Lencois

Our last weekend in Brazil was a lot of fun – Renee, Esther, Andreas and I traveled to Lencois, a smaller town near the Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina (or Chapada Diamentina National Park). We were only there for two days, but we were able to do a few different hikes and see different nature-y things in Brazil. It was a nice change from the beach/city scene that we had come to know as Brazil.
On Friday night, we all went out to Sophia, a way cute restaurant near our homebase. We went to have a goodbye drink with Anya and Rachel, who were leaving the next morning. After Sophia’s, the four of us left for the bus station and caught out 11:30pm bus to Lencois. The trip is a 6 (or so) hour bus ride from Salvador, so we decided to take the night bus to maximize our time in Lencois. The bus ride was alright, although I was having trouble falling asleep, so I took one of Renee’s NyQuils, and was able to doze on/off until about 3:30am, when the bus made a quick pit stop, and upon returning onto the bus, I completely passed out. Not-so-lucky for me, though, we arrived in Lencois only 2 or 2.5 hours later, and I was still feeling kind of NyQuiled, which was weird (I was soooo out of it). We got to our pousada, (Pousada das Arvores, I think) and even though check-in wasn’t until 10:00am, they allowed us to get into our room early to take a nap, which was really nice. So I got to sleep from 6:00-7:30 or so, and then we got up for breakfast before our day of hiking. I was feeling a little bit less tired at breakfast (thank goodness). Their breakfast was a bunch of fruit and cakes/breads, as well as this really cool food that was some sort of tapioca and coconut pancake-y sort of thing. I really liked it. The breakfast was outside, and all of sudden we noticed a ton of monkeys on a nearby birdfeeder (or monkeyfeeder?) which was kind of funny. Esther had been DYING to see monkeys so she got way excited, which was fun.

We got a guide for the weekend to take us around to places (that is what everyone does here – you don’t really just go hike by yourself), and we had decided before arriving what we wanted to do. We left for our first site at 8:00 or 8:30 (can’t remember at this point, although I guess it really isn’t too important) to drive out to where our hike would start. The drive was about 2 or 3 hours – more time to sleep! There were three other guys from our pousada who came with us – Jean-Francois (also known as Jeff) and Joel, two friends from Canada who are in their late 30’s, and Sebastian, a guy from France, who I think was 26 or so. Or maybe older. They were all really fun and we spent a lot of time with them throughout the weekend – it was a really fun group! We finally started getting near the site, and Esther and I were rocking out to our music, and then we decided, why not rock out together?! So we simultaneously turned on ABBA on our Ipods, and we started pulling out some hella sweet dance moves to Dancing Queen, and then Renee (who also was in the back with us) woke up and wanted in on the fun, so the three of us proceeded to TOTALLY jam out. First Dancing Queen, then Mamma Mia, then Lay All Your Love On Me (from the movie!). At one point, Jean-Francois turned around and was kind of like… ??? And asked if we were all listening to the same song or something. We told him yes and just started laughing a lot. He loved our moves.

We finally arrived around 11 at the starting point of our five-hour hike to Cachoeira da Fumaca, which is one of the tallest waterfalls in Brazil. It was extremely hot outside (sweltering heat!) and the climb up the mountain was very strenuous – it was so so steep, and the rocks we climbed up were bright white, which reflected more sun on us. The hike up was pretty difficult, and to add on to it, our guide was a) pretty in-shape and b) didn’t care that we were struggling, so he was pretty much racing up the mountain. Ah! Esther and I were joking the whole week before about how we needed to train for our hike (aka walk to and from the beach multiple times a day, sometimes carrying one another up the hill to the homebase, sometimes running, etc etc) and when we started our ascent we kind of laughed because we obviously did not train hard enough (our laughs quickly turned into heavy pants. About 90 seconds into our hike, haha). After an hour or so (??) of the hard, steep climb, we made it to the top of the mountain, where we just had to walk across flat ground for an hour and a half or so to get to the waterfall. This past was pretty easy, especially after we had mastered the feat of climbing up the mountain. We arrived at the waterfall/cliffs, which was absolutely beautiful (kind of terrifying because it was sooooo high, and people would get on their stomachs and inch their way out to the edge of the cliff… ah). The waterfall wasn’t much because the amount of water depends on how much rain the area had received that day, and we went on a day when there wasn’t any rain (and thus there wasn’t a huge waterfall). But it was still really cool and worth it. It was also worth it, because I realized that I can climb up a mountain and not die.

After climbing back down the mountain (which was a bit easier than climbing up! Although it was actually pretty difficult because our guide was still being a space cadet and climbing down at the speed of light, whereas Renee and Esther and I were going slower (aka at the speed of three grandmas) so we wouldn’t fall down and get hurt on the slippery stone. We took a short bus ride down to a beautiful waterfall and pool. Esther and I changed into our swim suits (which was hilarious… there were so many people around and the pool/falls are located on a trail, so we were trying to hold up a towel for one another so we could have pseudo-privacy to change, and we kept laughing, and I think the locals were laughing at us, but hey, when in Brazil!) We swam around for a while and slid down natural rock slides – it was a great way to end the day!

After a long drive back to the pousada, we all showered (thank goodness for hygiene) and then met up with Jeff, Joel, and Sebastien and went to dinner in town at this Italian place which ended up being FANTASTIC!

Ah I’m in the Miami airport (which is freezing by the way. Wtf America.) and my flight to Charlotte is boarding now…. So I’ll update more when I get home, aka tomorrow because I get home way late and I’m fully intend on passing out.