Days 56-62 Waterfalls, Caves & Grutas By ES

Trip Start Nov 28, 2007

Trip End Feb 15, 2008

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Flag of Brazil Lencois, Brazil
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Day 1
We took the overnight bus from Salvador to Lençois and managed to get some sleep before arriving there at 5:30 am. We were bombarded by the (now familiar) group of guides trying to get us to take this tour or stay at that pousada. Even though familiar, it's never fun to wake up and 5 minutes later to powerwalk following a stranger to an unknown destination when you never know how far it is.

We set up camp and napped for a bit before being awoken by the whoosh THUMP of bombs exploding around our tent. Well, they were actually ripe mangos that would rain down on the campsite any time the wind blew. The campsite was full of really tall mango trees packed with mangos. Locals (friends of the owners) would come onto the property and leave with shopping bags full of mangos every morning. It was a little nerve wracking at first, but we eventually got used to it and were able to sleep.

So Lençois has a tour guide mafia that pushes guides on you on even the simplest hikes. There are no good maps of the trails and no signs at any trail heads. I really think they took everything down to force the tourists to hire guides for the day. Carolyn and I weren't going to fall for it, though. We had done some research online and found tips on how to get to some of the trailheads and destinations. Even so, our first day, we ended up "stalking" a guide to find the trailhead. We lost him as he sped walked around a corner, but we found our own route to the trail. We hiked for about 2.5 hours to try to find a waterfall (Cachoeira do Sossego) and got as far as the riverbed we thought we had to cross, but couldn't find the trail again on the other side.

Appalachia or Chapada?

Carolyn and the highlands

Riverbed

Carolyn and cool rock formation

Long way up

We explored around the area, but then decided to hike back to a really nice swimming hole down stream a ways. The water was clear but brown like Coca Cola.

Coca Cola Water

Yippie!!!

Cold Water!

We hiked back to Lençois, dreaming of açai the entire way since it was so hot out and had not had a proper lunch. We got back at around 5 and went straight to the açai place where we each had our biggest bowl of açai yet, 500 mL each!

Happy, fluffy cloud.

More clouds and view

Hiking

We showered and rested for a bit, only to be awaken by what sounded like a marching band. I was antsy to see what the party was all about, but Carolyn was still sleeping. Finally, she got up and we headed into town to catch the band coming around the block for the last time. We had an appetizer, and later on the party started back up again with a giant truck with giant speakers blaring music and a stage on top with the DJ and dancers (see video). We bumped into 2 guys from Rio that were camping at our site and ended up hanging out with them and some other people they met from Rio at a Cachaçaria (cachaça is the most popular type of liquor in Brazil). We had little shots of cachaça mixed drinks and headed back to the campsite after a long day.

Day 2
The random people from Rio had been to the waterfall we were looking for already, and they gave us some tips on where it was. So we took the Rio boys with us (Fabio and Rafael), and led the way to the waterfall, which was only 20 minutes upstream from where we had stopped the day before. The waterfall was awesome, but what was more cool was the huge deep crystal clear brown lake at the bottom. Carolyn jumped in the water from the 15 ft rock, but there was one even taller (about 30 ft) that other guys jumped in from.

Lil Waterfall

Resting after a hike

Carolyn in the crystal clear brown water.

Waterfall (Cachoeira do Sossego)

Climbing around the river

Erin at Sossego

Cachoeira do Sossego 2nd view

Erin at Sossego again

Long hike back + more açai, shower, dinner, then met up with an Asian guy (Flavio) and his hippie girlfriend (Barbara) we had met at the waterfall to team up on other hikes/trips. We agreed to go with them on a guided tour the next day (to get a better group deal). It was just supposed to be a day trip, but they ended up waking us up at our campsite later that night to propose their better deal...

Day 3
Left at 8 am in an SUV with our packs to embark on our trip. We visited Poço do Diabo (waterfall and clear brown pool),

Poço do Diabo

Pai Inacio (tall plateau with great view and story),

Pai Inacio

Bikini hiking in front of Pai Inacio

Bikini hiking X2

View from Pai Inacio

More view from PI

Enjoying the cold breeze at Pai Inacio

View # 334 from Pai Inacio

Catcus Face

Livin on the Edge!

Flavio and his meditation pose. Scary cliff!!!

Incline push ups with a view.

Free bird!

Pratinhas (cold cave snorkle and clear blue waters),

Erin about to get in the cold, clear, cave water.

Cave water + Cave Fishies

Erin snorkeling just outside the cave.

Cave water

Carolyn chillin just outside the cave

Lagoa Azul in Pratinhas

Erin on the lake side Pratinhas

Poço Azul (clear blue water cave when sun shines in),

and Gruta da Lapa Doçe (cave).

No pooping! A Chapada rule for river & cave areas

Carolyn and wart tree

Outside Gruta Lapa Doce

We headed back to Poço do Diabo, where we stayed the night. It was a pousada built into the caves where the diamond miners used to stay. It had a nice sandy camping area along the river,

Erin up and ready to go...

Campsite with Flavio and Barbara

River next to campsite

Monkey!

Room at the rock pousada

Stairs to the bathroom and upper rooms

so we camped there with Flavio and Barbara. There was only one shower in the public area, which was pretty crazy looking.

Rock Pousada shower

Then we had dinner with delicious watermelon juice. It made me wonder why I've never had watermelon juice before, considering I always eat and love watermelon. Headed back to the campsite, and it was a beautiful clear starry night, so we slept with the rainfly off and enjoyed the spectacular view.

Day 4

The guide was supposed to meet us sometime to take us on the 3-day hike back to Lençois, but Flavio didn't seem to have all of the specifics on when our guide was supposed to meet us, so we headed back to Poço do Diabo, just a short hike down the riverbed.

Water slide

b-e-a-utiful!

Waterfall Poço do Diabo

Carolyn at Poço do Diabo

Whoaa!!

Erin posing

Poço do Diabo

Carolyn doing the waterfall splitz

Another cool swim

They had a zip line and rappel set up, but we didn't use either of them.

Erin, playin with rappel rope

Carolyn on rappel rope

Flavio being a gymnast

We had plenty of time to play and swim in the different waterfalls.

Carolyn at Poço do Diabo

Carolyn between 2 falls

Splish splash

Carolyns favorite pose

Flavio bumped into his pousada owner who had set up the 3-day trip for us, but he told us that the guide had fallen through, but he was trying to get another one, and if worse came to worse, he would just leave the food for us. After playing for a few hours, we headed back to the campsite to meet our guide or get our food. But neither were there, so there was a lot of frantic/confused running around by Flavio before we decided to give up and catch a ride back to Lençois with some mattress delivery men. They charged us $5/each, but it was better than hiking without food back. Upon our return, we stopped by the bus station to get tickets to our next stop and ran into another guide that Flavio knew who was surprised to see us back in Lençois. He told us our guide had left at 1 pm to meet us, but he was a day late and a dollar short. Carolyn and I were a little disappointed about the change of plans, so we treated ourselves to a fine lunch. Just across the street, there was a lot of commotion, so we checked it out while waiting for our food to get done and it was a 3 on 3 futsal tournament. It was interesting to watch because only half the players wore shoes, and the ones who didn't were running around on a blaring hot black court made of rocks. After finishing our delicious meals, we headed back to watch the tournament and enjoyed a couple of beers before taking the bus to Palmeiras where we had to get into a 1980s SUV to take a very bumpy 1-hour ride to Capão, another city in the heart of Chapada Diamantina. Upon arrival, we found a campsite and hit the hay.

Day 5

We had a good breakfast and bumped into Rafael and Fabio, who sheepishly told us they took a bus there instead of hiking the 15 mile trail they had been trying to get us to join them on. After breakfast, we used our anti-guide trickery to find the trailhead to the Smoke Waterfall (Cachoeira da Fumaça), the tallest waterfall in S. America. We signed in with the guide post and went on the 2 hour hike to the waterfall. You'd never know you were in Brazil, it looked just like the Appalacians. We arrived at the waterfall (or non-waterfall should I say, because it was the end of the dry season and there was no flowing water), but that didn't take away from the beauty of the 400 m drop. We took some scary pictures (out on a ledge with nothing under us but 400 m of air), had a snack and headed back.

On a plateu of Cachoeira da Fumaça

Erin hiking on the plateu of Cachoeira de Fumaça

Carolyn at the top of the Smokey Falls area

Erin above Smokey Falls area

Erin again

STEEP CLIFF

Carolyn over 400 Meters of air

Carolyn 2

Erin above 400 Meters of air

REI photo ad - after a long days hike

Later we headed into town to see the nightlife, but there really wasn't much. The town was really quite dreadful, or full of dreds I should say... locks, that is. The place was full pot-smokin hippies. The most exciting thing going on at the town square was the sound of a horse galloping at full speed... We turned to see what it was, and it turned out to be a young boy biking down a hill, and pulling a horse on a rope, with 3 stray dogs sprinting after them.

Day 6
We heard about another waterfall, and we got the general info using our trickery once again from a young girl selling us fruit salad. We hiked for about 30 minutes when we decided we had made a wrong turn. We headed back in another direction, and were encouraged to find a sign that said no pooping on the river bed to protect the town's water supply. We followed the trail down to the almost dry river bed, but it was still flowing enough to swim in. The only people there were 3 hippies, chanting and playing bongos. I sat down first to have a snack and take my boots off, when Carolyn asked me to hand her the camera about 6 ft away. Turns out I had unknowingly stepped over an extremely large spider, and she took some photos (with scale) to show me afterwards. We played for about an hour and a half and did an insane amount of incline push ups since the terrain was perfect.

BIG Spider

Spider territory riverbed (5 element picture)

We figured the waterfall we were supposed to go to had to be downstream and close by, so we headed down the river bed. We walked for 30 minutes over very rough rocks and were about to turn around when Carolyn suggested we go just a little further. Thank goodness we did! Not even a minute later, we heard voices and found the waterfall, full of tourists and locals. We decided to go for a swim, but the top of my bikini had some how fallen off the back of Carolyn's backpack, and we weren't going back to find it. So Carolyn being the nice friend, let me borrow her bikini while she swam in her sports bra and my lonely bottoms. Long hike back, lunch with lots of flies (I've perfected the eating with one hand and waving with the other technique), packed up bags, and headed back to Palmeiras on an even bumpier ride in a 1970s station wagon. Poor Carolyn had to sit in the back seat with 3 other people, 2 of which were smelly hippies who didn't believe in showers. She timed the entrance perfectly though, so she would get in last to sit between the window, and a British girl to buffer the hippies' scent. I was lucky to be told by the driver to sit in front because I was tall! The car rattled and chirped so loudly that we could barely hear the engine on, but we were lucky, because the 1970s vehicle that had left just before us got a flat tire on the way. We made it safely to our bus for the night ride to Salvador, but were awoken at 4 am wondering why our bus had stopped. Turns out IT had blown 1 or 2 tires and it took about 2 hours to fix. We finally arrived in Salvador at 7 in the morning.