PatyValley - Chapada Diamantina National Park, Brazil

After some negotiations with Paulo, the guide, and a few days of waiting to see if we could find a couple more hikers we decided to go for a 2 night 3 day trek with  just the three of us.

We headed off in Paulo's new car to a small rural town called Guine. Here we bought some supplies for the trek. The town was spotlessly clean and charmingly decorated with curtains outside the windows.

And a great mural.

Pastel coloured houses face the main street.

Ready to head out. Paulo was so considerate to bring me a stick!

Heading for the bluff and it is up up up!

Looking back where we have come from.

Quite a few flowering plants about.

And some cactuses.

Lunch break at Crocodile Rock

The camp in the distance that can have 150 people stay in peak season. It has solar powered lights and a fridge.

The path to get there.

Met some other hikers at the viewpoint who wanted

 me to have their stick and pose for them!

Watching the sunset while Paulo cooks dorado fish for dinner.

Our room for the night. The night was pretty cold but we were amazingly cosy in the mud brick room under two blankets after a cold shower.

This snake kindly posed for us before slithering off into the grass.

This guy looked like a thin dry branch in the middle of the track.It would have been about a metre and a half long with a curled up tail and a yellowish belly. He slithered up into the long grass and would have been at eye height when photographed.

The Cachoerao Falls but they were dry! The highest falls in Brazil. Spent some time resting here while Paulo organised lunch. Temperatures were between 32 and 34 degrees. It was 9 kilometres to this point.

One more snake on the way home.

Another view point. A man with a backpack full of supplies for the camp shop owner passed us walking the trail in his Havianas. He gets paid 100 Reis per load. The camp owner has mules he uses to get supplies as well and a lot of the track we walked was rutted out by the mules hooves and quite slippery.

John and Paulo at Pai Inacio on the way back to Lencois.

Lencois, Brazil

We have had so much trouble with SIM cards and phones. We discovered too late that you need a different SIM card for every state in Brazil. We had registered to use the Uber taxi services in Brazil but you need a phone number for them or internet access. We managed to get a SIM that covered all we needed but we had misread the number we had been given and were not able to recharge the pre-pay phone. After finding a nice, patient lady sitting on the street with a stall we got our number sorted. However we couldn't recharge as we were leaving but managed to get our first Uber taxi ride to the Salvador bus terminal ready to take a bus to Lencois in Bahia State, Brazil.

Lencois was a diamond mining town and sits in a leafy valley beside the river. We were met at the bus station by Paulo who was organised by the pousada we booked as he is a trekking guide and and we had let them know we were interested in trekking in the Chapada Diamantina National Park.

After settling in we walked up the pretty dry river to get an overview of Lencois.

Locals were washing their clothes in the tannin coloured water and drying them on the conglomerate stones in the hot sun.

Saw several birds and disturbed several lizards along the way.

The town was being titivated up for the annual festival of Saint John (Sao Joao) and it is the largest festival outside of Carnival.

Houses have to be built of brick because of the termites. These infest fence posts, lamp posts and trees and can be different coloured depending on the soil and termites.

As well as the upcoming festival there was a 25 kilometre horse ride as the farming communities rode into town and met for various activities at a venue outside town. They then had bands playing and ate and drank the night away. Paulo advised us not to go as they can get quite boozy but we did hear all the festivities from the centre of town.

In the main plaza was a rebuilt room that was used as a slave trading hall and nearly every night there was some kind of activity. We saw a capoeira group displaying their skills one night. This Brazilian martial art apparently originated from ritual fights in Angola, Africa to gain the nuptial rights of young women. In Brazil it developed into a technique of anticolonial resistance, disguised from slave masters as a dance.The dance is accompanied by the berimbau.

The festival of Saint John celebrates the harvest. 'Guys' were stuffed with straw and hung about the squares.

Bonfires were lit in the streets and fireworks let off.

The buildings were decorated and lit up

.

The pedestrian streets were filled with diners celebrating and people came from other states to join in the festivities. Bands played forro music and women dressed in multi-coloured dresses dancing to the music.

This restaurant was in an old cachaca distillery. Cachaca is a liquor made from sugar cane and used in the Brazilian caipirinha cocktail made with limes and sugar.

Groups of children paraded around the town dressed up and danced what looked like barn dancing. It was impossible to get photos as people pushed and shoved to get a view of the action.

The pousada we stayed at was just out of the town a bit and it suited us as it was pretty noisy around the squares with children letting off loud fireworks and sky rockets and music blaring. We were the only ones in the pousada and got VIP treatment from the manager and delicious breakfasts of tapioca and home made cakes and tropical fruits.

One day we walked a couple of hours to find a grotto but there were no signs and we got conflicting information from the locals so we gave up. On the way back we met a local walking into Lencois and he joined us and prattled on to us in Portuguese the whole time. We could understand the topics he talked about but not the details. It didn't seem to bother him and he just kept on chatting and was probably happy for the company into town. We spotted him a few times later and he greeted us like old buddies. When we ate at a restaurant and saw the waitresses in the street they called out and came and gave us handshakes and beaming smiles. It was pretty warming being acknowledged that way especially as they didn't speak English.

A mud brick house was put together in the square especially for the festival.

Salvador, Brazil

Belo Horizonte airport was a long way out of the city but we could take the airport bus directly from the end of the metro line to get there. The whole airport is still under construction so it was confusing to find our way around to even check in. We took our first Brazilian flight from Belo Horizonte to Salvador with Azul airlines. Salvador, according to our guidebook has more reported muggings and robberies of tourists than anywhere else in the state of Bahia!

We arrived to fog and pouring rain and had planned to get a bus into the city but three buses arrived and sat about and none left so John negotiated with a man who approached us that was not an official taxi operator. We were delivered safely to our pousada on the edge of the old city.

From the street our accommodation looked like any other house in the street. Inside it was very smart and beautifully laid out. The blue front to the pousada.

Our room had an ensuite, a wardrobe and shutters on the outside of the windows.

The street view from our window where we could see boxing practise and zumba classes at night in one of the buildings and hear drums and music at any time of the day or night.

We also had a view of these tortoises on the neighbours patio when they came out in the morning to greet each other.

Breakfast is always included in a pousada and varies from one place to another but usually has freshly whizzed up juice and fresh fruit. We had eggs everyday and fresh bread with cheese and ham. There is always cake and often it is made the night before. Herb tea and coffee is the norm but I was able to get black tea and it is served with hot milk while John could have coffee.

The lounge looking to the dining table which is in an outside patio.

After using the house facilities to get laundry done we spent time wandering the old city. Salvador was the Brazilian capital before Brasilia and Rio. There are a lot more African families here and it seems poorer than other places we have been.

June is festival time and the city is decorated with plastic buntings that flap deafeningly in the squares and narrow streets.

The old city overlooks the port and is separated from the port area by a huge 70 metre bluff of rock. To get down there is an elevator.

or a cheap funicular railway.



















We were surprised at the number of French tourists in the city. The souvenir shops line the streets to the main squares and sell pretty much the same paintings, hammocks and souvenirs.

These ribbons are everywhere.

They are sold on the streets and attached to whatever you want to tie them to. We think they are related to Santo Antonio, the patron saint of matrimony.

Street art- painted phone cubicle.

We visited the Afro-Brazilian Museum which had a whole room of these carvings of Candomble gods.

The carvings were so exquisite you could see the movement in the wood.

We had a lot of trouble finding an ATM machine to get money out of. After trying 3 or 4 we had to go to the commercial lower town to find a bank there. Every street leading to the squares and tourist areas were patrolled by military police so we never felt unsafe at all. It was good to see that something visible was being done to prevent more robberies and muggings.