More Lencois/Chapada Diamantina!

So on Saturday night we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant with everyone. It was fantastic! We were kind of skeptical at first because when we walked in, we were the only people in the restaurant, and then they didn’t actually have half of the items listed on their menu (no pizzas! Only juices or wine, no sodas, etc). We all ordered different things and ended up just passing them around and eating a little bit of everyone’s meal. It was fantastic!

The next day was Esther’s birthday, so after dinner we went to a different restaurant/cachaça bar to hang out and to attempt to stay up until 12:00 to reign in Esther’s birthday. Cachaça is the a popular Brazillian liquor – the most popular in the country. It is made from sugarcane and is used to make many drinks, most notably the Caipirinha, which is made with sugar and lime. Anyways, this cachaça bar had many different flavors of cachaça, and they serve you a shots worth that you sip. I got a fruit flavor as my first – I can’t remember which one (it was one of the Brazillian fruits and it was the one the waitress recommended). It was alright but I couldn’t really sit there and sip liquor. Jeff got a really good one – cinnamon! Joel got coffee which was also very good (it was more creamy vs. straight liquor). After that, we each tried a different flavor. I got coconut (another creamy flavor) which was very very good! Renee and Sebastien were already back at the hotel cause they were tired (they left after the Italian restaurant) and at this point, the rest of us were getting tired so we decided to leave (it was only 11:15 so we didn’t quite make it to 12:00). We had a lot of fun though, sharing and listening to each other’s funny stories (especially Joel’s, about herding sheep in Greece and being homeless across Europe etc)…

The next morning we woke up for our second day of hiking. We were doing the same hikes that Jeff and Joel had done the day before we got there, and he said they were much easier than our hike up the mountain, which we were definitely excited about. We had six places to see in Chapada Diamantina so we had a busy day ahead of us. We all ate breakfast together (no monkeys or yummy coconut tapioca rolls today… food was alright though!). Renee wasn’t feeling well, so she decided to stay behind and get rest. So, Sebastien, Esther, Andreas and I got into the car (which was smaller this time since there weren’t as many of us) and made our drive out to the first stop. It was pretty bumpy, which was funny and annoying at the same time.
Our first stop was a hike out to a waterfall called Poco do Diabo, also known as the “Devil’s Throat.” It was very pretty. The hike wasn’t bad at all, although it was pretty funny because at one point, you have to scale these big rocks that have fallen on their sides, and it’s kind of tricky, and Andreas snapped a pretty quality shot of me struggling. Anyways we swam for a while in the pool, which meant Esther and I had to change, so we did our same old same old routine (act like a bunch of prudes and go change behind the towels that we hold up for one another) although this time we had gotten better at it. By the end of the day, when we needed to change, we were able to do it on our own!!! We’re pretty much pros. OK! Geez I sidetrack a lot. At the falls, there was also a big zip line that looked SOOoo cool (I’m actually not sure why we didn’t do it? Maybe not enough time?) as well as carabineers cascading down the mountain.

Our next stop was a hike up a mountain, which was more similar to the first day’s hike (although not as difficult) to the top of Pai Inacio, one of the mountains of Chapada Diamantina (it is one of the ones usually featured in books etc.) At the top of the mountain, the rock was pretty flat and there were beautiful plants and flowers growing everywhere – in particular, cactus and these beautiful small purple flowers! The view was SPECTACULAR – you could see so far and see so much! Of course, all you could see was nature, since there wasn’t much development nearby. You could see the Lencois area in the distance, which is probably the busiest “city” within proximity. It was so pretty!!!!

The next stop we made was at Pratinha, an area with a cave and a huge pool. Upon arriving, we saw they had a huge zipline into the lake, although at the bottom were a bunch of couples making out, so we decided to check out the cave. We decided to go snorkeling into the cave, so Esther and I once again changed (this time in front of many more people, and there weren’t any walls or steep inclines or rocks or anything to kind of change against and use as protection, but we still changed successfully – let me reiterate, we’re pros now!) and we rented some cute little fins and goggles and snorkels etc. We flipped around looking at fish, and then we got into groups of three and each group (ours was Esther, Andreas and I… Sebastien got put with these two local girls, haha, I’m sure he didn’t mind) got a flashlight, and we were led by this guy in a kayak back into the cave, where it started getting really really dark. We were able to see the cave, which was so cool – the water was SO clear! Although there weren’t any fish once you got back into the cave. Or sharks. Or eels. So it wasn’t TOO exciting, but not too scary either. It was still beautiful and I’ve never been snorkeling before so I thought it was really really cool! And then at the very end of the snorkel – once we reached the end of the cave (about 10 mins in), they turned off all of the flashlights and we sat there in darkness for a minute! It was awesome. We were at the “end” of the above water part of the cave, but the cave doesn’t actually end there – if you have proper scuba equipment, you can dive underwater and continue swimming for 10 minutes or so until you reach above water again. Anyways, the cave that we started in connected 13km later with a different cave called the Gruta Azul, or Blue Pool.

After we were done at Pratinha, we drove/walked over the Gruta Azul – which was only a 10 minute walk away. There was no one there, and it was so peaceful – and the water was SO blue. It was kind of hard to see much inside the cave because it doesn’t have much access to light, but we got there late in the afternoon, when it got the most sun it would get during the day, so we could see some of it. Ah it really was sooo pretty. My pictures don’t do it justice in the least – it was really hard to get a good one that really looked like the cave!

The last stop we made that day was a place 30 mins away, called Gruta Lapa Doce, or Sweet Cave (or something to that effect). It was completely different than anything we had done yet – although really, our day had been full of many many different things. Anyways, Gruta Lapa Doce is this underground cave that used to have a river running through it, but now doesn’t (the river now actually somehow runs into Gruta Azul… over time it eroded into it or something) and hasn’t for a while. So we got to walk the cave – which took at least an hour? – with the help of a guide and his lantern. It was SO cool!!! We were completely underground in pitch black, the five of us. The cave was full of stalactite and stalagmite rock (random 1st grade knowledge suddenly becomes useful!). It takes over 33 years for only one centimeter of stalagmite rock to form in this cave! Which is crazy. A lot of the rock formations in the cave had different “shapes,” and our guide was eager to point them all out – they were all pretty funny. My favorite part was when, at one point, our guide told us to sit down, and he turned his lamp off. We sat in COMPLETE darkness and silence for three minutes. I was kind of scared at first, but it was SO cool! We were all meditating there in the complete nothingness. It is one of those experiences that just is so cool and you don’t really get an opportunity to experience much.

After that, our day was done so we went back to the pousada, where Renee was waiting for us, feeling a bit better. I still had a lot of energy so I went for a run around Lencois for a few minutes, then came back and took a shower. Jeff and Joel were already back, and after we all were done showering etc, we went out for Esther’s birthday dinner at a pizza place. It was great food (the pizza in Brazil is amazing. All thin crust and best toppings – ah. America has some learning to do). And then Jeff and I went up to the chef and told him it was Esther’s birthday, so he made her a special “dessert” pizza! Aka honey/banana/cinnamon. It was great! Dinner with the bunch was so so much fun – we were laughing the whole time.

After that, we walked into town and saw this concert going on, which ended up being a carnival for kids with a live band for kids. haha. Esther and I danced around for about, two minutes, but then I started feeling like a pedophile, so I stopped, although Esther was really enjoying being silly and dancing around so she did for a while longer. We finally made our way back to the pousada, stopping along the way to get some supplies for the road (aka water and food). We finished packing and made our way to the bus station, where we caught our 11:20 pm bus back to Salvador. I took another one of Renee’s NyQuil pills, much earlier this time, so luckily I got a lot of sleep. I did wake up a lot though, at one point I think it was 3:00 or so and I noticed the stars outside the window (we were in the complete rural countryside). The stars were SO bright and so beautiful! I’ve really been getting into looking at the stars when I’ve been abroad. Especially in the southern hemisphere were there are some diff constellations! Anyways I got way excited so I tried to show Andreas, who was completely unconscious, and barely responded when I nudged him and was like, “Andreas! Look! The stars!!!” Finally, in his slumber, he just grabbed my hands and arms and pulled me over into his arms, where I fell asleep pretty quickly, so I guess he was successful in getting me to shut up. It was a pretty nice sleep too!

We arrived back in Salvador around 6:15 and took a taxi back to the house, where we slept-walked around for an hour and a half and took a shower and ate breakfast until we had to leave for placement at 8:00, ready for our long days ahead!