Days Four/Five/Six

Three-in-one: because Day 5 was kinda meh and I don’t want to spend a whole blog writing about it, and Day 6, today, is completely a travel day. (I finish this on a seven-hour bus, en route to a plane to Ilhéus, where, if we’re lucky, our beach chalet proprietor will still be present to let us in when we arrive at 8 PM.) Let’s go back to Day 4… 

I'm writing this in: a hammock on a covered patio. At night. The rain is pouring down on the roof over my head. A group of Brazilian friends drinking beer and playing cards are talking animatedly at the table across the courtyard, and a quieter contingency is examining the map on the wall. Matt is trying to upload pictures on a bench next to me, but his computer is about to die. The resident tortoises are in hiding, and the wet foliage under the jambó tree is glistening in the lantern light.

And I am sore. Or at least, I think I will be tomorrow. I’m resisting the lull of the hammock, fighting off the sleep I need, to write this up because WOW did a lot happen today! We went spelunking! We went cave snorkeling! We climbed a high mountain with a 360 degree view of this enormous national park! We made friends with Brazilians! We dipped our toes in a rushing, rust-colored river, 

...we ate delicious food, and took plenty of photos of all of the above.

Me at the entrance to Lapa Doce

We woke up this morning at 7:30 AM (that’s 3:30 AM to you, California friends). It was pretty miserable, but we were promised the Best Breakfast in Brazil at this guesthouse, and we were being picked up for our day’s adventures by our guide at 8:30, and we weren’t going to miss anything. The breakfast WAS pretty spectacular, and there was not TOO much I could not eat. Only one egg dish and one little plate with some kind of sausage…everything else was breads and oat bars, granola and fruit salad, squash cakes and tapioca, guacamole and tiny fresh tortillas, sweet potato with coconut, incredible French-press coffee from the plantation just over the hill, and whatever else I don’t even know. Things made of various flours with various spices. Baked apples with cardamom. Etc. Alcino, our proprietor, has a staff of two ladies who work on the following day’s breakfast all day long. Jimmy Page has stayed here on multiple occasions and marveled over this breakfast. See?

Matt at the bottom of the climb down to Lapa Doce

We ate under a roof in the courtyard (where the Brazilians are now reveling in their card game), gray mist all around us. Mist so gray that, unfortunately, our guide told us that rather than doing the scheduled swamp tour, we were going to do an alternate itinerary. Turns out, this schedule was not so much for beginners as the other---there was to be a LOT of uphill climbing (and thus, downhill climbing). Climbing is scary for me—I get anxious about falling, and I have terrible knees that creak and groan their protest all the way. But climb I would do, since it was required in order to do anything worth doing here.

Heading deeper inside the cave...

Our first stop was Gruta de Lapa Doce, an incredibly impressive and enormous cave, the likes of which I have never before spelunked in my life. (spell check says “spelunk” is okay, but “spelunked” is not. So HOW DO YOU SAY THAT?? “The likes of which I have never gone spelunking in before in my life”???? That’s just clunky and unnecessary.) The array of stalactites and stalagmites was incredible (shaped like: a nativity, an umbrella, an owl, a “tit” and Bob Marley, among other things), and the sheer enormity of the cave made me feel like I was walking in some kind of magic tunnel of air deep on the floor of the ocean. We all had flashlights, and I loved shining mine directly overhead at all of the swirls, imagining the water that carved this magnificence however many millions of years ago. One stalagmite even looked like a giant jellyfish!

Huge jellyfish!

At one point the guide had us all sit and turn off our lights so we could sit in total darkness and silence. I started to have really deep thoughts about being in the womb of Mother Earth et al, when the other group behind us started closing in, their flashlight beams slipping through the cracks…oh, the joys of the guided tour. Get in and get out, $20 each, please. Still, it was one of the most unbelievable experiences I’ve had in Brazil so far. I won’t say it defies my abilities as a writer, but it would certainly take longer to do it justice than I’m going to give this blog. I have a lot of ground to cover here, folks.

Next we went to Pratinha, where we had a chance to go cave snorkeling…this was REALLY cool, as we got to swim under a really low cave ceiling into a series of large chambers, guided only by our waterproof flashlights. (Well, and our guide.) There were bats trying to sleep, including one adorable family of four all huddled together, collectively reviling the light we were shining on them, the poor things. The water was crystal clear, but at one point the bottom disappeared under the beam of our lights and the guide explained that the water there was either 150 feet deep, or deep beyond measure, depending on mine or Matt’s interpretation of his Portuguese. Still, it was really cool/creepy. Again, we turned off our flashlights for a dark moment of silence, which was probably even cooler—just floating in water, deep in a dark cave.

Pratinha entrance

When we swam out, we snorkeled a little in a sheltered area with some fish and greenery, and then hopped out for lunch, which by that point (did I mention there was a lot of climbing in addition to the walking and swimming?) felt very well earned.

Buffet lunches here in Brazil are common, and are sold by weight. In a lot of the country, if you want to eat total vegetarian, you will be living on white rice and salad, but this buffet was a vegetarian delight…potatoes, some unknown green vegetable (maybe cactus), pumpkin and summer squash, rice, beans, arugula (again!), chickpea and potato salad. We stuffed ourselves silly.

We chatted some more with the Brazilian couple, Irena and Sandro, who were sharing our guide, Roger, with us. They were from Salvador, a little older than us, and we had a lot in common. They were also a second marriage couple with a son (his) from the first marriage. They also loved and owned cats. We shared photos via iPhone. They spoke decent English, being a lawyer and professor, and were really good company—very helpful with translating for us, but not treating us like stupid Americans—they seemed to understand that we wanted to respect the country and language, and felt free to speak to the guide in Portuguese and translate the gist of it afterwards, which we actually really appreciated.

After lunch, we took a little walk down to the water’s edge where there is a swimming area, and rested for 45 minutes or so before walking down to yet another cave for yet more pictures, before driving to yet another wondrous marvel of natural beauty and mystery.

We stopped at this beautiful area before our final stop to climb the Big One—Pai Inacio.

 There was a rainbow! See?

Then: The Climb. Please don’t cue Miley Cyrus, as much as I want to. Okay, so I just cued Miley Cyrus. God, she’s annoying.

So when we pulled up, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I was thinking this might be one of those times I was going to have to lose, you know? It looked really rocky and steep, and my poor Robbins knees were so sore and crackly-creaky after the day already. But…it was The Climb. It was the Main Thing to do at Chapada Diamantina. If I couldn’t do it, I was going to feel like I was 90, 60 years ahead of schedule.

So I climbed. And climbed. And climbed. It was scary, I’m not going to lie. The seemingly inevitable fall would have been long and probably fatal. (Though, come to find out there has only been one fatal accident in the history of the park. Come here and you’ll find that as unbelievable as I do.) More deep thoughts about the nature of life, and how we’re all climbing slippery rocks on the edge of a thousand foot precipice every day, whether its visible or not (and it’s usually not—more on this later). And then we had made it! Picture/video  time again, because again, there are no words (that I have time to write).

Second day in Lençóis: every honeymoon, I think, has to have one bum day and I think I would count this one as ours. Sure, we lost a day in Brazil due to the missed connection, but we were stuck in Miami Beach! I can’t cry too much about that. I count it a sweet surprise. But this day… so remember the rain I started writing this in? It turned out to be so much hard rain that Roger again canceled the swamp trip and instead hauled us way the heck out to these caves that you usually only go to on overnight trips. I won’t linger too much on this day because there is not a lot I want to remember about it.

We spent a LOT of hours driving. We spent about 25 minutes total seeing really cool caves, Poço Encantado being the especially impressive one, Poço Azul being the really, really cold one to swim in and the scariest downward climb yet. I learned to play Bad Piggies and lamented not bringing a book; began Jane Eyre yet again, which Matt thankfully had on his iPhone Kindle. Roger didn’t make enough bathroom stops before bumping down a dirt road for half an hour, resulting in considerable discomfort. I got mad. Both caves had large groups before us, resulting in more waiting. I got cranky. I considered having Roger fired, except I don’t think he works for anyone but himself, which made me even crankier, since, upon calculating his paycheck, he probably makes at least as much as an entry-level lawyer.

But: Poço Encantado is really a sight to see:

 
This dog was incredibly sweet and loving.

Our fancy dinner back in Lençóis consisted of the best ravioli I have ever tasted in my life, and the wine glasses were filled to the top, much like my life in general.

Me with Salsicha

Also, when we got back to Alcino’s for the night, his little cat, Salsicha, made friends with us. We later discovered she was deaf, which explains why, though very sweet, she never seemed quite certain about her decisions. I can’t imagine an animal life, so dependent on the senses, without one of them. She startled easily, and seemed always on guard against the next thing that might frighten her. So we were charmed that she took such a liking to us—she followed us up the stairs to our room, where we coaxed her in and she curled up between us in bed as we lay reading. It was very homey and cozy.

Last Day in Lençóis, or: When You Get To The Edge of the Cliff, You Jump, Damn It. To neatly put a bow on our experience here in Lençóis, on our last full day we ditched the guide and hiked ourselves over the mountain to another river, where there is a natural rock waterslide.




We were hoping to give it a try ourselves, but as the sky was gray and the water freezing (and having decided to get in anyway the day before, much to our later regret), we decided against it. So we relaxed on the rocks instead, enjoying the view with our books and a paltry picnic lunch of yesterday’s leftovers.

There was a Brazilian family, however, living it up out in the water. After a few turns down the slide, they turned to a small cliff which, as one of the men proved by example, was perfectly safe to jump from. A young boy, maybe ten years old, climbed to the top of the cliff as we watched. He went to the edge, looked down dubiously as his family cheered him on, and over the course of the next fifteen minutes, thoroughly psyched himself out.

Then he sat down. “Oh, he’s not going to do it now,” Matt said. “The window has closed. He’s talked himself out of it.” I agreed. This has been my experience as well. When people spend too much time deciding whether or not to do something, they usually don’t end up doing it. I felt this sadness for the kid; I had gotten the sense of watching a boy standing on the precipice of manhood and opting out. His cousin climbed up and jumped, his uncle climbed up and jumped again. His dad was cheering him on, his mom stood with the camera in wait.

Then, when it became evident that he really was not going to jump, something really awesome happened. His mom put down the camera, stripped down to her bathing suit, and climbed the rock. After sitting there with him for another twenty minutes or so, she stood up, looked down doubtfully, but ultimately: jumped.

She surfaced, swam out, rejoined the boy’s father and both continued their efforts at cheering him down. Not two full minutes later, the boy stood, went back on the rock in order to get a running start, visibly psyched himself up for a few seconds and: ran. Jumped.

Of course we onlookers couldn’t help cheering and clapping along with his family; it felt as much the entire gathered community’s victory as it was the boy’s. His parents looked across the water at all of us cheering and waved in victory and relief.

Why was the outcome so different from what Matt and I predicted? Probably, I realized, because we are so very American. American parents have some pretty excellent advantages in their arsenals, which we should all be grateful for. But cheering their ten-year-olds to jump from rocky cliffs into dark and rushing river water below? Not so much a strength of ours. “He’ll do it when he’s ready,” we tell ourselves, secretly hoping he will actually never want to do something so dangerous in a world where, preposterously, children can and sometimes do die.

But these parents didn’t only encourage their son—it was evident that they considered it their responsibility to support him all the way through this. They knew what we like to ignore—that we are always standing on the edge of a rocky cliff with uncertain footholds and slippery rocks. Illusions of safety—helmets, fences, seatbelts, harnesses, cars—are just that. Illusions. Life is full of cliffs to jump from, and they are usually the kind you can’t actually see. I know far too many people who were never taught to take a deep breath, run, and jump off the damn cliff.

As I progress further into adulthood (which is weird to say), I know to be incredibly thankful for having a mother who ran and jumped off cliffs and showed me how to do it. It’s so much easier to get in the habit of doing scary things before you start cementing into yourself in your thirties. I continue to reap the benefits from the big, scary choices I made as a college kid. They shaped me and made me fearless. I know that when you get to the edge of the cliff, you jump, because the only way forward is down.

Because (and this song literally just came on the radio on the bus): baby, there ain’t no mountain high enough, there ain’t no valley low enough, there ain’t no river wide enough, to keep you from getting to yourself.

So, these three days were scary and intense, and every night I had bad dreams from the anxiety and my knees hurt and also I’ve had an awful cold sore on my lip and can’t even kiss my husband (on top of having to make a fool of myself in a Brazilian farmacia, trying to describe my need in Portuguese). But I would never undo these days. They were a vital part of this experience, and a vital reminder at the beginning of our marriage.

Still—I’m ready for the beach now.

(Matt wants me to add something about Brazilian Time, but I am too tired so here: Matt Speaks!)

A word about “Brazilian time.” The guidebooks mention it, but nothing can fully prepare you for its pervasiveness, or the radically altered state of mind that it demands.  As valiantly as you’ve tried to relinquish your gringo uptightness, it’s awfully hard when your bus, on which the rest of your trip is utterly contingent, is leaving at 7:30, and your driver (self-appointed after he happened to be hanging around your pousada flirting with the staff when you checked in) has promised to show up at 7:20 to get you to the station, and at 7:15 as you are importuning your host for the second time to let you settle up and check out he is still mildly insisting that you sit and eat, and you’re not even entirely sure what you’re settling up for since by now there have been several services casually rendered (by several vendors) with no apparent concern about when or how you’ll pay, and at 7:23 as you’re finally checking out and wringing your hands and he’s throwing in a bag of coffee for free, he mumbles something by way of amused placation about how it’s market day and nothing runs on time anyway, and at 7:31 your driver finally shows up and you schlep your stuff across town and throw some money at him which, after briefly refusing, he accepts with a shrug, and the bus leaves mere seconds after getting your suitcases loaded. As for tonight, will you get to your hotel on time? Will anyone be there to greet you? Will they have any record of you staying there? I don’t know, but by now I have an uneasy faith in the probability that things – even if they’re not quite the things you had in mind – will turn out OK.

The Brazilians have mastered a way of being in constant, mutual flux, adapting rhythmically to each other in the moment; you can hear it in the friendly tootling of car horns and the casual squeal of brakes on every thoroughfare. It’s valuable medicine for us Americans with our delusions of order and independence, our fantasies of eliminating every threat and inconvenience. A few more weeks here, and who knows? Brazilian time might even start to feel pretty comfortable.

Brazilians even go to church on their own time. Which may be why services are several hours long.