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Published: August 6th 2007
Porteira
Tradition says you must hang a snake from the gate if it bit someone.Holy Week is a holiday in Brasil for about one week leading to Easter Sunday. Luckily, I got the whole week off from work (most people only get a couple days). So, in 9 days of rest, I was able to round up a small group to go visit the tiny village of Cabeça-de-Boi (portuguese for Bull's Head) between Thursday and Sunday. We rented a small, very simple and cheap little house. We set out from Belo Horizonte at 7am trying to beat the holiday traffic. Although it was only a 130 kms away, it took about 4 hours to get there, between traffic, road construction, detours and 60kms of dirt road on my 65hp FIAT. But the upside was being able to see the beautiful scenery on the mountains, and nice little towns like Bom Jesus do Amparo, Ipoema e Itambé do Mato Dentro.
The trip was harsh, but a group of five stressed out people seeking nature (like us) were quickly regenerated by the sights around this tiny village atop the hill, with 360 degrees of beautiful mountains around us. Cabeça de Boi (nickname for the village of Santana do Rio Preto) only has about 25 houses, a
square and a tiny church. The house we rented was extremely simple. Outhouse, wood stove, 2 power outlets for the entire house. We quickly got ready, eager to explore one of the many waterfalls around the city. The nearest one (Poço do Lajeado) was about a 5km hike each way, and quite a strenuous one. Since we left quite late, we were only able to enjoy the place for a couple hours, but we were the only ones there.
Although we planned on getting up early on the next morning and taking the longer, 9km hike to the waterfalls of Maçã and Intancado, the trip and the hike from the first day took more from us than we thought, and we slept in a bit. The weather was a bit cloudy, so we decided to explore a different area, more accessible by car. As we got to the beginning of the trail, we got instructions from someone, who told us that once we crossed the creek, the trail to the waterfall would be obvious. Obviously it was not obvious, and we roamed aimlessly for a good long hour in the woods (with a bunch of cuts and bruises to
prove it) before we found the actual trail. Once we found it we got to the waterfall and named it "Cachoeira da Trilha Óbvia" (Obvious Trail Fall). Luckily again, we were the only ones there.
Our last day dawned with a lot of clouds and light showers and again we hesitated on taking the longer hike. Once it cleared a bit, we set out, but only got to the Maçãs waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful. The hike really took a lot from us, so we needed the big barbeque at our friends house to recuperate with a lot of meat, truco (traditional card game from this part of Brasil), and cold beer.
The road back do Belo Horizonte was empty and the trip was quite silent. I'm sure all of us in the car already felt the impact of the thought of working on the next morning, after these days of quiet, peace and nature.
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