A Week in a Poem

While we regret to leave out the intricate details of our journey south, a briefer summary of our last few days in Brazil and our entire Uruguayan experience is necessary for us catch up to real time. So, a poem...

Limehouse hostel in Sao Paulo,
With a book exchange and a kitchen.
Near a grocery store and a bakery,
Our first real hostel stay was bitchin`.

We made mango shrimp with lots of garlic.
And breakfast was at Liberdade,
A Japonese street market.
But we were early, it was sad.

Vila Madalina´s a snazzy neighborhood,
With beer shops, parks, and a graffiti alley.
Our bar was closed and it started to rain,
But after a brief rest it was time to rally.

Meet a Belgian while cooking dinner,
Then to a bar for some ´craft´ beers.
Though, the (poor) quality and price we paid
Almost brought us tears.

Back to the hostel to grab our bags.
Rush to the metro to get to the bus station.
Play cards with some locals while we´re waiting.
Their good moods prevent a language barrier frustration.

Get to Curitiba at 5 in the morning,
Find a hotel and go to bed.
Wake up, free breakfast, and we wander the streets,
But things are all closed, it´s like the town is dead.

Public park with a zoo,
A used book store,
And dinner´s a giant pizza
Because it was the only open door

Wake up, pack, and try to leave.
We gave our smelly clothes to hotel receptionist
To wash and dry
But it takes so long our bus is almost missed.

We reach Port Alegre at 11 at night.
Acacia gets mistaken for a hooker
Goofey hats, a kilo of honey.
Shotgun beers with more than one on-looker.

All you can eat buffet full of vegies.
Visit a gaucho museum full of art.
Goodbye Brazil,
You were our start.

Border town of Chuy at 3am.
Lost exit card, but it was ok.
Supposed to be fined and held,
But waved into Uruguay.

Jump off bus at immigration,
To grab a new one for Punta del Diablo.
Sitting on cinder blocks at 5 in the morning,
Our moods were low.

Shuttle to a campground.
Pitch a tent and we´re out before first light.
We had no pesos
To pay for food or a campsite.

Only atm in town is broken,
So hitch a ride back to border
To change currencies
And get things in order.

Half-meter pizza for lunch
Then a ride back to Diablo.
John concocts mango shrimp for dinner
We eat by our headlamps´ glow.

John lost the sunscreen and demands a trip to town
With the sun directly above our head
Highest point in Uruguay is a no go
Acacia looks lobster red.

Everyone´s just BBQing on the grill
So John buys a hunk of beef at the store.
Acacia makes a SOUP to cure her cold.
Cooking over an open flame, dinner isn´t a bore

Bus to Montevideo and arrive hungry
Everything´s closed so pricey pizza for dinner
Montevideo Carnaval closures made it lacking
Cards and wine, after bad beers the winner.

John loses money at the casino
Plans fell through, one after the other
But we finally got our empanadas with dulce de leche
Bus/ferry tickets led to a smooth departure.

Confused arrival in Buenos Aires leads to a taxi.
Hostel´s are packed but we get lucky.
Some wandering and homemade pasta for cheap
Makes us happy.

We trek for good beer,
But its way too crowded
Cemetery, and biking in the rain.
We visit two breweries, its not regretted.

It´s 1 in the morning and we´re drunk
But we´re poets
This beer is good
And we didn´t know it.


Cheers folks!

Carnaval...

Our first taste of Carnaval happened by chance after we left the German restaurant. We had sought out ¨Rio´s Largest Bookstore", which was downtown near the restaurant, but it was closed so we kept it on the checklist for the nest couple of days. Fortunately, we found a crepe stand selling coconut and sweetened condensed milk crepes, so it was ok. Instead, we decided to wander through the streets downtown. There were many street vendors selling costume accessories and beer, so we kind of just followed an increasing density of vendors as we wandered deeper into the heart of downtown. As we walked, there seemed to be more and more people crowding in the streets all walking in the direction we were. Could this be a Carnaval event? Were we about to get our first taste of this magical week long celebration we`d anticipated so much? Well, eventually we reached a huge gathering of people who were all rushing to get in one of about 50 lines leading into this giant building. A stadium perhaps? Unsure of what was going on, we decided our best option was to jump in line. After a bit of standing there we realized that everyone else held tickets of some sort, so we went to explore what we were actually in line for and how to get tickets. Turns out it was just the ferry terminal and everyone was rushing home after work. Crazy. So we walked back in the direction we came from and heard some exceptionally loud music. With Samba school`s instruments as our guiding light we eventually found a largs stage of musicians and dancers and a whole bunch (the number is disputed) of people all partying in the streets. Needless to say, we joined in. We bought some Antarctica beer, which, as the name implies, is best consumed immediately from removal from the ice in order to avoid any flavors that might emerge from the corn based beer upon warming. We fought our way towards the stage and just as we reached a spot that seemed close enough the entire band and dancers began to parade through the crowd, encircled by a few dozen large men linking arms. And, like a bubble floating up through mollases, the entire mass slowly pushed through the crowd playing samba music and dancing. We walked with the parade a bit, and then got out in front to get the outside view and view the crowd rather than be in it. At roughly the moment we got to the front of the parade a bunch of fireworks went off in the square we were standing in and lit the night. Cheering ensued and the parade continued. We found a large government building in the parade´s path and perched ourselves up on some steps to get a better view and a seat.

bloco party in the street

While sitting there, a nice older guy who spoke decent English approached us and explained to us that the party going on was called a bloco and its one of 20 or so that would be happening throughout the week of Carnaval. He told us about the samba music and then gave us some ideas of what to do while we´re in Rio. After about 20 minutes he finally asked "Is my English improving?" and left us to continue our night, at which point we figured would consist of finding a churro stand and then working our way back to Copacobana to find our hotel. All the churro stands were closed, however, so we spent a while searching for an open one and then came to what looked like the remnants of another very loud bloco with a large float covered in speakers that were blasting our ear drums. We eventually found a bus headed in the general direction of our hotel and called it a night.

We woke up and asked the hotel receptionist about hiking up to Christ. He recommened a bus route, so of course, we didn´t follow his directions and attempted our own wayfinding to get there cheap. We walked FAR. After taking the metro to the base-ish of the neighborhood that led up the mountain to Christ we walked through the Santa Teresa favella (what exactly is a favella anyway?) and then some more through another neighborhood and then some more up through the Tijuca Forest National Park, until finally reaching the parking lot where all of the taxis and tour vans that were passing us on the way up were parked. After minor confusion we were told we needed to wait in a line to buy a ticket, although we weren´t sure what the ticket was really getting us. We barely had enough money to buy the tickets that we weren´t aware were required (even though John was here 2 years ago). Then, we got in another line, because that seemed like the thing to do and were quickly given the VIP service and waived to the front to hop in the front air conditioned seats of a shuttle, but really because we were a group of only two. No ticket needed yet. Once we arrived at the end of the road we gave our ticket to an attendant to enter the actual area of attraction.

View from the road about half way up the mountain

Acacia pointing to where we're trying to get to. That little figure way up on the mountain in the distance

We jumped in the elevator and arrived at the top, which was the ultimate clusterfuck of people all trying to pose like Christ on top of the railings meant to keep you from falling to your death, while their friends and family all sprawled on their backs on the ground attempting to photograph their friends with the statue. We took our obligatory pictures, and got a clear, but hazy 360 view of Rio.

View of the botanical gardens and the south side of the city from Christ

Imitating the busts

We felt like we should attempt to get our money´s worth hanging out at the top, but we were both incredibly hot, hungry, and thirsty. Also, crowds suck. So we began the long journey back down. Acacia fooled John into running part of the way, because it would be faster, which worked until John fooled Acacia into stopping to look at a monkey. Once out of the park we were able to catch a bus heading down (we didn´t care where) and ended up downtown. After stuffed churros and a per kilo buffet (this time Acacia was having the breakdown, but was just being a grump, not quite at the willing-to-eat-disgustingly-old-food point... standards or??) we went back to Rio´s largest bookstore and enjoyed the AC and bought a couple new books for way too much money, even after some successful haggling. We recouped at the hotel and then walked along the beach to Ipanema, where a local studying to be a tour guide had told us a bloco would be that night.


Upon reaching the Ipanema beach we made a similar attempt of following an increasing density of people and certified Antarctica sellers towards where we figured a bloco would be. Upon arriving at a square where hella people were dressed up, drinking, and starting to party we grabbed a seat to watch the action. We tried to quickly buy some beer and juice at a nearby market and burned about 30 minutes waiting in a massive amoeba of dumb underage kids trying to count their last pennies to buy some liquor and soda from the world´s most oblivious and slow cashier. We walked back to some seats in the plaza and sat there drinking beer for a while, just people watching and waiting for something exciting to happen. After a rather long wait, we were prepared to bus downtown to see what was going on there, but decided we should walk back towards the beach to check out the scene. We kind of just went with the river of people flowing along the beach walk towards the north end of Ipanema beach. Acacia spotted a crepe stand so, naturally, we got ourselves a coconut and sweetened condensed milk crepe to eat with our beers on the beach while we watched the line of dudes all peeing into the waves. At the north end of the beach we found a large crowd surrounding a stage of samba performers. Rather than join the crowd, we climbed up onto some rocks, the same rocks my dad had snapped a photo of some big Brazilian butts a couple years earier, and enjoyed the music from our perch up above the action. After killing our beers and then relieving our bladders, with me using the ocean and Acacia a port-a-potty, we decided to fight our way through the crowd and make our way to a bus downtown. Crowd fighting proved more difficult than anticipated as we almost ended up in the middle of a fight and came within inches of getting nailed by a fire cracker, but we finally got through to a bus stop and waited for any bus that was went towards downtown. Also a challenge because we only knew the word ´centro´ which didn´t appear on any of the first dozen buses, so we hopped on a bus that a bunch of costumed people were getting on figuring they were probably heading to the party. After a looooong bus ride and seeming to go everywhere in Rio besides downtown, I finally just said we should get off at the next stop because we were in an area I recognized as being close to downtown. It just so happened that the next stop was at the sambadrome!

At the sambadrome watching Carnaval Day 1 of 2013!

Even better than downtown, this is where the official parade was going on. So, to feed our indulgences yet again, we bought a skewer of fried shrimp and an abacaje and then made our way towards the entrance. Scalpers surrounded us so we eventually tried to haggle for tickets into the parade, but the language barrier and complete lack of knowledge about where the good seats were made doing so nearly impossible. Acacia came up with the idea of getting a predetermined amount of money we wanted to spend and just walk up to the scalpers with it in our hands until one of them traded us tickets for money. Worked like a charm! We ended up in the first section, which was where the dancers and floats began their parade down this massive stadium that was essentially bleacher seats along either side of a quarter mile stretch of road. The place was packed with people drinking and dancing this crazy fast ´samba´ business to the samba schools´ parade of a band followed by floats, a few competitive samba dancers and large number of costumed public that just signed up to be in the parade.

Each school spent about an hour doing their best to impress the judges and get a spot at the champions competition the following year. Fireworks introduced each new school which we stayed for 4 of. By about 3am we decided it was time to start heading back to our hotel. We grabbed some more fried shrimp on the way out and then wandered in the direction we thought a bus would be in. After several blocks of walking through a fairly sketchy area of Rio, we realized that the same ease of walking we had with no vehicles on the road also meant that we hadn´t seen any buses. Damn. Fortunately we found a metro station within eyesight of the bus stop and caught a train towards Copacobana. We got back to our hotel around 4:30 and then showered and crashed for a few hours of rest before breakfast and checkout...

Trying to catch up a bit here...

So our bus ride to rio didn´t quite go as planned. We were told that it would be between 24-26 hours to get to Rio from Lencois. Since we left Lencois at 10am, we figured by 12pm we´d be enjoying some pre-Carnaval festivities. However, after the bus stopped for about 4 meals at per kilo buffets and picked up/dropped off what seemed like a hundred people along the way, 12pm rolled around and we had no feeling of being particularly close to any kind of urban zone, let alone a 6 million person city on the coast surrounded by mountains. Also, the signs on all the roads kept having signs pointing towards Rio that the bus wasn´t following. At the next meal stop around 3pm, we got off with a couple other English speaking backpackers  and determined that we were past Rio. When we tried to get the bus driver´s attention, he just kind of waved us off and went to stuff his face at the buffet. So we waited at the door of the bus for him to come back and Acacia tapped in on the shoulder and quite eloquently said "Rio?". The bus driver turned to her with a look of confusion as if to say "you´re way off track buddy" and then confirmed that we actually did want to go to Rio and not Sao Paulo, which is apparently where the bus was heading. The two backpackers who were also trying to get there bags off the bus to jump on a bus actually headed for Rio told us that the same lady who sold us the bus tickets had told them to get off at a specific bus station about 30 minutes outside of Rio that our Sao Paulo bound bus would stop at. Unfortunately, either because of a language barrier or because she thought we were with the other backpackers, that same information was not conveyed to us. In any case, we got our bags, bought tickets to Rio, and ate some ice cream while we waited for the next bus to Rio, which would take another 4 hours and get us to our hostel about 8pm, a full 32 hours after we were supposed to check-in in one of the most crowded cities in the world for the particular week we chose to visit. Well, we hit some pretty intense traffic, which delayed us getting to the bus station in Rio until 9:30pm and to our hotel around 10:30pm. Luckily our room was still available. So, we checked in, showered, and then went to find food, which ended up being a grilled cheese for the vedge and a ham and cheese pastry thing for me with some stale chocolate (esque) cake for dessert. Then we made it back to the hostel for the first real sleep in a while.

The next day we went for a walk along Copacabana where our hostel was and then rounded the corner to walk down Ipanema beach. Acacia made the same realization I made when I was in Rio a couple of years ago; people on the beaches aren´t as attractive as Rio wants you to believe. In fact, you really can´t even tell if some of the beach patrons are even wearing swimsuits because of the excess mass which just kind of rolled over the skimpy fabric that may have existed.

Acacia Being a Monster Along side Some Graffiti between Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches 

Acacia Doing a "workout" on the way to the botanical gardens

It was pretty warm so we headed into the streets both to find a bank and to get a bit of shade from the tall buildings to avoid any serious sunburns. We ventured along the streets following signs to the Botanical Gardens, which I was under the impression was relatively close, like a mile or so. After walking for about 2 hours though, I began to realize this wasn´t what I had signed up for, which wouldn´t normally be a problem, but I was very low on blood sugars and needed some food fast in order to avoid possible collapse. However, my brain wasn´t caught up with my blood sugar content, and it took walking through and past a local market for me to realize how hungry I was. So I walked straight in to the closest bar and was about to order the fried fish and fried egg that had probably been sitting behind the counter for the last couple of days when Acacia convinced me to handle myself and wait for some better food. Well, I barely made it into the Botanical Gardens about 20 minutes later, and we went straight to the garden cafe which had outrageously priced salads and soups. Great. We ended up going to the closest bench and busting out a bag of granola and some crackers that we had stuffed into the Google backpack that we carry everyhwere, and it was enough to revive me for our walk in the gardens. The garden was huge! And to tackle the whole thing, I attempted to us the tried and true depth first search algorithm I´d learned in one of my computer science classes. Unfortunately, it didn´t work because the map of the gardens had cycles in it, so we ended up just kind of wandering in a giant loop and trying to see as much as possible. There was an herb garden, a giant orchid building, and a building dedicated to plants related to pineapples (I forget their scientific name)(Acacia edit: bromeliads). A lot of the plants had striped leaves with colors besides green, so Acacia and I combined her very practical knowledge of why plants have non-green foliage with my physics knowledge using light wavelengths to come up with a hypothesis of why plants would do that. It was pretty satisfying when we read about it on a sign and we had gotten it spot on. There was a giant lily pond, some spikey bushes that got our legs along the path, and giant trees with Jack Fruits, some of which had fallen off and were rotting on the ground, making for a lovely scent. Anyway, we were getting tired and ready to do something else, so we filled up our water bottles in the bathroom and left.

Who knows why bromeliads have yellow stripes?

Japanese tea garden area of the botanical gardens

We didn´t really know how to get downtown, but that´s where we were aiming for. We walked over to where buses were picking people up, but none of them said ´centro´ on them, so Acacia was ready to walk back to Ipanema and catch one of the centro buses we had seen there. I, fearing another blood sugar crash, opted to ask the nice looking police officer where to get a centro bus. He pointed us in the right direction, and we were on our way to find the German food restaurant we had read about that apparently serves dark beer. On the bus ride I spotted the famous Escadaria Selaron tiled steps that we had to go to before leaving Rio. We hopped off the bus and walked down the alley with the sign that Acacia translated to mean ¨don´t walk here.¨ The same alley John realized his tour guide had also told him not to walk down when he was in Rio a few years ago. Ooops. We survived though, and made it to the first REALLY touristy area of the trip. Rightfully so, the stairs are pretty amazing. The artist receives tiles from around the world and is constantly changing the ones on the stairs. Acacia is pretty sure that she saw some with Haida art, but this hasn´t been confirmed yet.

After the stairs we walked to the German restuarant and were greeted by a waiter in Portuguese that we didn´t understand. John´s low on calorie brain assumed the appropriate response was "obrigado" or thankyou. The waiter just walked away, we assumed to get us an English menu because we are clearly very dumb, but really he just didn´t want to deal with us. We grabbed another waiter and ordered some dark beer... that tastes like the other beer, but with food coloring. A bit of a let down. The food is too expensive, but as mentioned before, John is prone to foodpanic attacks, so we decide to order off the appetizer menu and end up getting 4 fried eggs, a small basket of bread, and a platter of fried garlic (how could we pass that up, right?).

Our First Trek in South America

Sorry its been a while since our last blog post folks, but we´ve been travelling fast without a lot of time or access to internet.

To pick up where we left off. Canoa. The pousada we stayed at in Canoa Quebrada was probably the best one yet. Ocean views with our own private room and bathroom, a hammock on our balcony, and windows that opened up to let in the first cool breeze we`d experienced in Brazil.  After checking in, we decided to walk through town and quickly realized how touristy it was. Every other vehicle is a dune buggy blasting music with a driver just waiting for the next sucker who wants a ride to the dunes for 200 bucks or something. And, while Brazil has a strict zero tolerance policy in regards to drinking and driving, apparently that only applies to licensed vehicles as we saw several buggy drivers pounding cold Skols (Brazil`s most popular beer) as they drove around town. As we walked through town we found our first open French bakery and ate a delicious croque monsieur and a quiche followed by some chocolate cake. Canoa was pretty much a hang out at the beach kind of a place and so we made several hikes from our pousada up on the cliff down to the beach and back up, always after the sun was mostly down so we could avoid antother serious sunburn. On one particular trip back from the beach we found a large group of locals out on a cliff dancing/working out by stepping on and off some purple blocks to some exceptionally loud American pop music led by a rather flamboyant man who was urging people to join. While neither of us were very keen on that kind of thing, we did stay for a while and watch this La Jolla soccer moms - Canoa Style kind of event because it was pretty entertaining.

On a bridge over the cliffs above the beach with

After a couple of days of enjoying ourselves on the beach swimming and hucking disk, we began our long bus journey to Lencois. No amount of mental preparation could have prepared us for the bussing we were about to embark on; a one hour van ride to Aracati, 4 hour bus to Fortaleza, and then a 23 hour bus ride to Salvador followed by a 6 hour bus ride to Lencois. Yikes! We were fortunate enough to have a 7 hour layover in Fortaleza, so we left our bags at a luggage storage place at the bus station and headed for the beach. We were both very low on calories for the day, so made an attempt to find a seafood market our guidebook mentioned. After walking for "500 meters" which felt suspiciously more like 2 miles and in the hot sun on the beach we got to a small group of locals playing cards on what looked to be a bunch of sales booths that were completely closed down. Damn! I guess we aren´t getting any garlic shrimp. So we walk back the direction we came from and stop at the first restaurant on the beach where the waiter recommends something that includes fish and we sit down to cold beer and wait for the food. About 10 minutes later the waiter brings out a whole fried fish. We´re both stoked and Acacia kind of looks at it and then with a slight look of concern on her face says "I don´t know how to approach eating a whole fried fish?". So I pull most of the meat off the fish and divide it onto our two plates. After the first taste, we both realize it needs some hot sauce. Acacia struggles a bit getting the hot sauce out of the bottle because the lid isn´t really attached. So when I get it, the rate of hot sauce expulsion from this bottle is way to slow and I proceed to squeeze the bottle hard with the hopes of extracting hot sauce a couple drips faster in order to start eating 30 seconds faster than if I had just patiently used the hot sauce like a normal human being. Pop! Instead I ended up with a plate, both hands, my phone, the guidebook, and both shorts and shirt covered in hot sauce. That didn`t really slow me down however, and I just used a couple napkins to clean myself and then dug in. Afterwards, we walked down the beach for a bit, dreadfully gazing at all the people doing cardio in the humid heat, and enjoying our last few hours off a bus for the next day or so. 5:20 rolls around, and Acacia realizes that we have to be back to the bus station soon and we´re not even sure the best way to get there. We proceed to walk to where we think the local bus will pick us up, which takes about 30 minutes, and jump on the first one that says rodoviaria, the bus station. Well, 6:15 must be rush hour or something because this bus got so full it was kind of like standing at the front of a Metallica concert. With little control of where we moved, and being driven by a raving maniac, we were crammed into the bus next to a bunch of other sweaty people just kind of swaying as part of a giant mass of people as the apparently brakeless bus rounded corners on its way to the bus station. After about 25 minutes, the bus station comes into view and Acacia and I fight our way to the front, literally reaching over people to grab the hand railing and pulling/slithering our way through the crowd to get to the exit. At the stop, we kind of shot out from all the pressure. Anyway, we made it to our bus with 10 minutes to spare, got on, and tilted the chairs back in an attempt to sleep through the night. 23 hours later we arrived in Salvador at 6:00pm, and immediately went searching for tickets to Lencois because we did not want to be stuck in the Salvador bus station overnight. We found tickets for 10:15, so spent the next few hours eating Subway, which makes for particularly difficult ordering in a foreign language, and McDonald`s while playing cards. Again, we tried to sleep on this bus, but the winding mountain roads made that all but impossible.

Whole fried fish

Acacia reading on the beach in Fortaleza

We arrived in Lençois around 4:30am and had not booked a hostel or anything. Sitting behind the bus station in the middle of the night, I had no plan, and Acacia´s big plan was to go to the front of the bus station, which we did (Acacia´s edit: waiting in front of the bus station would definitely have worked, that´s where Jao Paulo was heading). I considered getting a hotdog from the hotdog stand that was open (why is there a hotdog stand open at 4:30am and who eats from it?), but opted not to after some convincing.We ended up following some Dutch girls who were also plan-less and wandered towards the center of town. While crossing the bridge into downtown, a friendly English speaking guy on a bike, who we later learned to be a trekking guide named Jao Paulo, asked if we needed a place to stay. Jao Paulo to the rescue! He took us to a room in a pousada he was somehow affiliated with, said we´d get to stay for 1 night free if we went on a trek with him, told us to rest and that he would find us in the morning to talk about possible treks in the national park nearby. After a few hours of rest, we woke up to a wonderful breakfast of cake, juice, fried eggs, and ham and cheese sandwiches prepared by the pousada owner, Lurdinha, who told us that tomorrow would be a grande breakfast. Awesome. We walked into town and went to a couple of guiding agencies to get a feel for the options and prices of different treks to make sure we weren´t getting screwed over by Paulo. Paulo saw us walking out of one of the guiding companies` storefront and quickly came over to start talking about treks he could take us on and some prices. He bought us juice and a coconut bar, like a macaroon, to sweeten the deal. We decided on a 3 day trek to 5 waterfalls that was ´strenuous`. He showed us around town a bit, and then took us to some swimming holes and a waterfall just outside of town. It was great to be in the mountains finally!

Acacia in one of the swimming holes near town

Me near the river that runs through town

He then left us to go do some work, and we explored town a bit more and ended up getting some salmon ravioli in mango sauce for dinner. So good!

Delicious mango shrimp ravioli

The next morning we woke up, packed our bags, ate a huge breakfast with these little fried cheese pesto balls that were amazing, and met Paulo at our pousada who informed us that a different guide would be leading our trek. Questionable? Anyway, we hopped on some mototaxis and had the best ab workout ever trying to stay on those things with backpacks as we zoomed over dirt roads to the beginning of the trek. There, we officially met Sparrow, a pretty haggard looking guy, who spoke English and was to be our guide for the trip. We learned that he was originally from the jungle, but moved to a big city elsewhere in Brazil and had come to Lencois to visit and loved it so much that he moved out to Lencois. He was apparently also the son of a shaman and knew a lot about the plants around as well as a fair amount about the mining history of the area. Although he was a bit of a chatterbox, he was pretty funny and a great guide. Anyway, the trek started out with a pretty big climb up from the valley to a ridge, and then dropped down to our first waterfall.

Acacia in our first waterfall

 The water was the color of tea because of organic matter and a pretty great temperature to cool off in. We swam while Sparrow made lunch, which ended up being an amazing vegetable salad with bread, cheese, and tuna. After lunch we carried our bags about 3 minutes further to the top of the waterfall and dropped them there, at the spot that would eventually become our campsite. We hiked packless about a mile further up the river, mostly hopping from rock to rock. At this point the river was flowing in a pretty steep canyon, so to avoid swimming up the river we climbed on the edge of the canyon wall. The rock was pretty crumbly in some places and we were definitely higher than I (Acacia) would have normally climbed, but if we fell it would have been into the water below us that looked pretty deep. John somehow managed to drop his sunglasses into the water, so climbed down and attempted to dive for them. Since the water is so dark, and there was pretty much no sunshine reaching the bottom of the canyon he didn´t have any luck.

John trying to find his sunglasses

We continued climbing on the side of the canyon until we reached the waterfall. It kinda felt like we were in a cave. There were steep rock walls on three sides, with water pouring over most of them, and since it wasn´t midday, it was fairly dark.

Us at the next waterfall

We stayed until we got cold (what!? cold in Brazil!?) and then backtracked back down the river. After a few attempts at some climbing routes that weren´t gonna happen, we made it back to our campsite and played some frisbee, met some guys camping across the river from us from Italy, and ate an epic fish curry made by Sparrow.

The next day we had a tasty fruit salad with granolla and honey from the Chapada and then river rock hopped for less than an hour to the next waterfall. This one had some huge chunks of conglomerate rock that had fallen off the top that looked like manmade concrete with smaller rocks stuck into it. After this morning break we hiked back up to the ridge and then along the ridge above the same river and then back down again (about 2 hours in total) and breaked for lunch-more vegetable salad- and then river rock hopped up a new river for not more than 2 hours again to the next waterfall, where we would be camping that night. We swam under the waterfall and lounged on the still warm rocks in the shade before setting up our tent on a rock outcropping above the river. Sparrow made us pasta for dinner with biso chocolate for dessert.

Acacia swimming in the pool below the 3rd waterfall

Our last day we had fruit salad, and then walked up a ways to our last waterfall for a dip before a bigger climb up to the ridge. We reached a lookout where we could see pretty much everywhere we had been on this 3 day trip (we certainly were not covering ground) and then began the descent towards town. Our last stop was at a rock waterslide where there were loads of people (locals and tourists) swimming. John went down the waterslide once, almost turning sideways with a look of terror on his face the whole time. Acacia decided she liked not having a bruised tailbone, so skipped it. After one last Sparrow lunch we walked the easy 4 km back to town.

The next day was fairlñy uneventful, we rested and planned to leave the next day for Rio, but couldn´t make any real plans because the bus station was closed. When that day came, turns out the bus wasn´t actually running as posted, which meant we would miss one of our nights we had reserved in Rio. Bummer. We went back to the waterslide and played cards and watertreading frisbee all morning. In the afternoon more people came to the waterslide and we witnessed how not to go down the waterslide (on your knees, outside of the water channel) and how the locals do it (standing up backwards and then backflipping into the pool). We hung around with some other backpackers from the States and Canada and then went back to happy hour in the evening.

The next day we had a big breakfast, John wrote a blog and we prepared to leave, cutting it kind of close with our packing. As I finished packing the google bag, John went to pay Lurdinha. What a disaster. Apparently Jao Paulo had not told Lurdinha about our one night free deal and was conveniently away on a trek. We were in a huge rush to catch our bus, but Lurdinha was blocking the door. Between Lurdinha´s English speaking son, every other guest at the hostel, and some man who we assumed was there as muscle, we finally made it apparent that we were giving her all the money we had (enough for staying for 3 days, the 2 extra breakfasts we ate, and the $12R we had for snack money), which ended up being totally okay with her afterall. We ran down the hill to the bus station, and made it just as the bus was supposed to be leaving, but it wasn´t there yet. Figures. 45 minutes later we were on the bus to Rio.

Greetings from Lencois!

We spent a day camping in Jeri for a couple of reasons; we wanted to save money since we have been a bit over budget so far in Brazil and because we needed to justify hauling 20 pounds and its associated volume of camping/mountaineering gear along thousands of kilometers of coastal Brazil. We had intended on spending 2 nights in Jeri, but when we went to get the bus tickets they were sold out of any tickets for the morning of our (would-be) 3rd day there.

Our hike in Jeri overlooking the ocean

So we bought tickets to Fortaleza for late on our second night in Jeri. We spent most of the day swimming and climbing a very windy sand dune to run down. We also checked out a tide pool--fairly lifeless--and did some beach stretching. We made some Mac n Cheese with sardines for dinner and met a lovely German couple in the communal kitchen who complained a bit about how inconsiderate the youths at the campground were (and we had to agree since we like to go to bed sometime before 3am generally speaking). They also shared some stories from Germany and gave us advice on our travels south since that´s where they were coming from, and mostly it was just nice to speak to others who knew English. We jumped on a bus super late, and the first was a leg across the beach in an open air Indiana Jones ride type of bus. Very bumpy and exhuasted us had to fight falling asleep so we nor our stuff bounced out across the sand from the hard wooden bus bench we sat on. Once we got to Jijoca it was another 6 hours on normal roads to Fortaleza.

Arriving in Fortaleza at 5 in the morning we immediately found some comfortable looking cement steps to nap on. I found a bus company that had connections to Canoa Quebrada, and the first bus left around 6:15. Perfect! Short little nap, grab some breakfast, and then jump on the bus to Canoa. Or not. We failed to consider the fact that the ticketing booth wouldn't open until 7:45 (even though the sign claimed it opened at 5:30) and since we had no idea where to pick up the bus we got so spend a few hours reading and eating 'cake of cheese´, a strange yet enticing dessert akin to sweet swiss cheese cake, in the Fortaleza bus station. We finally saw the ticket booth open and I ran up, asked for the 8am bus to Canoa and was told to follow some guy in a blue official-ish looking shirt outside and across a busy street to where a jenky bus would pick us up. So I quickly flagged Acacia and we ran after this guy booking it to the bus stop. The bus was a small no a/c type of bus that stopped constantly to pick people up along this 4 hour route to Aracati. Once in Aracati, deep into a podcast of 'Bottom of the Bottle' learning about lagers, we were signalled to jump off the bus, and pile into a van. The bus driver grabbed our bags, threw them into the van, handed the van driver a few reals, and we were off to Canoa. The driver asked where we wanted to go, so we quickly flipped through our guide book and pointed to a recommended pousada. He had no idea where it was, so asked a couple of locals, and then proceeded to drive in circles until I noticed out of the corner of my eye a small sign 'Hostel Europa'. ´Hostel Europa!' I yell, and he abrubtly stops and we proceed to our hostel.... to be continued...

The view from our pousada

Acacia reading in the hammock on our front porch