This one's gonna be a doozy. A lot of stuff happened the past little while.
Starting with the good stuff. Acai with mango cream. I think the occasion was... Rhainer had a meeting until late and we convinced him and our other friends Gustavo and Natalya to go again. It was amazing:)
And this is Sam's. Looks good right? Gotta love the Acai chocolate combo.
This Acai place was also a frozen yogurt joint. The idea was good... everything you can imagine you put on your acai, but to be honest, I always get carried away at these places. I put too many things on it, so it was still good, but not as classy as the acai pictured above.
The first time we went to the zoo, remember how we were so disappointed because we didn't see the lobo guara (maned wolf)? Well, one morning when we didn't have much to do, we ran over to the zoo again, which is very close to the university and has free admission, to hopefully see the lobo guara this time. We were disappointed however. We saw only an open field. The lobo was probably sleeping or hiding. But we did find out that the first time we went to the zoo, we totally missed the jaguars and wild pigs! So our return trip was worth it.
Due to some kinks in our well thought-out plans, Sam and I ended up with some extra time. It's kind of an interesting question: where do you go if you can go anywhere? I bought this hiking app and was looking for some trails and the closest one was in this city called Aguas da Prata. It was this beautiful trail that supposedly had 7 waterfalls! We booked a hotel and headed over there. This is the cathedral that was across from our hotel. In Europe, I loved looking at all the cathedrals and the ones in Brazil are nice as well. Very stylistically different. It's like they're more modern and also built for the wet climate. Very nice.
Also very close to our apartment was this cute little theater. When we walked past it, I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cool to see a play in Brazil? But then there were police cars and officers in front of the building. When we asked what was going on, they told us that there were no plays tonight, only the birthday party of the police. But they said it was open to the public and we decided to go. It was really cool, we got to sit in a little booth and listen to a band play the Brazilian national anthem (which I absolutely love--it might be my favorite national anthem that I know of). We didn't stay the whole time because we couldn't understand a lot of it and it was a bit boring, but still cool!!!
This is the trail of the seven waterfalls. It followed the railroad track most of the way. We weren't sure if the train still ran on these tracks sometimes so we were careful to not lay down on the tracks.
This place is breathtaking. We actually didn't get to see all of the waterfalls because we had to get back to leave for our next trip, but I'd love to go back someday. People thought we were crazy when we mentioned going to Aguas da Prata, but I think it's lovely.
This is the banana tree we passed on the way. Bananas are cool!
Us being happy to be alive.
I can't get enough of these pink trees.
We got back to Sao Carlos and left for Ubatuba. This is our crew. Sam, Rhainer, Gustavo and Natalya. Also, Natalya's adorable but ancient poodle and myself. I think this picture was taken right after Rhainer had impressed us with his talent of snatching dragonflies with his bare hands. Incredible.
This is Ubatuba, the greenest place I've ever been.
The backrow crew
Our first stop was Felix beach. It felt like what I imagine Neverland feels like. The water is perfect swimming temperature. The tree-covered hills surround and isolate the area. There's shells and sand-dollars (or sea cookies as they're called here) everywhere.
Around the corner, there was a freshwater stream that had lovely blue crabs (sorry no pictures). Rhainer offered me 10 bucks if I could catch one with my hands but they're fast little devils!!!
This is us wading in the stream close catching dragonflies. There were a lot of the little black and blue ones (Argia) and other Coenagrionids along with some hetaerina!!!
Sometimes I think I don't appreciate the butterflies enough. Probably a lot of these are like... endangered or something. Maybe not, but what I actually believe is that every one is probably a different species. I don't understand exactly how you can find three different species of the same genus in the same area, but this fight for life leads to incredible diversity. My favorites are the big blue morpho butterfly we see flying around all over.
Here's a big Anisoptera we caught (Anisoptera meaning dragonfly as opposed to Zygoptera, damselflies). I think it's an aeshnid.
Trees.
This magical stream. There were biting shrimp in it and if you stood too long in the same place they come and eat the dead skin off your feet.
Here is Rhainer being our experience provider. I think he's talking about the big waterfall on the other side of these rocks. Or pointing to the spider above my head.
And here's us going to the waterfall.
And the big spider. Amazing.
Gustavo doing Yoga poses on top of the rock.
Rhainer being the experience provider.
Me with thumbs.
Here is some moss with the waterfall in the background.
I didn't feel like swimming with my clothes on so I dared Sam to go behind the waterfall and I would buy her ice cream. She did it, and the ice cream was really good.
Here are these hooligans after they swam by the waterfall.
Sam is really happy to be catching damselflies.
This is a cool wasp that will probably sting this spider.
I think I'm trying to take a picture of the biting shrimp.
My best scientist face:)
This is Natalya and Mel, her dog. Mel might be the first damselfly collecting dog ever to come in these rivers.
One time it was awkward when we caught this dragonfly and the abdomen fell off. I felt a little bad, but you know, not every specimen can be perfect I guess.
Yeah! Happy collectors!
Rhainer says if you are dying of thirst in the rainforest, cut open a vine and drink from it. I want to try it.
We all really liked this perfectly placed scenic branch with bromelias on it.
Apparently there is some property close to the beach that you can buy for pretty cheap. I would not mind having a house here.
Here is the skeleton of a whale. They're pretty big I guess.
And here's my creation of a fish eating Sam. Pretty good if I do say so myself.
Well. To make this trip even more memorable, we got a flat tire.
Fortunately our fixing crew was really fast and knew what they were doing.
Our next destination was a place that was more Cerrado (Brazilian Savannah). We went to a national park called Serra da Canastra. We saw these beautiful marble-like tadpoles.
We had this awesome waterfall place all to ourselves most of the morning.
And we figured out how to snatch dragonflies with our hands!
You just have to be sneaky.
We walked up this stream as well and saw quite a few nice dragonflies.
It's crazy gorgeous.
We ate our lunch as we looked at this view.
It was very nice.
We entered the park from Sao Joque do Minas and found this dirt road with cows on it.
This is the cow we named Luanna. She's pretty nice.
This is where we first saw the toucan in the wild. I was amazed.
And I like this plant with little red pom-poms.
Here's a waterfall we could have hiked to I guess.
It soon became apparent that our car would not make it far on the dirt roads (some of them were pretty bad). So we talked to the people at our hotel and they told us we could go on this safari type thing.
This is the spring where the Sao Francisco river begins.
And again.
This is the entrance of the park. We had to pay extra because we were American.
We went swimming in this gorgeous river. It was so clear.
This is the picture we took together after we saw the Lobo Guara (the maned wolf). We were so excited!
And here it is. The Legendary Lobo Guara!
We also saw many tamanduas (giant anteaters). They're huge! And amazing.
There was a great view of the surrounding land.
And this cool bird.
This was the pousada (guest house) where we stayed. Very nice.
'
That night we ate some pretty yummy manjocka gnocchi. We like our friends.
On the way home, we stopped at this place to buy cheese and saw this bird farm where they had these gorgeous pheasants.
And more long-legged chickens.
The next day we went to this place called lost paradise.
We saw basically the whole metamorphosis of a frog right here from egg to adult.
To our surprise, after we had already said goodbye, we ran into our friend Cristina at the cheese place.
Here's Sam being a model.
And the sunset:) What a great week.
