Capão day three

Saturday´s main activity was a hike to a place called Rio Preto (Black River). This place is a short hike from the village, about one hour, and is the kind of place you go to just kick it in a beautiful setting for a mellow afternoon. There are waterfalls, rocks that you can climb on, and pools that you can swim in. LOTS of people like to go there, I think because it is so easy to get to, and so beautiful once you are there.

I swam, and the water was COLD! Remember that June here is wintertime, and so the water was colder than in February, when I last came here, and the temperatures at night got down to about 13-15 degrees celsius, which is in the 50´s farenheit. Now I know this is not cold to you Oregonians, but for Vilma it was freezing, and for me after living for almost 2 years in a tropical climate it was pretty damn cold! Luckily I brought plenty of warm clothes to wear.

Here is a picture of me after swimming. I was very thankful that I brought that sarong along with me!!! Despite the cold, I have to say that it was really refreshing and cleansing to swim in this river. It feels so clean and unpolluted! Now I would not drink the water, but I feel a lot better swimming here than I do in the Bay of All Saints in Salvador. The beaches in Salvador are known for having pollution problems due to sewage lines running into the ocean closeby. Yuck!

We hung out at the swimming hole here for a couple of hours before heading back to the village. We stopped on the way back to eat homemade ice cream that was surprisingly disappointing. The ice cream cafe is on the edge of the village and apparently the freezer was on the blitz or something. It was more like flavored ice than ice cream.

That night we had pizza from the "other" pizzaria. Capão has 2 pizzarias, one is referred to as the famous one, and the other doesn´t have a real reference so I decided to call it the other one. We ate at the famous one the first night that we got to town, so decided to try this one out since we have never eaten there. It was delicious! We got 2 small pies, one plain cheese and the other a veggie mix. They used a lot of sauce, which is a rarity here in Brazil. The norm for pizza in Brazil includes a pie with little sauce, and then Brazilians put ketchup and mayonnaise on top of the pizza as condiments. I have never been able to get into this concept.

Later we went to the town square for more forro, fruit liquor and peanuts, then to bed early again because we knew we would be hiking again the next day. Here is a picture of the town of Capão so you can get an idea of what it looks like. The banners that you see hanging are traditional São João decorations. I have no idea of the significance, they are kind of like what garland is to Christmas.