Still waters

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Bonito

At Puerto Iguazu I had the pleasure of bumping into a couple of American girls for the third time in the trip (first in Chiloe, then in Ushuaia, and now in Iguazu). We even went to the falls on the same day. So when I found out that they were heading to the much-talked-about Bonito, I tagged along. They had left earlier but I managed to catch them in the nick of time at Foz de Iguaçu (Brazil) and hop onto their same bus. We ended up spending nearly a day traveling to Bonito.

For those of you who have never been to Brazil, picture what you would think a typical Brazilian landscape looks like. The resulting image is probably the landscape surrounding Bonito: lush vegetation, beautiful blue skies, sparse jungle, lots of cows (the ones with the humped necks), and strange birds. Of course, I arrived at this small town on a weekend (as I always seem to do with small towns). Many hostels have the word "Ecological" in their names. This seems to be the buzz word around here since all the tourism in the area is of the surrounding nature. However, very few ecological elements are found in the hostel (I stayed at) - mainly recycling bins. I wouldn´t be at all surprised if it all goes in the same garbage pile in the end.

After talking to the manager of our hostel (who is also in charge of arranging tours) and to a tourism agency, we sorted through the innumerable options and tourism agents´disapproval of our plans to finally decide on our activities. You see, Bonito has a very strange setup: there is no public transport to take anyone to the attractions and the attractions are nearly all private. The result is high entrance fees and no alternatives to contracting private drivers for transport. Plus, everyone seems to have a preconceived notion as to what has to be done in Bonito and in what order. Any deviation from the regular way of going about the activities is heavily protested. But I would hear none of it. So we made the necessary arrangements and went to bed to wake up the next day (Monday 15th) at 6:30am.

Our first activity was to visit the Gruta Laguna Azul cave, a municipality-owned cave 30 min. away from the city. It is an enormous cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites. There are about 300 steps to the bottom, and all steps are wet so we descended carefully. One person in our group was afraid of going down these steps and I don´t blame her. There are 5 platforms on the way on which we could stop to take photographs, as doing so while descending is a rather foolish idea. Sure, we were wearing helmets, but we had no ropes to prevent us from falling fatally to the bottom. From the last platform we could see a pool of water at least 50m deep (a diver reached 52m and still found no bottom) which took on enchanting hues of blue in the morning light. The day was cloudy, so the colours were not as vibrant as they normally are but even then it was beautiful. This is by far the biggest cave I have ever been in and definitely not the last. As an interesting bit of info, there was a soap opera being filmed at the same time - cameras, heavily made up girls, and their assistants. I don´t think that the rain was part of the script.

Next, after a 1hr drive we arrived at our second destination, where we had a Brazilian buffet with beans, more beans, "Paraguayan soup", banana lasagna, banana desert, and more. Once we were finished we put on wetsuits and were handed snorkels, life jackets, and goggles for our next adventure. A 30 min. walk through the jungle had us at a river´s edge. The river is said to be the 3rd clearest in the world. You can see as far as you want. If there were a spot 70ft deep, I wouldn´t be suprised if, with the proper lighting, you could see the bottom in full detail. So we entered the water and for the following 40 min we just floated, with our faces underwater watching the fish, some of which were even two or three feet long. I tried again and again to catch the fish but the fish were way too fast. So we just floated downstream and relaxed while nature put on a good show. Then it was back to the hostel where we cooked potatoes and steak and spent the night trying to endure the obnoxious presence of the other guests at the hostel, a group the likes of which I have not yet seen. Sometimes it is very difficult to believe that the world could engender such selfish, inconsiderate, self-absorbed, and ignorant people. It is still more challenging to realize that these people have actually explored places beyond their own bubble and yet they remain so intolerant.

Our third day in Bonito was a very relaxing day. The guests that had tried our patience the previous night were gracious enough to travel to the Pantanal, leaving a quiet hostel. We rented bicycles at the hostel and took off to the Balneario Municipal, where we found out that we can also snorkel there for a much smaller price, although for only a fraction of the length of Rio Sucuri, where we had gone the previous day. There were fish in the balneario which would come to our immersed feet and feed themselves of our sweat. That tickled. We just chilled and when we were ready we returned to the hostel for more relaxing. Our time in Bonito was nearing its end.

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Photos

cave
the blue is the pool at the bottom

Me
in the Gruta Laguna Azul

cave
the blue is the pool at the bottom

cave
the blue is the pool at the bottom

Sara and Gentry
in the cave

cave
the blue is the pool at the bottom

me
in the cave

Rio Sucuri
some springs

Rio Sucuri
entering the river

Rio Sucuri
equipment problems