Saturday
Jan072006
I got blisters on my toesies!
Saturday, January 7, 2006 at 12:00PM
We had a lovely hike today. For the first three days we had here in the Itatiaia rain forest we took little jaunts--partly because of the whole rental car fiasco, which ended up taking three days to sort out--like two-four hour total hikes, off into the wilderness and back. The first day, we got up in the morning and went with another couple at the hotel and the resident guide, who speaks a tiny bit of English and is as flamboyant a character as you'll find anywhere (tonight he paraded through the dinner hall in drag with a girl who also works at the hotel--his girlfriend?) and that was fun and we were out all morning and back in time for a late lunch. The second day we hung out in the hotel during the morning (car things, again) and in the afternoon went on a walk over a trail that we stumbled on that leads directly off the hotel's recreation grounds--it was lovely, and we were out for a handfull of hours, tired when we returned but not wiped out. The third day we got up early, intending to pack a lunch and take a day-long hike, but were prevented by the promised arrivel of our replacement rental car, which came a few hours late. We ended up just taking an afternoon's hike to a nearby waterfall, which was actually really lovely and I'm glad we ended up going there. All three of those days, it rained steadily. Not storming or anything, but enough for us to be wet whenever we returned, and there was no sunning ourselves as we walked or swimming at our destinations.
Today, though. Today we woke up and the car thing was totally resolved already, and there was SUN coming in the window. Real sunshine! Sun in the rain forest during the rainy season is sort of like snow in LA. We leapt out of bed, ate breakfast and packed sandwiches, and headed out to a real day-hike--to Tres Picos (three peaks, I'm sure I'm spelling the portuguese wrong, again) which is about 7.5 kilometers' hike. The trailhead is at a nearby hotel. It was gorgeous. I hiked in my bikini top, trying to make up for the lost tanning opportunities (no luck though; I didn't even wear sunscreen! But it's shady in the jungle). In the first kilometer, we spotted several more big frogs and some more of the awkward turkey-birds (called guan? I think) that are everywhere around here--they're like small turkeys and the last word you'd use to describe them is graceful--they sort of crash through the brush in a panic all the time. In the second kilometer--monkeys! In the wild! They were small and black and furry and totally unconcerned about us--we saw a mama carrying a baby on her back and another baby trailing behind, and then the whole cavalcade of adults crashing through the brush behind us--it was awesome. We tried and failed to get some pictures--the film was out--silly old-fashioned film cameras. :-P But it was great fun to see them.
Then it got steep. We were scambling over boulders and climbing up exposed roots of trees--very cool to see palm trees in the jungle, it doesn't seem like thye ought to belong there at all, but they looked just right--giving the rest of the green texture, as it were. We passed a few small waterfalls, some of them just trickles, some of them bounding into clear, calm pools below us, some of them cascading down mossy boulders in multiple paths fantasy-illustration style. It was lovely and exhausting. We lost the trail at one point over a gigantic boulder and found it again--stopped for lunch on said boulder--scrambled up hundreds more feet of elevation through scratchy bushes (and the scrathes on my legs will outlast all of whatever sun color I picked up, you can count on that) and after four hours of exhausting, sweaty, sunny, muddy scrambling, emerged at the peak, which was suitably awe-inspiring. There was another group--about eight Brazilian tourists and a guide--who were finishing up their lunch at the peak there, and we exchanged our mutual ten words of each others' language, and they took a picture with everyone including us and promised to mail us a copy, and they were very nice. And then they started back down, and Sean and I lingered for a few minutes to have the peak to ourselves and ate some cookies, and then we headed down the path again.
And this is where the adventure started. The fog was rolling in--by the time we left the peak, the view had disappeared. It must have been 2:00 or 3:00 by then. We heard thunder as we started down. We were faster than the other group and soon caught up to them and were stuck behind them for a while--one of the girls with them balked and giggled every time she had to climb down a boulder, and there were many--but when the rain started, we threw manners to hell and pushed past the other group as they paused to put on their raincoats. I hadn't brought a raincoat (the one I brought to Brazil had proved worse than useless in a downpour anyway). This was real rain, not the drizzle we've been seeing for the past three days--in under a minute, we were as wet as if we'd gone swimming with our clothes on. Our only thought was for the already steep and muddy path, and how much muddier and more treacherous it was becoming every minute. It actually got to be fun--we were soaking, hurtling down the path balancing caution with the urgent need to get to the bottom before it was impassable--soaked to the skin, covered in mud, laughing at the sudden difference in the day. It was both fun and sodden. By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain (in easily less than half the time it had taken us to climb up) the rain had lightened--by the time we returned to our hotel, the sun was out again. A gentle breeze was blowing. Remember being so tired and dirty that a hot shower and clean, dry clothes are really the two best things in the universe? That was us, before dinner tonight. I am happy and tired tonight.
Tomorrow we leave the rain forest, and that will be sad, but we leave it for Bridget & Steve's, which will be lovely! We'll be home on Wednesday, and wednesday draws near too quickly--but i feel well-vacationed. It's finally gotten to the point where it sounds nice to sleep in our own bed again.
Love!
Alissa
Today, though. Today we woke up and the car thing was totally resolved already, and there was SUN coming in the window. Real sunshine! Sun in the rain forest during the rainy season is sort of like snow in LA. We leapt out of bed, ate breakfast and packed sandwiches, and headed out to a real day-hike--to Tres Picos (three peaks, I'm sure I'm spelling the portuguese wrong, again) which is about 7.5 kilometers' hike. The trailhead is at a nearby hotel. It was gorgeous. I hiked in my bikini top, trying to make up for the lost tanning opportunities (no luck though; I didn't even wear sunscreen! But it's shady in the jungle). In the first kilometer, we spotted several more big frogs and some more of the awkward turkey-birds (called guan? I think) that are everywhere around here--they're like small turkeys and the last word you'd use to describe them is graceful--they sort of crash through the brush in a panic all the time. In the second kilometer--monkeys! In the wild! They were small and black and furry and totally unconcerned about us--we saw a mama carrying a baby on her back and another baby trailing behind, and then the whole cavalcade of adults crashing through the brush behind us--it was awesome. We tried and failed to get some pictures--the film was out--silly old-fashioned film cameras. :-P But it was great fun to see them.
Then it got steep. We were scambling over boulders and climbing up exposed roots of trees--very cool to see palm trees in the jungle, it doesn't seem like thye ought to belong there at all, but they looked just right--giving the rest of the green texture, as it were. We passed a few small waterfalls, some of them just trickles, some of them bounding into clear, calm pools below us, some of them cascading down mossy boulders in multiple paths fantasy-illustration style. It was lovely and exhausting. We lost the trail at one point over a gigantic boulder and found it again--stopped for lunch on said boulder--scrambled up hundreds more feet of elevation through scratchy bushes (and the scrathes on my legs will outlast all of whatever sun color I picked up, you can count on that) and after four hours of exhausting, sweaty, sunny, muddy scrambling, emerged at the peak, which was suitably awe-inspiring. There was another group--about eight Brazilian tourists and a guide--who were finishing up their lunch at the peak there, and we exchanged our mutual ten words of each others' language, and they took a picture with everyone including us and promised to mail us a copy, and they were very nice. And then they started back down, and Sean and I lingered for a few minutes to have the peak to ourselves and ate some cookies, and then we headed down the path again.
And this is where the adventure started. The fog was rolling in--by the time we left the peak, the view had disappeared. It must have been 2:00 or 3:00 by then. We heard thunder as we started down. We were faster than the other group and soon caught up to them and were stuck behind them for a while--one of the girls with them balked and giggled every time she had to climb down a boulder, and there were many--but when the rain started, we threw manners to hell and pushed past the other group as they paused to put on their raincoats. I hadn't brought a raincoat (the one I brought to Brazil had proved worse than useless in a downpour anyway). This was real rain, not the drizzle we've been seeing for the past three days--in under a minute, we were as wet as if we'd gone swimming with our clothes on. Our only thought was for the already steep and muddy path, and how much muddier and more treacherous it was becoming every minute. It actually got to be fun--we were soaking, hurtling down the path balancing caution with the urgent need to get to the bottom before it was impassable--soaked to the skin, covered in mud, laughing at the sudden difference in the day. It was both fun and sodden. By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain (in easily less than half the time it had taken us to climb up) the rain had lightened--by the time we returned to our hotel, the sun was out again. A gentle breeze was blowing. Remember being so tired and dirty that a hot shower and clean, dry clothes are really the two best things in the universe? That was us, before dinner tonight. I am happy and tired tonight.
Tomorrow we leave the rain forest, and that will be sad, but we leave it for Bridget & Steve's, which will be lovely! We'll be home on Wednesday, and wednesday draws near too quickly--but i feel well-vacationed. It's finally gotten to the point where it sounds nice to sleep in our own bed again.
Love!
Alissa
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http://wednesdaysonwilson.blogspot.com/
Hey Alissa - I thought you might be entertained by this lil blog of some performer-friends' past escapades in Brasil! It's translated to Enlgish underneath each entry.