This past week Joel, my fellow SALTer, and I headed out on our first real vacation during our time here in Brazil. As part of our program we get 10 days of vacation to spend over the course of our year, so we knew we better spend them wisely. We weren’t sure at first where we would want to go. Before arriving in Brazil I had dreams of a trip to the Amazon, but once getting here realized that that would be quite the trip and I would end up spending more money than I wanted (or had, haha)! Various colleagues suggested we check out Chapada Diamantina National Park in central Bahia, the state south of Pernambuco, where I’m living. Betty, my colleague here in Brejo, has been there 5 times! After a little research, we decided to make that our destination and started making our plans. All the pictures of impressive rock formations, huge caves, and a multitude of waterfalls were very enticing, and we set off with high expectations.

After crunching the numbers a bit, we decided it would be most economical to head there by bus, so on Thursday, April 16 we both made our way to the bus station in Recife, where we met up to catch our bus to Salvador, the major city on the coast of Bahia. What was billed as an 11-hour bus ride turned into just over 13 hours, which meant that we missed the morning bus from Salvador to Lençóis, the city where we were going to be staying just outside the park. That left us with a roughly 7-hour layover til the next bus to Lençóis. That would’ve been ok, but then we found out that that bus was full. So instead we booked passage to the city of Seabra, a ways past the turnoff to Lençóis, and we would have to get off the bus in some little town and catch some sort of transport to Lençóis. Fun times.

We spent the day wandering the massive shopping center across from the bus station, even taking some time to go see a movie (my first trip a movie theater since arriving here in Brazil!). Then it was time to catch our bus. On the bus we met a couple German girls who were also headed to Lençóis but couldn’t get tickets on that bus, so it was nice to know we weren’t the only ones! In the end everything worked out fine; we got off in the little town of Tanquinho and shortly thereafter caught another bus to Lençóis, arriving there quite late at night. From the bus station we made our way to our pousada, basically a bed-and-breakfast type place, called Casa da Geléia (The House of Jelly). More on the name later…

[Ok, I realize this is going to be a rather long post, since I’m still not even writing about what we did during our time there… bear with me!]

The first day we decided to just take things kind of easy, get to know the city of Lençóis a bit, do some research and make plans for the next day, and explore the areas surrounding the city. After some price-checking with guide services, we made plans for the following day to visit some caves and other well-known attractions in the park. That afternoon we headed out on a short hike up the River Lençóis to check out some waterfalls that our guide book mentioned. We weren’t expecting anything too impressive, but boy were we wrong! We were greeted by an incredible series of rapids and waterfalls and well marked trails, which was a big plus for us after previous hiking experiences here in Brazil!

After just that first day we knew we had made the right choice in coming here and were really excited to see what else the park had in store for us! The next day our guide picked us up at our place at about 8:30, and, after picking up a few other people, we headed for Gruta da Lapa Doce, one of the largest caves in Brazil. We ended up walking about a mile inside the cave, checking out the various stalactites and stalagmites, thanks to the lantern light of our guide. At one point we all sat down and he turned off the lantern, and we sank into complete nothingness, utter darkness and silence, it was really cool. After the cave we headed out to hike to the top of Morro do Pai Inácio, one of the more famous peaks in the area, which yielded stunning views of the surrounding area. Finally we visited another cool river, finishing up at a waterfall and swimming hole known as Poço do Diabo, where we couldn’t resist taking a zip line down from the top of the waterfall! All in all a pretty spectacular day!

Now a little more about our pousada. The House of Jelly certainly didn’t disappoint! Every morning at breakfast we got to choose from a veritable armada of jams and jellies of just about every flavor you could imagine (and lots that you probably can’t imagine, since we don’t have those fruits back in the states!). On top of that, the rest of the breakfast was spectacular, and Joel and I made sure to stuff ourselves each morning to save money on lunch! Our room was enormous and very nice, and the hosts were very friendly and even spoke some English, though in general we stuck to our Portuguese as much as possible. We stayed here at the suggestion of Betty and were very pleased with our decision!

On Monday we decided to tag along with Lúcio, the son of the owners of our pousada, and a group of his friends from college in Salvador. We set out on the trail, aiming to making to Cachoeira do Sossego, a waterfall we had heard lots of good things about, but not sure if we would be able to make it due to the recent rains. We ended up being stopped short due to the level of the river, but we had a great time nonetheless! The group was a lot of fun, I always enjoy hanging out with people my own age when I get the chance, which isn’t too often here in Brejo. We hit up some great little swimming holes along the river and the trail made for a good hike. We finished up at a great natural waterslide, which was a little bumpy, but a good time to be sure!

Tuesday, our last day in Lençóis, we made plans to visit Cachoeira da Fumaça, the largest free falling waterfall in Brazil; 380 meters high! We started hiking in a mist, which turned into a light drizzle, which actually made for pretty good hiking conditions, better than the blasting sun. Our group for this trip included some folks from Colorado, so that was fun to talk with them a bit. After a good hike we reached the top of the waterfall, at which point the clouds obliged and opened up to let a little sun through and give us a magnificent view of the waterfall and the surrounding peaks; it was truly stunning! To get a good view of the waterfall required lying down and crawling to the edge of a rock overhanging a sheer rock face stretching all the way to the bottom of the waterfall. I guess you could say it was mildly scary. I crawled far enough to stretch my arm out and get some decent pictures of the waterfall, but that was good enough for me! We hung out there at the top for a while, checking out some different views of the falls and eating some lunch. Following the hike we took a stop at another little waterfall and natural swimming hole called Riachinho to take a dip and cool down before heading home.

The night we decided to splurge a bit and hit up a nice Italian restaurant there in Lençóis, which was absolutely delicious! The city of Lençóis is a wonderful little place, lots of fun shops and friendly people, a very cool atmosphere.

Sadly, the next morning it was back to the bus for the long trip home, including another long layover in Salvador and another movie to pass the time (Monsters vs. Aliens this time!). Eventually we arrived back in Recife, and Joel headed back to Monteiro, where he’s living, while I staying in Recife for a bit. I got to the MCC office there where I was able to check my email for the first time in several days… when I found out I’m an uncle! Hooray!! A perfect end to a phenomenal vacation, I must say. I can’t wait to go back to Chapada Diamantina some day, there’s still so much more I want to explore!

[The blog site was not cooperating for me, so I couldn’t upload any pictures, but check out my Google Picasa Photos site for a bunch from our trip – there’s a link to it on the side bar of this blog!]