Traveling Days...

---

After seeing the Itaipu Dam in Foz do Iguaçu, we set out on the road. Our second day out, we were excited to reach Vila Velha National Park, where we had planned for a couple of days of hiking. But as it turns out, there is only one (paved) trail where visitors are allowed to go, and it is all of 2.6 kilometers long. Although you can see the trail head from the ranger station, they make you take a bus there. All of five minutes away. So we did the trail twice and got back in the car...

Before the hike, we had asked for some infomartion about the park from ranger Wallace Jonas Bussman Junior, a friendly young blonde; when he told us that the trail only takes about an hour he saw our faces fall and asked if that was too much walking or too little.

Brazilians are not so much into this hiking idea.

To its credit, the trail itself was pretty cool. It went around these neat rock formations and down into a forest, where we saw a cutia and a wild boar.

After our enjoyable but brief stay at Vila Velha we went to Peruibe, a beach town south of Sao Paolo, and spent a couple of days there instead. We splurged and stayed at a hotel with a steam room and indoor pool (complete with wet bar) which we made good use of. We walked on the beach and ate good food and didn't get back in the car for two whole days....

---