove deadly.

Once pilots reached Dakar, they faced the most dangerous leg of the journey: the transatlantic flight to South America. With little in the way of navigational technology, this crossing was a true test of skill and endurance, requiring them to brave open skies with only the stars and basic instruments to guide them.

Upon arriving in South America, the first major stop was likely Natal, a coastal city in northeastern Brazil. From there, the mail routes extended south, making their way through key cities such as Recife, Salvador, and eventually Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The final destinations included Buenos Aires in Argentina, where for some time Saint-Exupéry directed the Aéropostale regional office, and Santiago, Chile, with additional stops in places like Montevideo, Uruguay, as the network expanded.

These routes were grueling and fraught with challenges, from violent storms to mechanical failures. The Aéropostale pilots were true pioneers, carving out pathways in the sky that would later pave the way for modern transcontinental air travel. The legacy of their courage lives on, immortalized in the landscapes they navigated and the stories they left behind.

I met a local named Gabriel at a ramshackle beachside café, where the smell of grilled fish mingled with the salty ocean breeze. He was hard to miss—a muscular guy in his 40s with remarkable tattoos curling up his forearms and snaking around his calves, each telling stories of the sea and sky in vivid ink. Each design seemed to pulse with life, like chapters of a tale uet to be heard. Gabriel wore a loose tank top that showed off his broad shoulders, and his hair, salt-streaked and tied back, added to the aura of a man who’d spent more years living by the ocean than away from it.

He handed me a chilled shot of cachaça, made from fresh sugarcane juice, fermented and distilled. Unlike its more refined cousin, rum, which is made from more seasoned sugar cane molasses, cachaça hits very raw and unfiltered, like a bitter tequila. If you’re smart, you ask for as a Caipirinha, smoother cocktail of cachaça blended with sugar, lime, and ice.

Sending my hesitation at the shot of cachaça, Gabriel slid over a cold Amstel light, his grin suggesting he had stories that would flip my understanding of this place upside down. I knew I would be here for awhile.

When he spoke, his voice carried the rhythm of the waves—confident, easy, but with a force beneath the surface. Gabriel was a polyglot, slipping seamlessly between Portuguese, Spanish, English, and even Italian as he animatedly talked about Campeche and its hidden history. I imagined him fitting in just as well telling tales in a Lisbon café as he did here, his laughter mingling with the sound of the surf.

He leaned in, his grin widening as if he were about to drop a revelation that had been burning in his chest. “Saint-Exupéry?” he began, his eyes lighting up with the thrill of a story well told. “He wasn’t a passing stranger, no. The man connected. My new friend held up his shot glass, toasting, “Saint Exupéry drank cachaça just like this with the fishermen, right here on this sand.” Gabriel’s tattooed hand gestured broadly at the beach, as if the ghosts of those conversations still lingered. “He listened to their tales, swapped stories about the ocean and the sky. It was more than a stopover; it became a bond.”

He paused, the breeze lifting a few loose strands of his hair. “You see, they didn’t just share drinks; they shared their fears and their dreams. The ocean is just like the sky—unforgiving, mysterious, unrelenting. The fishermen and these aviators—they understood each other.” His eyes darkened, and he took a long sip from his coconut, as though savoring the memory of it all. Gabriel’s presence made Saint-Exupéry’s story feel visceral, the kind of tale you could touch, alive with the grit and soul of this wild, beautiful place. I started to build a sense of Saint Exupéry’s literary discoveries: his first encounters with the baobabs of Natal, and this curious island of Campeche that rose from the sea before us as if it were some planetary object; a refuge.

During his stopovers in Campeche, Saint-Exupéry would stay at the Casa de Pilotos, adjacent to the airfield. While here, he formed a notable friendship with a local fisherman known as “Seu Deca.” You can still find traces of that relationship in the memories passed down through families, the way some places never forget their best ghosts. Some say that a memorial for pilots and fishermen will be built by the Casa de Pilotos.

Seu Deca, whose full name was João Inácio da Silveira, was a respected figure in the Campeche community. His interactions with Saint-Exupéry were more than fleeting encounters; they represented a genuine bond between two individuals from vastly different worlds. Saint-Exupéry, navigating the skies on perilous mail routes, found solace and camaraderie in the company of Seu Deca, a humble fisherman who was deeply connected to the sea and the rhythms of coastal life.

Their friendship is emblematic of the broader relationships that developed between the Aéropostale pilots and the local inhabitants of Campeche. These interactions were characterized by mutual respect and shared experiences, bridging cultural and linguistic divides. The pilots, often facing the uncertainties of early aviation, relied on the hospitality and knowledge of locals like Seu Deca during their stopovers.

The legacy of this friendship has been preserved through the efforts of Seu Deca’s family, particularly his son, Getúlio Inácio. Getúlio took it upon himself to document and share the stories of his father’s interactions with Saint-Exupéry, ensuring that this unique chapter of local history was not forgotten. Their accounts provide valuable insights into the daily lives of the pilots and the communities that supported them.

Today, the memory of these interactions is commemorated in Campeche. The area features landmarks and references honoring Saint-Exupéry and the Aéropostale legacy, such as the “Avenida Pequeno Príncipe” and monuments dedicated to the pilots. These tributes serve as enduring reminders of the deep connections forged between the aviators and the local community, with the friendship between Saint-Exupéry and Seu Deca standing as a testament to the enduring power of human connection across cultures and professions.

I thought back to my recent adventures in Casablanca, a week spent there only a few months earlier over the Saudi National holiday, when I was on leave from the NEOM project. I’d walked the crowded, labyrinthine streets of the Old Medina, on the other side of Saint-Exupéry’s ocean, where life pulses with a different energy and tradition. Vendors shouted their wares, colors and scents collided, and I found myself feeling at once a stranger and a participant in that living, breathing organism of an ancient public market. That same sensation—the push and pull between belonging and drifting—was now familiar to me, reminding me too of my new home in Barcelona, another frequent waypoint on Saint-Exupéry’s global routes.

Standing here on Campeche Beach, I was drawn back to the lessons Saint-Exupéry embedded in The Little Prince, especially his encounter with the fox. The fox teaches the little prince about taming, about creating bonds that make the world meaningful. “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed,” the fox says. In that moment, I understood that taming isn’t just about attachment but also about embracing the places and people who leave indelible marks on you.

In Casablanca, I’d felt those bonds with the market vendors and their stories, and in Barcelona, they formed anew as I made a home in a city that has now become part of me. Through my own travels across Africa and the Middle East now, Campeche Beach seemed to complete a new thread in my story. It wasn’t just about tracing the steps of an aviator-poet; it was about understanding how places and people shape you, how you leave a part of yourself behind and take a part with you. The fox’s lesson suddenly felt more profound, woven into the fabric of my recent journeys.

Campeche Beach has another secret: Ilha do Campeche, a small island off the coast that’s like a time capsule. The waters are turquoise, the jungle dense, and it’s easy to imagine a young pilot staring out at it, or sailing over to it in a small skiff with his friend Seu Deca, sketching or scribbling notes along the way. He’d write about the stars—those cold, glittering guides he’d chase on his midnight flights, always wrestling with the balance between belonging and drifting, between the invisible and the essential. He’d write about love and loss and whatever wisdom we struggle to grasp until it’s often too late.

Saint-Exupéry’s planet in The Little Prince is a lonely world, small enough that a sunset can be witnessed by taking a few steps, a place where solitude feels vast and inescapable. It’s a realm that symbolizes innocence and the pure, uncorrupted nature of the prince himself. It’s a planet of simplicity, of tender relationships that teach about the essence of love and the weight of responsibility. There’s beauty, but also a quiet sense of isolation—a world that forces contemplation.

The jungles of Campeche Island is one place where Saint-Exupéry landed in the flesh, navigating the harsh reality of pioneering airmail routes. Like the baobabs that threatened to overtake The Little Prince’s planet, here too was perhaps an origin in narrative reflection. This island is lush and wild, a place far from the simplicity of the prince’s world. It’s raw and expansive, with turquoise waters crashing against rugged cliffs and dense jungle teeming with life. Campeche doesn’t offer solitude—it demands respect for the overwhelming forces of nature, reminding even the bravest that humanity is small and humbled in the face of something so vast and powerful.

And yet, despite these contrasts, there’s a thread connecting both worlds. In The Little Prince, the fox teaches the prince about taming—about forming bonds that create meaning. On Campeche Island, I imagine Saint-Exupéry feeling a version of that lesson, forming bonds not with a fox but with the local fishermen like Seu Deca. There, he found camaraderie and moments of quiet connection, learning the shared language of those who live at the mercy of something greater, whether it’s the sky or the sea.

Both the prince’s planet and Campeche Island remind us of life’s delicate balance: simplicity and complexity, solitude and connection, innocence and raw, untamed beauty. And perhaps Saint-Exupéry needed both—a small, quiet world to teach us about the heart and a fierce, vibrant island to remind us that the heart must be brave.

I left the beach thinking about how these places of Saint Exupéry’s that I had now visited—Casablanca, Barcelona, and now Campeche—had tamed me in their own way. They’d shown me their truths and made me a part of their story.

As the stars began to emerge in the night sky, I remembered the fox’s wisdom: “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” And for a moment, under that sky Saint-Exupéry knew so well, it felt like more than just a quote. It felt like a map to the heart of my travels, guiding me through the connections that make life rich, wild, and unmistakably human.