Bonito
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2008
1
12
98
Trip End
Mar 27, 2009
Bonito,
Brazil
Saturday, April 12, 2008
So we finally made it to Bonito (means Pretty in English) - a lovely little town. We found this great bar where you could write on the walls and had cute stray dogs! It was lovely and warm but during in the night there was a massive storm and as a result the next morning it was fleece and coat weather! Oh no!!
Bonito is renowned for fresh water snorkelling and caving - most of it is on private land but they limit the amount of people who go at any one time, it is an eco-tourism site to make sure it is not destroyed.
We decided to go snorkelling for the day even though Claire has never done it before and was terrified! The thought of the anacondas, caimans and of drowning wasnīt appealing to her but this was a once is a life time opportunity to go fresh water snorkelling so she went for it!
We had a two hour BUMPY bus journey to the farm and when we got there we had to get into our figure hugging wetsuits. As you can imagine, Julie struggled to zip this up over her boobs! We then had to endure a 45 minute walk through the forest, hoping to see wildlife but due to the storm there wasnīt any! At the end of the walk there is a spring pool where you get to practice - at this site you are not allowed to touch the floor or rocks as this destroys the habitat and makes it difficult to see the fish. First of all you canīt use your feet to swim but this is okay because the current takes you along and you float in wetsuits. This is something which is surprisingly easy to adapt to.
A beer tower - why don´t they have these in the UK
The hardest thing for Claire was been told to dunk her head under the water and then getting the mask shoved on by Now our instructor!
We then set off in single file down the river (claire at the front for safety!), we saw some beautiful fish but no anacondas which we were all disappointed at! Near the end there was some fast rapids so you have to get out because they are too fast. We had to trust Now to catch us just before the rapids. Once around the rapids we discovered we had to go down some rapids, trying to stay to the left to avoid the rocks is quite hard to do with the current. After a few scrapes and bumps we made it.
The next hurdle was getting under a fallen tree - this was not explained when we paid our money! This was quite hard to do when you are not comfortable under water. However, Now pushes you under so it wasnīt that hard to do.
At the very end there was a spring pool which is the only place you can dive down to the bottom. At the bottom you can see bubbling sand and the water is lovely and warm. 5 feet from this the water is freezing - we then had the option of swimming in cold water for a further 700 metres and doing further exercise or getting the boat back. Iīm sure you can all guess what we chose.......
correct the energetic swim
.....not!
When we got back to the farm we had a great lunch which is all organic and produced on the farm. Normally you would chill out in the hammocks but because we were so cold and wet we decided to go back to Bonito.
That evening we went back to the same bar after some retail therapy. Claire went home early because she was so cold (she had her thermal socks on!) but I stayed on and attempted Salsa with Alvero, our tour guide.
