We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be disembarking the ship in less than 24 hours to beautiful Bahia (Salvador) where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be spending 4 days deep in the heart of Brazil. My itinerary (yes, there was a lot of copying and pasting involved):<\/p>\n
On Saturday, February 17, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being picked up by an air-conditioned van that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take us to the colonial mining town of Lencois, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the gateway to Chapada Diamantina National Park\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take 5 to 6 hours to get there (267 miles), of which time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to spend getting to know my tripmates. Once we get there, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re giving us a quick city tour and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be checked into our hotel \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pousada Alto do Cajueiro\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It was an extra $30 upgrade or so from whatever hotel we had before, but this one offers us a panoramic view of the town and Sincora Mountains. The other selling points they make are the fact that it has a tropical garden, balconies, hammocks, and ceiling fans. Definitely not a Ritz or Hilton \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is why I love it.<\/p>\n
Afterwards we have free time for lunch, and later on in the day we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be meeting children from the community who will guide us to a trail that once served as the road used by the region\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gold and diamond miners. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll then walk along the margins of the Lencois river and visit the sand saloon, where colored sand is extracted for handcraft production. And then I suppose we have free time for dinner\/shopping\/whatever.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, after breakfast, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be hiking to Cachoeira de Fumaca (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Smoke Falls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), which is apparently the most famous attraction in Chapada Diamantina. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be driven to the falls themselves and hike 45 minutes to the top, followed by 90 minutes of walking along the top. This will be my first physically exerting activity on this voyage and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to sweat off these extra calories from the ship food.<\/p>\n
On Monday, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be headed to the Poco Encantado (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Enchanted Pool\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), an underground pool with deep blue water so illuminated that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to see the rocks at the bottom, 60 meters below. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll then goto the equally stunning Poco Azul, where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be having lunch and allowed to swim (bad combination?). Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back to town for dinner. In the evening we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be meeting some kids from the community, who will be bringing a percussion, music, and dance cultural workshop to us.<\/p>\n
And finally on Tuesday, arguably the most exciting day of all, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll start off by hiking 4 kilometers to the Gruta do Lapao, one of Chapada Diamantina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grottos that features \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unique and beautiful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rock formations. Once we get there\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be rappelling 45 meters into the depths of the grotto. Afterwards, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be bungee jumping from the top of a 50 meter (150 feet) cliff. Rappelling and bungee jumping are two things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always wanted to do, and even though I feel a little queasy thinking about it, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to go through it.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be returning to Lencois to have lunch and pack, and return to Salvador. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the party begins \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at Carnival.<\/p>\n
Most of you know about Carnival in Brazil and how the entire country shuts down for 6 days (including government offices, banks, schools, shops, etc). And what a party\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s estimated that there are 1.5 million people dancing on the streets at any given time. There are these Trio Eletricos, which are huge trucks loaded with thousands of wattage of sound equipment with a band playing on top, that slowly drive around the city. Hundreds of security guards carrying a rope surround the trucks. Entrance into the trucks and roped off sections are determined by a t-shirt called an Abada. These act as entry tickets. The company we went through were able to provide us with Abadas for $100 each. So at 1900 hours (7pm), we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be partying it up in Salvador!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be disembarking the ship in less than 24 hours to beautiful Bahia (Salvador) where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be spending 4 days deep in the heart of Brazil. My itinerary (yes, there was a lot of copying and pasting involved): On Saturday, February 17, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being picked up by an air-conditioned van that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take us to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsong.com\/sasblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}