Vale do Capão

After Salvador, none of us wanted to leave. We were even less excited after our zillion (okay, maybe like ten) hour bus ride into the interior. We had heard there were waterfalls, but it's hard to be excited about waterfalls when every part of your butt is asleep. But fortunately for us...

It didn't take much once we saw them.

The water in this area looks rusty red, but it's all from the color of the rocks. 

 This first set of waterfalls was a pretty easy hike. The next day, though...

Yep. I walked up here.

This is Cachoeira da Fumaça, or "smoke falls," the second-tallest waterfall in Brazil - we were told at the time that it was the second-tallest in Latin America, but I can only find confirmation for within Brazil.

 It's so tall that hardly any of it reaches the bottom in traditional crashing waterfall fashion. Most of it just turns to mist.

 There was a guide holding onto my ankles, and I was lying all the way down. Just saying.

Rainbow in the waterfall!

So, quick update on my current life in Brazil. I've just finished the first week of my independent study project, and it's going well. I came back to Fortaleza and met with my adviser for the first time today, and while the language barrier was challenging (he also trailed off a lot in his conversation - I can't infer words in this language!) he gave me a lot of food for thought. I'm looking at less than two more weeks in the field, coming back to Fortaleza on June 8. Not much time, but honestly, I'm glad of it. Having lunch with some of my SIT friends, we discovered that we're all much more intensely homesick than we've been before. For me, anyway, it's much more of an emotional thing now than it was. I think that has partly to do with being away from all the other American students, partly having to adjust to a new homestay, and just plain old having been here for a while. I know I'll be sad to leave in the end, but just thinking about it right now - I'm okay with it.