Our longest day of trekking (22 km) started with an hour climb, called the ´Bomba´ climb, along the Gerais do Vieira trail. From there we followed the Preto River trail along a massive plateau for the rest of the day. The landscape was beautiful, with rolling grasslands bordered by low mountains off to the distance on both sides. The sun was hot, though, and it made for a challenging hike. Mikey Mildon, Brennan de Langley, and Jon Cannon proved to be the fastest trekkers of the day as they continuously forged ahead of the group. Every so often they would stop and wait for the rest of us to catch up.
As you can see from the photo to the right, the
views from some of the spots where we stopped to break were incredible. Despite the physical challenges of the trek, we were all able to appreciate the scenery.
The pleasant surprise for all of us was that we ended up arriving at our pousada for that night almost an hour earlier than our guides, Jaime and Jean, had predicted. The pousada was really just a farmer´s home converted into simple accommodations. When Chapada was declared a national park in 1995, farming within park boundaries was declared illegal, so many people moved away. A few farmers remained, though, and they now make their living by running these pousadas. We had an excellent dinner there, and we were in bed before 9:00 p.m. The sun and the exercise of the day had us all exhausted. We looked forward to a slightly less challenging day to follow, as well as the opportunity to see an amazing cave, lookout point, and waterfall.
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