Fumaça Waterfall
You can read all about our first two days in Chapada Diamantina here. On day three we were still in Lençois staying in our little pousada (i.e. B&B). We met an Irish
couple, John and Edel, who were three weeks into their nine month adventure
around South America. They are keen hikers and were brought to Chapada for
similar reasons to us – claims that it boasts some of the best hiking in the
world.
We went with John and Edel on a hike to the
second highest waterfall in Brazil. The highest in the country was recently
found in the heart of the Amazon, of all places! We hiked to the waterfall as
part of a group of seven people, with an English speaking guide. It was an hour
and a half’s drive along poor quality roads to the start of the hike. The first
half an hour of the hike was uphill and difficult. Especially for Katie, who had a
cold and was struggling to breathe. The views on the way up were magical
though, and would take anyone’s breath away, cold or no cold.
After 1.5km going up we reached the top
and walked along the flat path for another 3.5km. The mountains in Chapada are
very flat on top and it makes for a strange view. It’s also where the name of
the park comes from, as chapada means plateau. The terrain on the top was very
wet, muddy and apparently a lot like the bogs in Ireland. We were happy to be
wearing our proper hiking boots, as we saw people in trainers really
struggling. But at one point we reached a puddle that even waterproof boots
couldn’t contend with. It was about ten metres long and almost knee-deep in
places. So off came the shoes and socks as we were forced to wade our way
across – how exciting! Was anything going to stop us today? NO!
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| Some flora and a bit of fauna. The big leaf was recommended to us as toilet paper. |
As we approached the waterfall it seemed to
be raining although it turns out the raindrops were actually coming from the
waterfall itself. What we weren’t told prior to starting the hike was that in
order to see Fumaça waterfall in all its glory, you have to crawl out and peer
over the edge of a big rock that crops out of the cliff-face. Once there, you
are looking down into the abyss; you can see the waterfall, the small body of
water at the bottom of it and certain death if you were to fall. I looked over
for a few seconds but a feeling of dizziness washed over me and meant I
couldn’t look for as long as I would have liked. Katie was even more nervous
and John caught this on film…hilarious.
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| The view from the rock! Pretty terrifying. |
In fairness Katie tried and was able to hike
there while a lot of people weren’t able to. The view was great though. We then
followed the same trail back down and were happy to end the hike there as our
legs were stiffening up. The next stop was another waterfall called Riachinho,
which was a little easier to get to and was the perfect place for a bit of a
swim. John and I took advantage of the opportunity and we sat half way up,
enjoying the streaming water on our faces. We were definitely not fearing for
our lives in case a rock came tumbling down and smashed into our heads! After a
while we climbed back down the slippery rocks, got changed and headed back to
Lençois for about 7pm.
The Bluest Cave in all the Lands
John and Edel headed off for their four day
trek, which you can read all about on their blog, and we decided to spend our
final day visiting two more caves; Poço Encantado and Poço Azul. I say we spent
the day visiting the caves, but really we spent most of the time in the van,
driving along roads that were in a terrible, bumpy condition. After driving for
more than two hours from Lençois, we finally reached Poço Encantado. We spent
half an hour walking there and looking at the magical cave. The water was
incredibly blue – truly the boldest of blues you can imagine. It is over 60m
deep at one point and when the sun shone through the gap in the rock it was
really incredible to look at.
With the feeling of magic inside us, we got
back in the van for another hour-long drive. It’s worth mentioning that the
number of birds we saw out of the window was astonishing. The hilly nature of
the red, sandy road looked very alien and it was an interesting landscape to
gaze at.
The van finally pulled over and we had to take a
boat, which we were cheekily charged extra for, to cross the small river to the second cave. We then went snorkeling in another vividly blue pool. The blue was amazing
and this experience was something very special indeed.
Of course we then had another two hour
drive back to Lençois. A day spent mostly in a van, the day before we were
going to spend what turned out to be eight hours on a bus back to Salvador.
Yippee!
Final thoughts
We very much enjoyed the activities in
Chapada Diamantina national park and there are some wonderful things to see
there. The annoying thing is the amount of time it takes to get between places,
and the price of the tours. I thought they were overpriced and the cave tour on
the last day had sneaky hidden costs. Accommodation in Lençois isn’t cheap
either. I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t go, but I also wouldn’t say it’s a
must-see. We had a good time, but not a great time. How much of that was
because we had just come from our amazing Amazon tour? Who knows. Brazil is an
expensive place to travel (even when £1 = R$5 – the highest in ten years!), so
I advise travellers to choose their activities wisely.
Having
said all that, I am happy that we went as we ate some great food, really
enjoyed the town of Lençois and saw some spectacular things.
Costs
Costs
Bus from Salvador to Lençois (one way using ClickBus) = r$75 pp (£16 pp)
Tour of Fumaça Waterfall = r$130 pp (not including lunch)
Tour of the Two Blue Caves = r$195 pp (not including lunch)
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| The four of us that hiked to the waterfall |
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| Fumaça means smoke, and you can really see how the waterfall got this name |
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| Laugh all you want but none of you would have been laughing if you could see what I could! |
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| A quick dip in Riachinho Waterfall to cool off. |
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| We drove past this unusually shaped rock on our way back to Salvador |
