Trindade
After the beach we got some hamburgers for a super late lunch and had an explore around the town.
Monday we woke up early, had breakfast and set off for the beach and some of the local hotspots. We only really had one full day here and wanted to fit as much in as possible.
We walked to Piscina Natural do Cachadaço (Cachadaço’s Natural Pool) via Praia do Meio and Praia do Cachadaço. This was roughly a 20 minute walk from our hostel along the 2 beaches and through a path along the headland.
We got to the pools around 10 and they were already overflowing with people. We had a swim and little explore before packing up and moving on. The pools were beautiful and but a little too busy for our liking. Somewhere to go at high tide and not the weekend before christmas.
We walked along the beach and headed for Cachoeira do Escorrega, a local waterfall known for its slide and swimming holes. We hiked to the top (roughly 20 minutes) and dropped our things.
At the top there was a large rock with about 6 people sitting on it in the middle of the stream. We saw someone quickly disappear under this rock with the flowing water and promptly heard screaming in Portuguese echoing out from under. What the actual fuck. But the crew sitting on top of the rock didn’t look too phased so we watched on, quite concerned and extremely confused.
About 2 minutes later the girl we watched “fall” under the giant rock swam out a hole behind it with about 4 other people all laughing and seemingly unhurt.
My turn next. There was a super tight squeeze through the upstream opening to this little cave with water flowing through. We all took turns lowering ourselves in feet first, which is quite creepy watching your whole body disappear behind a water curtain into an unknown abyss. Once your head pops through though you slide down a slippery rock before landing in a waist deep pool under the rock that could snugly fit around 8 people. Then you get to float around making creepy echo noises until you get bored and crawl/swim out the downstream side.
These pools were really clean and fresh, and even had some tasty looking big freshwater crayfish swimming around that (somehow) managed to outwit me and evade capture in my hat.
We chilled out at the top near the waterfalls and pools for a while before heading back down for a late lunch, and along the way eating some jack fruit wrangled up by a Balinese man and his kids we had met at the falls.
Later that afternoon it started to pour with rain and we didn’t end up doing much more despite going out to get supplies to cook dinner (veggie spaghetti) and ducking back down to the closest beach for another quick swim in the rain.
No caipirinhas here, a relatively early night before our bus tomorrow to Paraty where we will be for Christmas, everyone’s first one away from home and family.
Hopefully the shops are still open when we get to Paraty or we’ll all be eating our fingernails for christmas lunch.
Oh and we’ve decided to do a Secret Santa. Here’s hoping I get something good!
Merry Christmas everyone!