Bonito... beautiful indeed
Oh and behold, I managed to get a full 8 hours´ sleep last night, bliss... first time in 6 days and I could have easily slept another 4 hours... but there were more treasures awaiting to be discovered... which is always a much greater motivation to get out of bed than to go to work... :) After a hasty breakfast I met my guide (who was bilingual) and my driver again (who is really nice but keeps on talking to me in Portuguese as if I could understand him ok too, bless) and we drove 23kms out of town to the Cave with the Blue Lake.
It was a very sunny day today but I had been warned that the sun beams would not reach the lake at this time of year (through the cave opening), as it only does so in December and January for 10 minutes. This is when ALL the glorious post cards are taken... to fool us, naive tourists, into believing that it looks that stunning all year round (for those of us who do not bother to check their facts, or who do but can only come in August because it is the best month for other activities, i.e. Pantanal). The lake was only ´discovered´ by the government 10 years ago, before that it belonged to a farmer and all the people from the nearest village used to go down the cave to have a refreshing swim in the summer. Then the government got wind of this, thought ´this is a great way to make money´, bought the patch off the farmer (who, needless to say, had no say in the matter) and now charge tourists to visit the spot. They are such misers too that they refuse to add any ropes along the steep paths (VERY slippery on a rainy day) to facilitate the 75m descent to the shore of the lake. And it is only as of last year that they felt it might be sensible to wear helmets after a stalegmite broke off from the cave ceiling and almost killed someone. The stalegmite shattered into a million sharp pieces and actually injured a few people. So, here we go again, yet another government who wants its cake and eat it.... ´let us exploit this natural spot with tourists but spend minimal money on their H&S´... and who will sue the Brazilian government, right ? Last week because there were more tourists than they could handle they simply shut the place down for 3 days... and they put a limit to 300 tourists per day. Aren´t I glad I did not come last week then ? HUM. As it happens 50,000 people visit this cave every year, it is the number one tourist attraction in this state. You are not allowed to touch the water either, tempting as it may be, because if you had hand cream or sun tan lotion or mosquitoe repellent on your hands x 50,000 you would soon pollute the lake... fair enough. This, I can agree with... I guess all the villagers who used to swim in it regularly must have felt thoroughly gutted too....
The lake was indeed a deep blue (but how do you describe that particular kind of blue ?) but you did not really see that until you got quite close. I tried to take some pictures but I have NO idea if they will turn out... oh, this is the other bright idea they had : no tripods allowed inside... but then the guide tells you ´if you use the flash for taking pix they will come out too dark, you need to keep your shutter open for about 2 seconds´... right, but you have just told us that we are not allowed to use a tripod which makes it a technical impossibility to do just that? I therefore had to try and find a stone that was fairly flat and try to hold my camera as steady as I could, but I could not check the results instantly to find out if it had all been a waste of film or not. So I also took some shots with my flash gun as a back-up but expect very little. It was nice and unusual, but not as amazing as I had hoped because it was the wrong month and the wrong time... I think if I had done the same excursion in the afternoon when the sun is higher up, it may have been nicer. My guide told me that this place was virtually unkown to the rest of the world until the BBC came over 5 years ago and spent 10 days in Bonito to shoot all its natural wonders and ever since the interest has shot up... every year more and more tourists come over... it tends to spread through word of mouth or video clips. Bonito is a young city, only 50 years old, but 20,000 of its inhabitants now rely on tourism for work... so I guess we have our use ! In fact, it does not matter which agency you come over with ( i.e. mine was NY based) they have to sub-employ Bonito based people to guide you around and drive you around otherwise all these people will starve if the money is taken out back to NY or wherever. So in effect I am paying commission to 3 agencies... the NY one, who had to hire the Brazilian main one who had to hire the Bonito local ones... great ! But then I am glad there are some hotels nearby (and very comfy ones too -- my bed last night could have slept 3 people, wow, what a far cry from my previous night) and some internet cafes, and animal shaped phone booths (!), etc. etc. So I cannot have my cake and eat it... everything comes at a price, I know, I know.
We then went back to the city centre before heading back out again, another 25kms towards the Sucuri River. On the way we saw many wild rheas and some other birds (knee high) with a nice crest and some gorgeous blue eyes.... The South of the Pentanal is not that far so you can spot a few interesting birds here sometimes.
The city centre holds nothing much of interest but, as I have just said earlier, for its crazy plastic phone booths !!!! Very entertaining.... Every one represents an animal... a fish, a macaw, a toucan, a jaguar... pretty unusual. I had to take a couple of shots of these as you do not see them anywhere else in the world...
We started our snorkelling afternoon with a 30mn walk to the spring of the Sucuri River, where the water is ever so clear it is really like an aquarium, no exaggeration there. We then practised using our masks and snorkels and checked they were all ok (some capucchin monkeys came right down to greet us but I didn´t have my camera handy as I was already in the water, ahhh). We had to wear wet suits too because the water temperature was only 22C and our trip was going to last about 1 hour to 1 hour 30mns ... which is a loooong time if you are freezing. I actually worried it might be too long and it was only just a little bit beyond comfortable but it was quite incredible... Unfortunately, because we had to set off later than our scheduled departure time (we had to wait after 3 people who had lunch in town, grrr) the first hour was the most spectacular... after that the sun went down a bit too low for the sun beams to hit the bottom of the river -- though it was very shallow indeed. So, in effect, I did both my excursions at the wrong time and should have done them in reverse order... but maybe it was all that was available at the time? Again, they have a limit to the number of people they will take snorkelling per day and as it is becoming increasingly popular, it is not advisable to just turn up and hope you can join a group because groups are made up of 15 people maximum. We were lucky, ours was only made up of 5 and we were far apart from each other so it always felt as if you had the river all to yourself. It was quite nice to be like a floating log... they gave you a life jacket (though you could not possibly drown as the average depth was 70cms but could go as low as 30cms) so you didn´t have to move an inch, just float and drift downstream with the currents. You were not allowed to stand on the river bed not to stir up the bottom as it would have blurred the view for everybody. We covered 2kms in 1h10mns so it was fairly fast... a bit like Disneyland, but better because all natural :) The water colour was incredible... I had hardly seen anything like it before in my life, certainly not in a river environment.... I cannot even describe it (as I said earlier, how do you describe ´blue´ when there are so many shades of blue !? I later learnt that the hyacinth macaws were ´cobalt´blue but I am afraid my English doesn´t stretch to all the other shades!). The decor was superb too with palm trees and large ferns on the banks of the river which added just the right touch of exotism... MY kind of place! The fish were a bit disappointing because they lacked colours... There were all sizes and some were positively big (my arm length at least, my thigh width and a bright gold colour all over) but I only spotted about 10 different species if that, whereas I am used to tropical fishes being so incredibly diverse in colours and shapes that it is impossible to keep count of how many different ones you see. So it was pretty much more and more of the same... but it was certainly a different kind of experience and if my photos have turned out ok (and they should because, with my polariser, I was able to cut the reflections out and shoot straight to the bottom) they will give you a much better idea than I ever could in words.
It was very relaxing indeed... and the additional good news is that one loses calories big time when you stay in cold water for over an hour. Beats sweating it at the gym any time, trust me! We all had hot showers after that, able to shampoo my hair too... so it was very civilised. I would recommend this as a day out for anyone in the area. We left at 4:30pm which is when the ant eaters are supposed to come out but we did not spot any. I was oh so disappointed... on a good evening people have seen up to 5 or 7 in the fields nearby... but not tonight.
Anyway... tomorrow is another adventure... another very early breakfast (5:50am) as we must drive off at 6:15am to go to another river with very different landscape and different fish... same crystal clear quality but not so fast flowing. Snorkelling tour starts at 9am to finish at noon (should be sunnier too). So a whole different experience again my guide said... and after lunch I will have to be driven back to the airport for my 6:30pm flight to Iguacu, not getting to my hotel before 1am, eeek... (this will be the latest I will have hit the sack, so far I have managed to be in bed by 11pm latest). I have been warned that Iguacu can be very disappointing in the dry season and that TV news have reported that this year has been particularly dry for the Falls. You can see that all the fields are grey and brown too and one has to wonder what the many cows can find to eat... My guide said that usually in the summer it rains about 20 days over 2 or 3 months but this year it only rained 5 or 7 which is way below what they needed. Yet another sign of global warming :(
On this note, I shall love you and leave you and go back to my hotel for my dinner and an early night (my driver here is so cool he is always happy to drive me into town where I can access cheaper internet connections - and faster ones too). He even comes back to pick me up at a pre arranged time, which saves me the hassle of ordering a cab in Portuguese. I think I said before that very few people speak any English here... Proof: I have just tried asking them if they had any toilets in English, Spanish and French, and nada... and yet I distinctively saw the word ´Toilette´ written outside the entrance to the Ladies & Gents this afternoon... so it cannot far off !!! I guess I will have to make do without then ! And even at the domestic airport, when my flight was late, there was NO explanation whatsoever in anything BUT Portuguese. I tried to get a member of staff to explain why it was not boarding yet (fearing I had missed it... ) and had to go through 5 people (and these were people in uniforms working for the airline I may add) before one managed to explain to me, in Spanish, that the incoming flight was late. HUM. When they said in my travel books ´learning a bit of Portuguese will go a long way´ they were NOT kidding... they should have added ´it may also stop you from having to cross your legs for a very long time´...
No emails from me tomorrow, there is NO way I am hitting the keyboard at 1am ! :)
Oh and behold, I managed to get a full 8 hours´ sleep last night, bliss... first time in 6 days and I could have easily slept another 4 hours... but there were more treasures awaiting to be discovered... which is always a much greater motivation to get out of bed than to go to work... :) After a hasty breakfast I met my guide (who was bilingual) and my driver again (who is really nice but keeps on talking to me in Portuguese as if I could understand him ok too, bless) and we drove 23kms out of town to the Cave with the Blue Lake.
It was a very sunny day today but I had been warned that the sun beams would not reach the lake at this time of year (through the cave opening), as it only does so in December and January for 10 minutes. This is when ALL the glorious post cards are taken... to fool us, naive tourists, into believing that it looks that stunning all year round (for those of us who do not bother to check their facts, or who do but can only come in August because it is the best month for other activities, i.e. Pantanal). The lake was only ´discovered´ by the government 10 years ago, before that it belonged to a farmer and all the people from the nearest village used to go down the cave to have a refreshing swim in the summer. Then the government got wind of this, thought ´this is a great way to make money´, bought the patch off the farmer (who, needless to say, had no say in the matter) and now charge tourists to visit the spot. They are such misers too that they refuse to add any ropes along the steep paths (VERY slippery on a rainy day) to facilitate the 75m descent to the shore of the lake. And it is only as of last year that they felt it might be sensible to wear helmets after a stalegmite broke off from the cave ceiling and almost killed someone. The stalegmite shattered into a million sharp pieces and actually injured a few people. So, here we go again, yet another government who wants its cake and eat it.... ´let us exploit this natural spot with tourists but spend minimal money on their H&S´... and who will sue the Brazilian government, right ? Last week because there were more tourists than they could handle they simply shut the place down for 3 days... and they put a limit to 300 tourists per day. Aren´t I glad I did not come last week then ? HUM. As it happens 50,000 people visit this cave every year, it is the number one tourist attraction in this state. You are not allowed to touch the water either, tempting as it may be, because if you had hand cream or sun tan lotion or mosquitoe repellent on your hands x 50,000 you would soon pollute the lake... fair enough. This, I can agree with... I guess all the villagers who used to swim in it regularly must have felt thoroughly gutted too....
The lake was indeed a deep blue (but how do you describe that particular kind of blue ?) but you did not really see that until you got quite close. I tried to take some pictures but I have NO idea if they will turn out... oh, this is the other bright idea they had : no tripods allowed inside... but then the guide tells you ´if you use the flash for taking pix they will come out too dark, you need to keep your shutter open for about 2 seconds´... right, but you have just told us that we are not allowed to use a tripod which makes it a technical impossibility to do just that? I therefore had to try and find a stone that was fairly flat and try to hold my camera as steady as I could, but I could not check the results instantly to find out if it had all been a waste of film or not. So I also took some shots with my flash gun as a back-up but expect very little. It was nice and unusual, but not as amazing as I had hoped because it was the wrong month and the wrong time... I think if I had done the same excursion in the afternoon when the sun is higher up, it may have been nicer. My guide told me that this place was virtually unkown to the rest of the world until the BBC came over 5 years ago and spent 10 days in Bonito to shoot all its natural wonders and ever since the interest has shot up... every year more and more tourists come over... it tends to spread through word of mouth or video clips. Bonito is a young city, only 50 years old, but 20,000 of its inhabitants now rely on tourism for work... so I guess we have our use ! In fact, it does not matter which agency you come over with ( i.e. mine was NY based) they have to sub-employ Bonito based people to guide you around and drive you around otherwise all these people will starve if the money is taken out back to NY or wherever. So in effect I am paying commission to 3 agencies... the NY one, who had to hire the Brazilian main one who had to hire the Bonito local ones... great ! But then I am glad there are some hotels nearby (and very comfy ones too -- my bed last night could have slept 3 people, wow, what a far cry from my previous night) and some internet cafes, and animal shaped phone booths (!), etc. etc. So I cannot have my cake and eat it... everything comes at a price, I know, I know.
We then went back to the city centre before heading back out again, another 25kms towards the Sucuri River. On the way we saw many wild rheas and some other birds (knee high) with a nice crest and some gorgeous blue eyes.... The South of the Pentanal is not that far so you can spot a few interesting birds here sometimes.
The city centre holds nothing much of interest but, as I have just said earlier, for its crazy plastic phone booths !!!! Very entertaining.... Every one represents an animal... a fish, a macaw, a toucan, a jaguar... pretty unusual. I had to take a couple of shots of these as you do not see them anywhere else in the world...
We started our snorkelling afternoon with a 30mn walk to the spring of the Sucuri River, where the water is ever so clear it is really like an aquarium, no exaggeration there. We then practised using our masks and snorkels and checked they were all ok (some capucchin monkeys came right down to greet us but I didn´t have my camera handy as I was already in the water, ahhh). We had to wear wet suits too because the water temperature was only 22C and our trip was going to last about 1 hour to 1 hour 30mns ... which is a loooong time if you are freezing. I actually worried it might be too long and it was only just a little bit beyond comfortable but it was quite incredible... Unfortunately, because we had to set off later than our scheduled departure time (we had to wait after 3 people who had lunch in town, grrr) the first hour was the most spectacular... after that the sun went down a bit too low for the sun beams to hit the bottom of the river -- though it was very shallow indeed. So, in effect, I did both my excursions at the wrong time and should have done them in reverse order... but maybe it was all that was available at the time? Again, they have a limit to the number of people they will take snorkelling per day and as it is becoming increasingly popular, it is not advisable to just turn up and hope you can join a group because groups are made up of 15 people maximum. We were lucky, ours was only made up of 5 and we were far apart from each other so it always felt as if you had the river all to yourself. It was quite nice to be like a floating log... they gave you a life jacket (though you could not possibly drown as the average depth was 70cms but could go as low as 30cms) so you didn´t have to move an inch, just float and drift downstream with the currents. You were not allowed to stand on the river bed not to stir up the bottom as it would have blurred the view for everybody. We covered 2kms in 1h10mns so it was fairly fast... a bit like Disneyland, but better because all natural :) The water colour was incredible... I had hardly seen anything like it before in my life, certainly not in a river environment.... I cannot even describe it (as I said earlier, how do you describe ´blue´ when there are so many shades of blue !? I later learnt that the hyacinth macaws were ´cobalt´blue but I am afraid my English doesn´t stretch to all the other shades!). The decor was superb too with palm trees and large ferns on the banks of the river which added just the right touch of exotism... MY kind of place! The fish were a bit disappointing because they lacked colours... There were all sizes and some were positively big (my arm length at least, my thigh width and a bright gold colour all over) but I only spotted about 10 different species if that, whereas I am used to tropical fishes being so incredibly diverse in colours and shapes that it is impossible to keep count of how many different ones you see. So it was pretty much more and more of the same... but it was certainly a different kind of experience and if my photos have turned out ok (and they should because, with my polariser, I was able to cut the reflections out and shoot straight to the bottom) they will give you a much better idea than I ever could in words.
It was very relaxing indeed... and the additional good news is that one loses calories big time when you stay in cold water for over an hour. Beats sweating it at the gym any time, trust me! We all had hot showers after that, able to shampoo my hair too... so it was very civilised. I would recommend this as a day out for anyone in the area. We left at 4:30pm which is when the ant eaters are supposed to come out but we did not spot any. I was oh so disappointed... on a good evening people have seen up to 5 or 7 in the fields nearby... but not tonight.
Anyway... tomorrow is another adventure... another very early breakfast (5:50am) as we must drive off at 6:15am to go to another river with very different landscape and different fish... same crystal clear quality but not so fast flowing. Snorkelling tour starts at 9am to finish at noon (should be sunnier too). So a whole different experience again my guide said... and after lunch I will have to be driven back to the airport for my 6:30pm flight to Iguacu, not getting to my hotel before 1am, eeek... (this will be the latest I will have hit the sack, so far I have managed to be in bed by 11pm latest). I have been warned that Iguacu can be very disappointing in the dry season and that TV news have reported that this year has been particularly dry for the Falls. You can see that all the fields are grey and brown too and one has to wonder what the many cows can find to eat... My guide said that usually in the summer it rains about 20 days over 2 or 3 months but this year it only rained 5 or 7 which is way below what they needed. Yet another sign of global warming :(
On this note, I shall love you and leave you and go back to my hotel for my dinner and an early night (my driver here is so cool he is always happy to drive me into town where I can access cheaper internet connections - and faster ones too). He even comes back to pick me up at a pre arranged time, which saves me the hassle of ordering a cab in Portuguese. I think I said before that very few people speak any English here... Proof: I have just tried asking them if they had any toilets in English, Spanish and French, and nada... and yet I distinctively saw the word ´Toilette´ written outside the entrance to the Ladies & Gents this afternoon... so it cannot far off !!! I guess I will have to make do without then ! And even at the domestic airport, when my flight was late, there was NO explanation whatsoever in anything BUT Portuguese. I tried to get a member of staff to explain why it was not boarding yet (fearing I had missed it... ) and had to go through 5 people (and these were people in uniforms working for the airline I may add) before one managed to explain to me, in Spanish, that the incoming flight was late. HUM. When they said in my travel books ´learning a bit of Portuguese will go a long way´ they were NOT kidding... they should have added ´it may also stop you from having to cross your legs for a very long time´...
No emails from me tomorrow, there is NO way I am hitting the keyboard at 1am ! :)
posted by Sylvie at 11:00 PM
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