Chapada Diamantina

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February 26, 2018 by moloneycian

Located close to the town of Lençóis is this huge national park, packed with canyons, waterfalls, caves, and seconds (in that it seems to have the second biggest of everything in Brazil). It’s got loads of history related to the diamond rush that happened in the valley, and apparently everyone wanted a part of the action. I’m heading there with two new friends from Salvador. Oh! And I managed to get an extremely overpriced GoPro, so hopefully I’ll manage to take some pictures that are not completely shit.

Tour gang

We’re taking a tour with Chapada Adventure Daniel, which was simply picked because it was one of the first things that popped up when googling “Chapada Diamantina tours”. Turned out to be pretty good; the three of us got a two night / two day tour for less than R$400. They seemed pretty good at what they do, providing transport to the bus terminals (even picking us up from the bus on 5 AM on the first day), and providing guides with really good English. Our guide Marcos was particularly cool, being chilled out as fuck and part of a local reggae band. They provided us with a nice apartment to stay in, which was perfect for our needs, albeit on the edge of town (which was like a 15 minute walk from the centre).

Lençóis sunset

The first day we checked out Pratinha Cave; a huge (perhaps second biggest cave) thing with all of that stalactite and mite goodness. After walking through, there’s a river where you can zipline, snorkel, or in my case, drink beer in the river. You finish the day by climbing to the top of Pai Inácio Hill, which is like the iconic viewpoint of the place where you can ‘contemplate a beautiful sunset’. Tour operators words, not mine, but all the same indeed a beautiful sunset. It was hardly any hiking at all, like we only walked about two hours throughout the whole day in between some of the sights and the rest was via car… not something we really expected.

Views from Pai Inácio Hill

For the second day we say Capão Valley and Morrão Valley, hiking a relatively easy hike for about 6 hours. The first hour or so we got awesome views, and for the next it was just kind of a boring walk through the sparse vegetation until we got to the main viewpoint. The views of the valley that you get at the end are really amazing. One of the valleys has Brazil’s second largest waterfall at 385 metres, which is fucking tall. You can tiptoe to end edge and take in the drop, or, like me, find a big rock to stand on because I’m too scared to go to the edge. The water itself was a little underwhelming; it had been quite dry recently and there wasn’t a whole lot of water going. After ward, we went down, and finished the tour off with a dip in a waterfall / river thing.

Waterfall

Lençóis itself must be one of my favourite places in Brazil. When all you hear from people is that you have to be super super careful because people get kidnapped and robbed all the time, it was so damn nice to be in a small town and feel totally safe. Granted, it’s hugely geared toward tourism; you see several Italian restaurants with English menus, adventure tour companies, and locals speaking English. Usually you see locals all walking around with money belts, but here, nobody did. We could stay out late, walk around town and actually drink a few beers. We actually ended up in this local bar, that had all of their drinks in clear glass bottles, and labelled with tape and a marker. Whatever one we chose… I have no idea what the stuff was, one glass was enough; half of them were making faces as we drank it.

Some photos of Lençóis & Chapada Diamantina.

Next, I’m going to the original capital, Salvador.