Chapada dos Veadeiros

For Memorial Day weekend, the Hanna Family packed up the Soob and drove 4 hours north of Brasilia to a tiny town called Sao Jorge. Just past Alto Paraiso, the highway ends and the road becomes red dirt and for the next 10 miles or so we bounced along, deftly defying monstrous potholes and flightless birds about Sam’s height that we spontaneously dubbed ovoraptors, because they looked more like something out of one of Sam’s dinosaur books than any bird either Elise or I were familiar with, looking out over a landscape that truly looked as though it were a backdrop from "Land of the Lost". Palm trees dotted a savanna that curved into high, jagged plateaus pulled from the valley floor.

We pulled into Sao Jorge, leading a contrail of red dust. Sao Jorge is a one road—dirt road—town at the foot of Chapada dos Veadeiros, a national park. Stray dogs with dread-locked fur darted in front of our car. Old men drank cans of beer on plastic patio furniture in front of the one small supermarket, watching futbol. Satellite dishes dotted the tile rooftops and chicken pecked in the dirt. Everyone seemed dyed red like the earth and covered in a fine layer of dust like us. All were weathered and worn. All smiled. Two elderly women crossed the ‘street’ under a parasol for the sun.

We found our pousada, Casa das Flores, and checked in. Elise and I tabled our two welcome drinks and instead stripped the boys down after a quick lunch of peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches and headed straight for the pool…only to find the pool was freezing (it is winter in Brazil). So we swam in the hot tub instead. The later part of the afternoon found Elise lounging in the hammock sipping a glass of wine. The stars were out in abundance and there was music ao vivo poolside. The owner of the pousada had recorded his own cd and played songs from it until well past everyone went to bed.

The next morning we woke bright and early…maybe a little too early by pousada standards, as Petey was ready to go at 5:15. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, so was the rest of the nearly full pousada. We waited for what seemed like hours until the sun rose, but it was every minute worth the wait as café de manha (breakfast) was served right in front of our room, pao de quiejo, fluffy balls of sweet dough baked around a soft cheese core, eggs, açai (Sam’s favorite. he thought it was chocolate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was a fruit and, therefore, actually good for him), granola, strawberries and cream, ham, coffee and fresh-squeezed juice, orange on Sunday morning, pineapple on Monday morning.

After breakfast we piled everyone into the car and headed for the Vale da Lua, the Valley of the Moon, an area of water-shaped rocks that looks like you are on the surface of the moon. Water pools in many of the craters, and, in one spot that we hiked down to, there is a wading pool, waterfalls and the rocks hang over the cool, clear water, a perfect place to jump. The road to the trailhead was only a road in the loosest definition, and we truly tested the mettle of the Outback. Macaws flew overhead as we made our way to the end of the trail through the jungle. Elise even got out of the car at one point to record a video to be used in a future Subaru commercial as we splashed through a ravine.

Everyone changed and was soon swimming. I plunged off the rocks, Sam and I explored crevasses and Elise stroked out into the middle of the pool. Afterwards, we had a car picnic out of the back of the Subaru, then we drove back into the main town of Alto Paraiso for gas and to give the guys naps and Elise and I a small opportunity to connect which is sometimes challenging when you are each respectively chasing a toddler around keeping them from going head first over a waterfall.

We had dinner at Pizzeria Lua in Sao Jorge. We walked down the dirt road under a cover of a thousand stars and arrived at an outdoor pizzeria comprised of pockets of light. It was as if the entire place were made up not of tables or chairs or physical objects, but built from modes of lights connected to one another. The bar was one point of lavender light, the pizza oven another warm flicker, the fire pit a third, candles on the rustic wood picnic tables and bare light bulbs over the perfectly green, perfectly manicured pool table, the only thing perfectly manicured in Sao Jorge, but most certainly not the only thing perfectly green.

On Monday we before heading home we stopped at a waterfall called Almecegas. The trail split and we had our choice of Almecegas I or Almecegas II and we choose Almecegas I. We will have to go back and find out someday if Almecegas II may have been the less difficult hike. I remember seeing on the guide back at the pousada that the difficulty level of the trail was ‘easy’ so the map must have been referring to a completely different trail than the one we hiked, because it was by far one of the most technical trails I ever hiked. I am certain it is the most technical trail I have ever hiked with Pete on my back and am certain is the most technical trail Sam has ever hiked. Somehow he convinced us that he needed to bring his sand digging tools and his plastic dump truck, so I had to lug those over the pass, too, like a sherpa. Sam was awesome, though. He skipped and darted over rocks like an old hiking pro and I see bright paths in his hiking/rock climbing future.

Almecegas was a beautiful, many-tiered waterfall. We stopped at the top of the waterfall and Pete and I looked over while Sam played in the shallow river. There were tiny fish swimming in the stream and for some reason we got the idea that we were going to catch one, but all we had at our disposal was Sam’s plastic dump truck, so we spent the better part of the next hour submerging the truck in the stream, trying to bait the fish into the bed of the truck with Cheerio dust then yanking the truck out of the river, hoping one of the fish was captured in the bed, but to no avail. We were lucky our plan that evening didn’t involve having to catch our dinner.