seekingmygreaterperhaps

Oi! Tudo bem?

TLC sang about not chasing waterfalls. After my first trip in Brazil, I have a feeling that this stunning country will leave me no choice. I’m not mad about it.

Pirenopolis and surrounding areas are home to 73 waterfalls! Most of these are on private land and you will need to pay a small entry fee to access them. (~R$40, which is about USD$8). I mentioned in my previous post that I brought Kya along on this trip. She is my best friend, so it was natural that she would come on my first vacation! However “dog-friendly” Brazil may be… they are sneaky about it. Of the 73 waterfalls in Piri… 1 of them was dog friendly. Yep. Just 1. So- that’s the one we went to! There was another waterfall system further out and on our way back to Brasilia that was dog friendly as well, so we still ended with a splash.

The above waterfall was the end of our trail at the Vagafogo Wildlife Sanctuary where we had an amazing brunch. It was just about deep enough to sit in, and ice cold. That never stopped me! I’ve been preparing to jump into cold waterfalls since I had to jump into freezing cold pools at 5 a.m. as a swimmer. This was a good baby waterfall to start with, and my first that I have seen in Brazil!

Our day 2 waterfall was Cachoiera (waterfall) das Araras. This is the dog friendly waterfall! It’s a little bit bigger, and you can fully swim. There are places you can’t touch the bottom. Also, you can swim in the pool at the top of the waterfall. There is a staircase on the left side. Kya loves bouldering, so she had a jumping good time, and had me exercising a ton because she got tangled about every 4 minutes. I still got to swim in a waterfall, so it was still a good time.

On our last day, we stopped at Salto Corumba. Above is Cachoiera da Gruta, which was the furthest out of the way, and to get to it was all in the sun and it was very hot. I think it’s still beautiful, but then going back still in the sun and hot was… less fun for my travel mates.

The above picture is zoomed in because I was trying to crop out the people joyously swimming. Kya and I stayed here for a little bit. Kya is a stubborn hound and refuses to drink water from me when we go hiking. She tsks at the filtered water in her bottle, and prefers to lick puddles and streams and gross natural water. On a day this hot, I was happy she had water of any variety. She laid down in a calm area of the pool and panted and drank water while we prepared for the big waterfall.

Tada! The suspense! Salto! My travel group swam, Kya swam, strangers took selfies with Kya, it was a great time.

Seeing a waterfall this big really put into perspective how blessed I am to have this as my life. Sure, there are days that things aren’t great. But I now live within an hour and a half drive of a beautiful creation on God’s green earth. That in itself is pretty cool.

I can’t wait to see what else I get to discover and explore!

Ate a proxima!