Lençois, Sao Paulo and the end of Brazil

After a brief split, we have now reunited and I`m writing this blog this morning from Santiago in Chile. Like Zenna said, ZOW separated for a few days last week, and I will fill you in on Willem`s and my end of the journey. On Friday I went 6 hours inland from Salvador to Lençois. Lençois is a national park equivalent in size to Holland. Bad news was that I had no camera, I was gutted because this place was absolutely stunning. Good news was Willem got there on Monday morning armed with his, and thanks to him we can bring you some fantastic pictures on this post. Some funny stuff happened, but I don´t think I´ll go into it because Zenna´s educational post received some rave reviews, while I got told off by my parents for using some bad words (sorrrrry).

The park is full of hills, mountains, rivers and forest. It is huge for people who love trekking, so the most popular tour they do is a 3 day trek around the park, they walk and sleep overnight in caves...not my bag really. I wanted some action and adventure so before Willem got there I was on the hunt for the more adrenaline-filled kind of excursions. 4 hours after his arrival on Monday, we were at the top of a 80m wide cave mouth ready to abseil down. I´ll also mention that we were absolutley bricking it. Neither of us had abseiled before and the height and the fear factor were making us nauseous. Willem was happy for me to go first, so I did. It started off terrifying, it soon became incredible. For the most part I was just hanging in mid air suspended on a rope, oscillating round and getting some delicious views of the park. When I "landed" I ran straight back up for mais um vez. I was surprised to see Willem was just starting his descent. It was the expression on his face that got me. He had a forced smile like he wanted to look like he was having a good time, he was clearly not, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. The guide who was next to him was giving him the kind of advice that makes it worse "just lean back, trust the rope, don`t put your feet there or you will fall to the side". Maybe Willem was just too stricken at this life or death moment to hear what he said because he did put his feet there and he did fall to the side. In doing this he swept the guide off his legs, almost sending him down the cliff. Somehow Willem regained his balance and realised that the rope had just fully supported him and he was a changed man. Before I knew it he was at the bottom of the cliff waving back up at me. Can I just say that there was never any danger, the ropes had safeties and everything, once attached to it it was impossible to fall off or the rope to slip. Parents can now breathe. That is now one of our Top 10 experiences so far.

The next day we Kayakked down the River Roncador for 3 hours. I say down the river, but the way me and Willem seemed to perfect doing it was zigzagging from one bank to the other bank, bumping eachother on the crossover, "Battleships" as Willem put it, and getting stuck in the mangroves on many an occasion. Nonetheless, it was possibly the most scenic journey we had ever made, finishing up at the point where the river formed amazing rock pools.


One man and his Kayak


This kid was our guide!


If you were in the kayak, this is what you would see (trying to give you guys the picture!)


Rock pools

On our last day at the park we did some more rock pools and waterfall showers, followed by a visit to the famous natural water slide. The river had conveniently carved itself a downhill bed that was smooth enough for people to slide down...
So we were led to believe. Our buttocks told a different story. Yes it was smooth enough that you couldn´t graze yourself on the rocks, but MAN was it bumpy! It made the next two days of sitting down a very unenjoyable experience.


Different rock pools, different model


Willem and the waterfall


Rock pool overload I know, but you get a view of Lençois town in this picture

So that was the descriptive writing about Lençois for the parents.

I think I`ll still write about the funny and unfortunate stuff because it makes me laugh. A day after buying some new trainers, I lost them. Now this is not an amusing event in itself, far from it. It does become slightly funnier when I look back at everything else I have lost since the trip started. Right now I am minus a penknife, a watch, a great book I bought from Scope in Bromley, a notepad with some e-mail addresses in it, including that of Bill Oddie´s daughter, a pair of Puma trainers, my journal, in which I was keeping track of everything I had lost so far, and now a day old pair of trainers. I can´t put this quantity of deficit down to bad luck, at the same time I don´t really want to blame myself, in which case I`ll just not think about it anymore and say to myself "easy come, easy go".

There´s also the story of Willem`s arrival in Lençois, in which I agreed to meet him at 6am at the bus station, turned up, saw some tramps on the benches but no Willem. I later bumped into him in the main square and discovered that he was one of the "tramps" lying on the benches and that he had been waiting there for 3 hours but I never showed. I can only imagine what happy thoughts were going through his head about me while he waited.

We met this super-weird 40 year old Irish bloke who could not stop talking about the violence in Pelourinho´s Praça de Sé, in his incredibly strong irish accent he said about 5 times to us "Prakka de Sé, or as I like to call it, Jesus Square!" which he would follow with a big grin and guffaw like he had made a good joke. He also knew a bit too much about how much prostitutes cost in Rio and Thailand, and felt it was necessary to keep imparting this information to us.

The trip also taught Willem to never trust my instincts when it came to finding our way out of some sandstone formations. The number of times I said "we definitely came through this cave" escapes both of us.

The final challenge was when we tried to leave Lençois. The safe in which we had locked our passports in at the Hostel had sealed itself with an unknown combination. By waiting, we missed the bus we were meant to take back to Salvador, and could not leave until the next morning. This meant Zenna, who was waiting for me to come and withdraw some money for him to pay his bills so he could leave the Hostel, was in a situation. He dealt with it with like a pro and against all odds we managed to meet at the airport that night and catch the flight to Sao Paulo.

There is not a lot we can say about Sao Paulo other than that it is expensive and fairly uncultured compared to other places we´ve been. Some rather good skylines though. We also discovered the board game called RISK, bought one and will now carry it with us for the rest of the trip, as impractical as this may sound.


One of the city´s many impressive skylines


Black jack on the lawn


Paulistian joggers


How to cross the road in Sao Paulo


Some of the architecture blew me away


Then we came across this one

Now we`re in Santiago, a city against an outstanding backdrop of the snow-capped Andes Mountains. We`ll give you pictures later on. Tonight, we board our 15 hour flight to Auckland, during which we will cross the international date line and jump a day in front of you guys.


How we conquered Brazil

This was Oran, on behalf of ZOW, with Brazil now well and truly under our belts.

Salvador

Hey

Still in Salvador da Bahia, where we´ve been for a good few weeeks now minus a weekend excursion to a place called Morro De Sao Paulo. I tell a lie, Im still in Salvador, Oran couldn´t stand the slow paced life, so went solo to trek in Lençois, a place reknown for its natural beauty. Willem joined him after returning from returning to his wife to be, Juliana (a good 13 hour bus ride away). Meanwhile, my lack of love or will to hike has kept me here in Salvador.. mainly the district of Pelourinho.


One of the many Jewellery people making his stuff and kids playing football

Before we got here, the things I always read and heard were as follows: It had the culture, was the African capital of Brazil, had the best Capoeira, Bahian (a massive state by the way, way bigger than england) food, Candomble ceremonies and the most street people. The closer we came the more true all these things seemed to become until now here I am bang in the middle of it.. and yes all of it is true, but polished to tourism perfection.

Where we´re staying, Pelourinho, takes no longer than 10 minutes to cover but it feels like its got all the culture of Bahia processed and condensed onto its cobbled streets. Don´t get me wrong, I´ve really enjoyed myself here.. but with the amount of tourists here its authenticity to Bahia can only be seen in bursts and glimpses.
African however, it certainly is, and they are proud of it. You only have to look at the people, listen to the music or eat the food to realise it. It´s an interesting difference to most of the places I´ve been.



Pelourinho on a particularly quiet night, kids climbing over the festive decorations

Capoiera for those who don´t know is a Brazillian martial art from the slave days which is a blend of gymnastics, dancing and fighting. As soon as i whipped out my camera, all the guys wanted to see themself on film. and so..


Capoeira, someone performing and some drummers etc


Capoeira in motion.. one of the less spectacular but more traditional displays

Bahian Food.. haven´t tried much of it but what I have has been pretty cool, perhaps tommorow I will go to a Bahian restaurant. Having said that, ive been on a mission to sample every snack and so far have got a good few under my belt.. Acaraje, Tapioca, Açai, Cheese on a Stick.. to name a few.


The corn man and my amiga an acaraje woman

Tourists have money, and are logically the best people to beg from.. Hence there are alot of people on the street of all ages. They´ve perfected the art of looking genuinely upset when you refuse, some even to the point of crying. Maybe its the same thing that attracts all the women, but Willem is getting twice his fair share of people asking him for money, and they seem to follow him that little bit longer. Having kids in the street has been suprisingly unshocking for me and it just becomes normal until you really spend some time to think about what is going on here. Its all too easy to dismiss people like this and not even acknowledge their human presence.. which several tourists do.


Walking on hands and the police will hit you

Candoble is a the mergance of several African religions brought over in the slave trade. I went twicee, the first time we all got ripped off paying R$ 35 each
each and the second time we just found an address and took a taxi. Cameras arent allowed so no pictures for you. But i can only describe it as a really long, kind of strange dance where people randomly fall into trances and (in the second one) smoke lots of cigars and then resorted to cigarettes when they run out. They believe in neither heaven nor hell, but since they had to disguise it as Christianity in the slavery days.. and forgot to pass it on to the generations that it was just a disguise.. alot of Christian saints and other people now have their place in the Candoble.


A random march I stumbled into and braid hair in the street, why not?


A Bahian Woman and a Group of Bahian Women in traditional dress, just chilling out


Since we arrived, Oran really got into bongo drumming taking a few classes a day. We both tried abit of Afro-Brazillian dancing which ill have to show you when i get back. Willem also did abit of drumming and took a lesson of capoeira (by the way Willem, the teacher is looking for you. He wants money)


One of the Capoeira instruments, the Berimbau and a Cheese on a Stick man

All these extra curriculum activies were sort of forgotten since Morro de Sao paulo. Morro de Sao Paulo is a part of an island, which all travellers who come to Salvador ritually go to. For us it was fun, but the heavy rain puts England to shame and sort of lessened the experience. However i did win R$ 20 in a poker game, which was nice.

On thursday we fly into Sao Paulo, to sample its famous night life before taking our flight out of brazil. We coulde´ve been hardcore and 30 Hour Bussed it but it was a bit long really.

Soo, until later.. keep posting comments and i miss you ALLLL

Zenna

p.s Big up my pups for cycling to Paris