After a somewhat prolonged absence, I'm back on this blog.
My birthday, while officially only lasting for 24 hours, felt like it continued for at least another week. We celebrated New Year's Eve together with the Paula and Lautaro gang and most of the remaining time in Salvador was spent together with Laila, who we met at the club we went to on my birthday, and her friends, Ale, Pedro and Raíssa. We had a great time together, looking at conserved turtles (next to the tuna) at Praia do Forte, hanging out in the Pelourinho (the historical/colonial part of Salvador) and museuming, among other things (two sad goodbyes included; once when we went to Lençois and once when we left Bahía). Kisses to all of you, and especially to my soon-to-be carrot.
So this Lençois place, then. It was a very cute town, west of Salvador and I think it's the first time we've left the coast since we arrived in Rio the first time. It was good to get away from beaches for a while, and we spent the first day sliding down a natural waterslide. Soon after that, we embarked on an expedition with Extreme Eco Adventures! Our guide was a very cool Valmiro, who's an incredible cook. He made the best fruit salad I've ever eaten and loads of other good stuff too, which isn't easy when you're hiking around a valley (this one being Vale do Paty). Though we met quite a few other hikers on the way, our group was a cosy little one, consisting only of Valmiro, us 3 girls and a guy from our campsite in Lençois, Ricardo. The hike was excellent, with really varied terrain and vegetation, lots of incredible waterfalls to swim in and climb around and good weather. That is, except for a few hours on the 3rd day before we came into a town, the name of which escapes me now, when heavy rains soaked us to the bones. Having only brought one pair of shorts each, Moni, Nadja and I wrapped ourselves in bedsheets in order to go out and eat with Valmiro and Ricardo since we had no food left and all the grocery stores were closed. Only later did we realized that we were actually in a town, not just a place with a cluster of camping sites and pousadas, and that our bedsheeted and barefooted appearance was not quite suited to restaurant-going.
After Lençois we returned to Salvador for a second time to see Laila again, and Moni took this opportunity to continue to Montevideo. So now we're only 2. After the previously mentioned second sad goodbye (a double one, really, since it was of both Moni and Laila), the pair of us bussed down to the Minhas Gerais region, to its capital Belo Horizonte. The 24-hour bus ride turned into a 30-hour one, but luckily we ended up in a hotel in the red light district, 5 minutes from the bus terminal, smack in the center, paying only for 1 night though we stayed 2, since we arrived after midnight. Belo Horizonte, though ugly, was very much to our liking, and we spent a Sunday there walking around a big market and wandering around the crowded but really pleasant municipal park. We saw many a strange thing here, among which can be counted Brazilians turning stiff, European folk dancing into something fun and Ninja goth rockers.
At the moment we are a bit further south, in the town Ouro Preto. It's an extremely pretty colonial town up in the hills, and lots of photos have been taken of the prettiness today, and will be uploaded soonish. Tomorrow: São João del Rei. Or something like it.
