Lencois

This past weekend we endured the six to seven hour overnight bus ride to a small diamond mining town in the interior of Bahia called Lencois. It is located in the Chapada Diamantina National Park. We left late Thursday night and arrived early Friday morning, dropped our stuff off at our pousada and then left on one of the tours at 8:30. The tour took us hiking to waterfalls, swimming, mountain climbing with amazing 360' spectacularly breathtaking views of the green grasslands-esque landscape, and spelunking through caves containing massive stalagtites and stalagmites - all over rocky, bumpy, awful roads in a van packed full of people.
It was beautiful and the views were spectacular and our bodies felt great (once you get over the soreness).

The next day we skipped out on the tour and walked around the town, then hiked to rock slides and swam around. Most water there is brownish red. The locals call it Coca Cola water because the water filters through the decomposing debris in the mountains. The decomposition process releases the tannins in the plants (tannins are what make coffee and tea brown and what stains the teeth of those who drink it a lot, but it is known to be good for your hair and skin). The water runs through and picks up the dyes so it ends up looking like diluted Coke. They say you can drink it because it is pullutant-free, but I was thinking there can still be "natural" bacteria and other discomfort causing organisms (Thanks microbiology).

Anyway, the third day we opted out of a tour involving any more off roading to spare our backs the torturous trek. We took a walking tour to more waterfalls, more swimming, and I tried Rock Climbing for the first time and I love it. It's like a dance against gravity with constant battles to maintain balance and distribution of weight strategically over just a few square inches of available ledge. I went up the beginner rock twice. The second time I scaled it much quicker than the first. Scott had tried it a few times before at OSU so he went pretty quick the first time and then took a different route the second time. I was pleased with myself for the two well done tries I had completed, so I decided to end my first rock climbing experience on a good note and be done. Our guide found an intermediate level route for Scott to try with one spot that was a little more advanced (negative, meaning you are actually climbing upside down or against gravity. There is positive, where your front faces the earth more than it does the sky; vertical, which is just straight up; and negative where your front faces the sky more than the earth). Scott was excited and enthusiastic and did amazingly until he got to the negative part which was more than halfway up. This was also where the holds in the rock got remarkably sharper so not only was the angle harder but the holds were more painful if you didn't distribute your limbs and weight appropriately. This spot took a lot more time to get past and exhausted him. He barely had the strength to finish it, but he did complete it, although with a little cheating in the process. He managed to get past the hardest couple parts by just climbing the rope and walking up the rock with his legs. After rock climbing, we hiked to a couple water falls that you can stand underneath to get a "hydromassage". We ended the hike around sunset up on this hill that overlooked the city and the surrounding landscape with little pools in the rocks that Scott swam in to cool his bulging, achy, rock climbing muscles :) and I sat and read. The tour ended with the quick, five minute hike back to town, where we changed and relaxed before another six hour bus ride back to Salvador. We took a taxi back to the house and showered and got ready for our double shift day of volunteering in the morning and in the afternoon. We were tired...