Chapada dos Veadeiros, the ultimative experience

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Geo: -14.0378, -47.6229

At 13:00 is was waiting at the meeting point my driver Eli had indicated me. He told me we would leave between 1 and 2PM, but in the end the showed up quite late, around 2:15 PM and then we still had to pick up 2 other people at their hotel. Since he didn't know where this exactly was, we were driving around for about 30 min before final finding them. In the end, I think we left Brasilia around 3 PM. The other 2 people turned out to be a couple, she from Minas and he from Brussels! Who would have thought that!? After 4 months in Brazil without meeting any Belgians, I meet one in a private transport from Brasilia to Chapada dos Veadeiros. The chances of that were really realm low! :-)
So the drive to Chapada became quite interesting. Max has been living in SP for 3 years, working in some art gallery and now he's back in Brussels starting his own painting career. He still has some contacts in SP and is organizing an exposition at MAM in SP. He had studied Greek and Latin and so we had quite some stuff to talk about. 😊

At around 6 PM we finally arrived at Alto Paraíso de Goias, the town where I would be staying for the next 2 days. There I was welcomed by Fargner, the owner. He's a very sweet man but a bit light headed it seems. He's just smiling all the time and sending around kisses and hugs in his big spiritual Zen. This town actually is very spiritual like all the Chapada dos Veadeiros area. There are lots of shops selling natural products, crystals and other spiritual stuff. It's not overwhelming or bothering though.
That evening I went to Pizza Vila Chamego that Farner had recommended me. The pizza there was amazing and cheap, as well as the wine. I think it's the first time in Brasil I ordered 2 glasses of wine without becoming poor! ^^ That night I was lucky and had a 4 bed room too all to myself.

The next day, I was waiting on information about the day's tour. I hadn't booked any external tour, hadn't looked up any information and was just very lucky that the hostel organized every day a tour to the Chapada dos Veadeiros Parc. I actually thought this was kind of a national parc where you have different trails to different waterfalls and canyons, kind of like Iguazu. But actually, there where lots of entrances and numerous trails going to more then 150 waterfalls!
At 9 AM, Hugo came and with Larissa who would also be going we were planing our tour. They wanted to go to the "new" waterfall that was discovered just a few weeks earlier - actually this parc / area is so huge, there could be hundreds more of not yet discovered waterfalls, something I thought impossible I our generation - but since I had only 1 day and wanted to see waterfalls and canyons they were so nice as to go to the Couros Waterfalls with me. Larissa said for her it's the most beautiful one and I heard quite some people agree with her. There was a couple also coming with us and another guy was supposed to accompany us but after making us wait for more than 30 min he decided he wasn't going....

After about 1h driving on bad field and earth roads through Brazilian pampa - it reminded me a lot of pictures of the African pampa I had seen - we finally arrived at the well hidden entrance. It wasn't a very long or especially hard trail, more like an intermediate trail, but I swear it was the second most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life! Our guide was Hugo, 30 years old, very nice, funny and completely crazy! The first waterfall, all part of the "cachoeiras do Couros", was impressive but after a few pictures Hugo carried on through the beautiful landscape to the main attraction. That one was stunning, impressive, beautiful, just amazing! There were only about 10 other tourists with their guides there which was great. I don't like places where you can't see any nature because of all the tourists there. Well, we started by swimming in the pool below the first of this these falls and the water was really nice, not too cold. After some time we were joined by Hugo who went with me to a small waterfall going down from the pool and told me to jump. It wasn't high at all, maybe 1 m, but without knowing how deep the water is -and it did NOT look deep- it was a bit scary. I decided to trust Hugo and just jump and it was actually very deep at that one place and it was fun to jump. Then we went into the pool again, letting us be driven by the current of water and it was like a slide, a lot of fun. :-)
Hugo explained we would go to see the next waterfall but that we had to go there climbing down the hill and then swimming. Then he went to the edge of the plateau on which we were standing pointed down and told me to jump. I was like :"WHAAAT ? That's a joke right? You're kidding!?!" He looked at me, laughed and jumped off the cliff 10 m down! I was really scared to do this, like really a lot. Even in our swimming pool in my hometown I never dared to jump from the 3 m point. But I had made the promise to myself that this year I would do everything I'm scared of. And so I jumped! I jumped and screamed and for one quarter of a second I thought : "What the hell did you just do jumping of that cliff!" But then I was already splashing into the water and the ecstasy and awesomeness I felt where so overwhelming I couldn't stop laughing for 10 minutes! :-D This was one of the scariest, most reckless and awesome things I have ever done in my life! And of course I was the only crazy person jumping after Hugo, the others climbed down...

We then swam to the next waterfall where we sat down on the cliff and watched the impressive view. We felt sooo small in front of this spectacular nature. Indescribable...
After climbing back up to Lara (Larissa) who can't swim and was waiting for us, we hiked back to the first waterfall we had only seen from far. On our way there we were surprised by some heavy rain but I had my rain gear, so I stayed dry. Arrived at the next point, we had to swim to get to the waterfall. There we climbed up at the side of the waterfall and Hugo and I crossed the waterfall to climb behind it. It was so impressive, the water masses pouring down on you, just deeply experiencing the nature's force. We could only do this because it was dry season and there was not that much water.
After that we were all quite exhausted and we went back to the car. Hugo, Lara and me went to some nice small farm to have lunch (at 4:30 PM!) and it was a delicious typical Brazilian meal : Manioc, rice, beans and chicken.
There we really got to know each other and started becoming good friends. On our way back we heard Latin music and even stopped in the middle of nowhere to dance Forró with Hugo. ^_^

That evening, after having a shower and getting ready with some nice Latin music, Lara and I went to a pub to have a beer and we had a great evening.
I can only say, this was one of the greatest days of all my South America Trip and the best I had had I months.

The next day I was supposed to go with Lara and Hugo again but the bus timing made it impossible unfortunately. So I went with a "moto-taxi" to the 2 Almécegas Waterfalls. They were really nice too, especially the first one. So I enjoyed the sun, the sight and some swimming before heading home.
I will for sure come back here at some point and I will keep in touch with my new friends Lara and Hugo ! :D

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