Chapadas Veadeiros

We drove to Patrícia's sister's farm for the weekend, about two and a half hours away. The area is right next to a National Park called Chapadas Veadeiros that has many many waterfalls and beautiful hiking areas. It also has a Valley of the Moon that is just like the surface of the moon.

We stayed in one of the two little houses on the farm, relaxed, ate, played in the small lake, ate, and ate some more. For dinner we did 3 fondues: Wine for meat, cheese for bread, and chocolate for bananas. We wanted more fruit but the selection in the tiny nearby town was not good. What was really good was to cook the meat in the wine and then dip it in the cheese. Mmmmmmm fattening. I forced myself to drink several glasses of wine to counteract all the fat.

A friend of the family invited us to his resort the next day to play in the waterfalls. It was only a couple kilometers away and we got in for free of course. I was impressed, it reminded me a lot of places I have been to in Hawaii. The best part for me of course was jumping from the tallest thing I could find into the water. The water was a perfect temperature and 8 meters deep (25ft). You can see in the picture it had a huge cavern too. In the back of the cavern there was a tunnel that went to the middle of the back of the waterfall. Really cool.

I was in demand as a jumping partner for all the kids (and her sisters) because they wanted to hold my hand and have me there to help them swim after the jump. I do not know how many times I jumped, climbed up, jumped, climbed up, etc...I just know that my muscles really hurt now. Fortunately I escaped with only a light sunburn after being in the sun for hours.

One of the strange experiences of this area is that the tiny fish in the water always are nipping at your skin. It doesn't hurt, although it is a little unnerving at first.

The Long Way Back From the Beach

The drive to Guarapari was only 13 hours. The drive back was 15 due to traffic, although that was hardly the worst part of it.

There is always danger eating food from street vendors and beach vendors are even more risky. I think that the kiosks and bars are fine, but the guys walking along the beach with fresh oysters, for instance, deserve a bit more care. They get the oysters early in the morning, put them in a little basket, and walk around in the hot sun selling them. Patrícia and I had some one morning and they were the best I ever had, opened in front of me and served with lime juice and salt. Absolutely delicious!

The day before we left, Patrícia and André had some at about 10:00 in the warm sunny morning. Everthing was fine until the next day...when I packed the car, she was feeling bad and André looked particularly unhappy. Sure enough, 20 minutes into the trip home, he did an Exorcist immitation and vomited all over the door, the seat, the blanket, himself, the floor...

With my lovely woman feeling under the weather too, it was up to me to clean up the mess. Bleah. I came close to joining André in reviewing what I ate for breakfast. The poor thing had to endure about eight hours of twisty roads and he threw up six times, the last five in plastic bags, thank god. As for the rest of us, we had to smell vomit for 15 hours.

Road Danger

After waiting through a painfully slow traffic jam we passed a rolled over car in the middle of the road with one of the dead occupants still sitting in the back seat. The others had been thrown onto the roadside. We also saw a number of smaller accidents, however that was not what caught my attention. In driving so slowly, I had time to really look at the road. Specifically, all of the scratches in the asphalt from terrible accidents. On both sides of almost every curve, there were the marks of what must have been head-on collisions.

Finally arriving into a satellite city of Brasília at 3 am, I felt like I could relax with nice large, well-lit, familiar roads. Of course, that was exactly when someone, shooting out from a side street, clipped the car in front of me, smashing both cars and spinning them like tops to the side of the road.

Showering and getting into my own bed after 15 hours of smelly vomit driving was a pleasure beyond words.

New Years at the Beach

We were all dressed in our white New Year's clothes, me with my new very light beach shirt that I asked for and got for Christmas, white shorts, and flip-flops. We ate a big dinner that included rice and lentils for luck, drank a few glasses of wine, watched the big fireworks display that was on the beach, and then went to jump over seven waves and make seven wishes.

There is also a tradition of eating seven grapes and keeping the seeds all year, except the only grapes we had were crushed, fermented, and put into our glasses.

It was certainly the most memorable New Years I have ever had. I still want to spend one in Rio where they have two million people on the beach. It must be crazy.