salvador to lancois to capoa

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on the eve of march we write yet another entry.

when we last left we had made our way to salvador bahia for a signal night before heading of to lençois. we spent a night in salvador soaking up the colonial artistry and some bahian food.

in the morning we were off to the bus station for our next 7 hr social confinement exercise. at this point i think i should give you a primer on bus riding in brazil.

bus riding in brazil:

every town, large or small, has something called a "rodoviaria"...in english this means something close to "port authority". each rodoviaria has somewhere between 1 and 50 bus companies. each company goes to certain parts of the country which is labeled on a big sign in front of the ticket office and some bus companies offer service to the same locations. this is where it starts to get tricky.
if you want to find a schedule for when "x" bus leaves from "y" town and how long it will take, well, that's really too bad!! instead you have to depend on the ticket window staff to know the answer....if you are lucky they will answer your questions but on many occasions we have asked when a bus leaves from somewhere and receive the ever eloquent "não se?" (meaning I don´t know).

now lets move on to the bus types. in brazil, because the bus is the primary form of travel, there are 3 or
4 different levels that you can choose from:
1. conventional - this bus stops about every 15ft to pick up someone on the side of the road that has waived the bus down (remember how the ticket office people don´t know when busses leave??? funny how every else in the county seems to know!!), has no air-conditioning(we are like right next to equator!!), and has only a certain number of assigned seats. We made the mistake of taking one of these for a 9 hr ride and had people standing in the isles almost the entire time.
2. executivo - same as above but only stops at rodoviarias and has air-conditioning. the seats only partially recline which on long trips is a big deal.
3. golden (also called half leitio) these are basically nice buses that don´t stop to pick people up except main bus stops, come with all the stuff of the conven but also include snacks and blankets.
4. leito (also called full camma or something) these are like 1st class airline seats with movies, and a bus attendent. we have to experience this but someday!!

couple of other funny bus things...
1.if they have air conditioning then they are going to be freezing...you need a down sleeping bag to keep warm. there is no happy medium either sweating to the point of having visions or icles will start to form.
2. without fail the bus will step every 2 to 4 hrs for 30 mins so the driver and passengers can have some food. you would not believe how in the middle of nowhere these stops are.
3. somehow the buses are incredibly on time!!! i don´t get how a bus can stop to pick every random person on the road who wants to hop a ride to the next town and still stick to a schudule.
4. you can get off anywhere you want. pull the string and the bus stops. some people get off and I swear there is nothing for 100 miles.

ok now that i ranted on that for while...back to our travels.
we spent three glorious days in lençois which is the bourder town for the national park of chappada diamantia (land of diamonds). it is a beautiful park that has little to know servies like in the states...expect that you can hike 2 hours into the middle of no where and there will be a guy/women there to sell you coconuts, beer, or soda.

the first day we camped at a nice place called camping luminar. then the next day we went to a niffty little waterfall that is very popular for people sliding down it on there butts. we both did this numerous times and only stopped to avoid bruising. the rivers here are a spectrum of warm colors. they are, esstially, tea that is steweed from all the organics (plants) that drift into the water.

on day 3 we hiked into sessogo falls which is about 120 ft high with a fantastic swimming hole under it. the hike was a fun sort of dance with mountains, strange rock formations, and river rock hoping.

more to come later about our next stop---CAPAO!

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