Repelling in Farroupilha

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Yesterday I boarded a small bus heading for Farroupilha with 13 brazilians and 3 other foreigners from the gym I joined on Saturday. It might come to a surprise to some of you who know me well when I say the purpose of the day trip 2 hours from Porto Alegre was repelling. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a fear but standing near the edge of extremely high places has never been one of my favorites. So I decided to as some people would say to face it or as I prefer to say just take it to the damn limit.

The pictures do a pretty good job explaining the day but I'll give a quick summary. We arrived in Farroupilha early Sunday morning and did a quick hike to the drop. The area around the drop was beautiful, especially the waterfall, and it was an extremely friendly group of people. The drop was 35 meters down with basically the first half being straight down and the second half was negative. I will admit the first couple of jumps off the rock on the 1st go down got the heart beating but all in all it was really damn fun. For lunch, we did a typical churrasco grilling more meat than can feed a small army, and basically repelled until dark. It was a very enjoyable day and as always a lot of new friends were made.

Surprisingly, I haven't been able to post much because I have been working a lot but things are still going great. I am learning tons at work and staying as busy as possible. Unlike Germany where I travelled every waking second I had free, here I have really been trying to stay in Porto Alegre and get settled. The people are still treating me great, the portuguese is still progressing but never as quickly as you would like, and I have met Ronaldinho's brother a number of times so that was cool. The weather is beginning to turn cold so I sort of missed summer this year which is a bummer but its definitely not like a german winter. It is also funny the different effect on your body that tropical fruits, fresh beef, and caipirinhas will have versus apple strudels, bratwurst and thick German beer.

Think that is enough for now but I am taking the first real trip to Sao Paulo this weekend so there should be more soon. Also, since the photo tool with this blog is no good here is the link to view all the photos from the repelling and my city tour of PA - Click here to see more photos
Thanks for all the emails and calls and sorry I have not been able to respond to everyone but keep them coming...

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Photos

Hanging out
My personal favorite: the negative part of the drop with the waterfall in the background.

Salto Ventoso
The view of the waterfall. We dropped down right to the left of this. If you look hard enough you can probably see the rope.

Salto Ventoso
Awesome view from here

Salto Ventoso
stream leading to the waterfall

Bottom of the fall
Trekked down to the bottom to see the view up

the first step off
didn't exactly set the world on fire with the first jump

A real barbeque
Helping out with the churrasco

Comments

[anonymous]

Wow-your momma!!!

[Oma and Opa too!!!]

Beautiful pics.--but scary.
Loved reading about your excursions--what fun and interesting places to see and experience. I admire your courage to tackle the high places--but do be careful.

[Wendy]

Abseiling!
Awesome! I did the exact same thing in the Blue Mtns in Australia. FYI - In Oz they call it abseiling (rock repelling), stems from German - meaning "down, off - rope." I repelled 3 times off the cliff. Third time I went face first, quite the adrenaline rush. My pics are pretty much identical to yours, haha. Way to face your fear, will you be skydiving next?