Lençois

Lençois reminded me of a fairy village.  We stayed in a little bed and breakfast for the few days we were there that reminded me of a combination of the Shire and the song about San Francisco that sings about the “little houses on the hillside.”  Each room was a little house, each painted a different bright color with a matching hammock hanging on the front porch.  There were cute little fountains and beautiful trees along the windy sidewalks that led to each house.  

From our little fairly village we all took a walk that was about four kilometers to a waterfall.  The water was a deep, iodine brown that was caused by the minerals in the water.  It ran over a huge, slanted slab of colorful rock and then fell into a cold pool.  We took turns sliding down the face of the rock, hitting the cold water with relief after the sweaty hike.  Our next waterfall had a high (from my point of view) rock that everyone was jumping off, and I knew that I simply had to do because I was terrified.  I waited for everyone else to go first and then climbed up the side of the rock.  Waiting for the rest of the brave exchange students was really not a good idea because soon everyone was looking at me and chanting my name.  I really did have no choice.  It was terrifying though; it looked like such a long way down.  After counting to three a few times I finally jumped off, flew for a minute, and was completely emerged by the cold water.  I felt pretty brave until people started diving headfirst off of it. 

The next day we went to some incredible caves called “Areia Colorida.”  We hiked down into the increasing darkness, seeing amazing stalagmites and stalactites, illuminated by the hardcore flashlights our guide had armed us with.  Finally we reached the middle of the cave and the guide turned off the lights.  It felt like someone had blindfolded me.  I could see absolutely nothing.  I couldn’t see my hand dancing in front of my face and in fact I ended up poking myself in the eye trying to see my fingers. We sat there in silence for some time, feeling the heaviness of the absolute blindnessthat we had stumbled into.  I strained my eyes time and time again to try to see something, to pick up even the smallest pinpoint of light.  But I just heard the trickling water on the cave wall and was left blind.  It was an incredible, while scary, experience.

That night we went to our first capoeira class.  As we were nearing the building we could here the typical capoeira music and the cheerful conversation seep out onto the dusty streets of Lençois.  The little building held thirty or so capoeira dancers, ages ranging from the youngest at maybe seven to the oldest at around forty-five or fifty.  They had formed a circle in the middle of the room, with the musicians and singers against the front wall, making the beat that everyone else clapped along with.  They each took turns in the center of the circle doing capoeira until someone tapped one of them out and took their place. Capoeira is an improve fight dance with a strong focus on gymnastic flips and moves.  So basically, really cool.  I was perfectly content to sit there watching, but soon one of the capoeira dancers started grabbing the exchange students and bringing them into the circle.  I bluffed my way through a few rounds of capoeira and while it was not super graceful, it was fun.  The atmosphere in that room was so fun, warm, lively, and completely Brazilian.