Sunday - Domingo - A day for exploring

Today we (or rather our ever helpful Larissa) had organised a day trip to a waterfall near to Uberlândia. The highlight was to be some rappelling down the side of the fall. Wikipedia tells me rappelling is the same as abseiling.

We had an earlyish start, all meeting at 8am, and after completing some forms were on our way by 8:30.

The party ready for departure

We journeyed through the Brazilian countryside for around an hour, heading into the Cerrado, the Brazilian term for the Savannah. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

The Cerrado, (Spanish/archaic Portuguese for “closed”) is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás and Minas Gerais. The cerrado biome core areas are the plateaus in the center of Brazil. The main habitat types of the Cerrado include: forest savanna, wooded savanna, park savanna and gramineous-woody savanna. Savanna wetlands and gallery forests are also included. The second largest of Brazil's major habitat types, after The Amazonia, the cerrado accounts for a full 21 percent of the country's land area (extending marginally into Paraguay and Bolivia).

We passed a number of farms and large plantations of coffee - Larissa told us the quality of the coffee here is high so most of it is exported, the locals get to drink the poorer quality coffee from elsewhere in Brazil!

Arriving at the location we disembarked and had a short walk through fields of very dry grass (and a few skinny cows) to the top of the fall.

Skinny cows and dry grass

Admiring an Ipȇ tree - the yellow blossoms can also be purple

One of our guides at the top of the fall

The top of the fall and the Cerrado in the distance

 Whilst the guides set up the ropes for the rappelling, Douglas, the head of the operation, suggested we walk down to the bottom of the falls and have a swim.

Hallelujah, the waterfall!

Mind the ant hill

Initial views of the waterfall

The waterfall is known as Cachoeira (waterfall) do Furnas and is approximately 60 metres in height. It is in the region of  Indianopólis in the state of Minas Gerais.

We enjoyed our swim (I wasn't going to as I'd forgotten to bring my swim-shorts to Brazil, but Edwardo the guide persuaded me to go in with ordinary shorts as they'd quickly dry out in the sun - he was right) but the water was surprisingly cold for such a warm sunny day - I'd have thought it would have warmed up in the sun as the stream ambled towards the fall.

After the swim we headed back up to the top of the fall where the kit was all ready for us to put on and get rappelling.

Training in progress

Mike and Michael - and no, that's not a new type of sporran

Unfortunately we couldn't carry our cameras with us on the actual rappel but I am assured that there will be lots of photos on the organiser's web site I will be able to bring you later.

The rappelling was great fun although I think we all had our moment of doubt as we stuck our backsides into thin air and started the descent, particularly when we lost the rock wall after a few metres and were hanging in space. Once I was past that feeling and realised I was in control of my descent I was able to appreciate the experience and enjoy the feeling. When we reached the bottom - slightly drenched from the spray of the fall - the guides unhooked us and it was high fives all round.  When everyone had descended there was a team photo and another march back up to the top.

By this time is was around 1:30 pm so we were starting to fell hungry.  A restaurant had been arranged in Indianopólis township so it was back to the coach and into town for a feed.  The restaurant was in the style of a kilo restaurant but being a small township the food was local and therefore a little bit different.  They had a slightly spicy spaghetti which was very good and a corn chowder, I'd guess you call it, which was also very tasty, plus all the usual meats, rice and beans.  They produced a very good caramel cream for afters - it certainly lifted my blood sugar levels!

Team at the table

General view of the restaurant, our guides on table at right

The return trip had its own excitement as the traffic had built up and there seemed to be a particularly large number of slow-moving trucks heading to Uberlândia - possibly with the fresh produce for tomorrow. Anyway at times it did seem to some of the team that our driver's overtaking manoeuvres verged on the side of optimistic. However he got us home safely.

After a shower (one piece of advice we received on the way home was to shower and wash all clothes as there may be parasites in the water...nice to know after the event!) and a snooze and a bit of blog work I met up with some of the others in the lobby and we headed a short way down the road to the local bar/cafe. Those who'd been on the trip weren't particularly hungry so we had a selection of nibbles - small "pastels" which are like empanadas filled with meat; manioc fries; and bolinhos - small fried balls of tasty fillings - in our case rice with cheese in the centre. They were all delicious but we were still so full from lunch we left a little of each. I continued with my beer research whilst others went in search of the perfect caipirinha. One of the party said they'd tried a kiwifruit caipirinha the night before there which was really good but unfortunately tonight they'd run out of kiwifruit - I'll definitely have to try that one.

And so ends another great day in Uberlândia - what's not to like! Tomorrow we are back into our work and we have a lot to accomplish but we think we are on the right track. Time will tell!

#ibmcsc brazil