We woke in our bunks, showered and headed down for breakfast. The way the food had been spread it looked like a medieval feast. The coffee was nice, so was the strawberry yogurt (in juice form), there was a soft avocado and sausages chopped in a tomato sauce. We eat enough to fill us for the week I think. After we'd let the food settle we decided to go on a bike ride. The man at the hostel had quite a few bikes that he let us take for free. The 2 English girls from our room decided they wanted to go on a bike ride too so we all went together. The hostel man gave us a little laminated map and pointed us in the direction of the waterfall slide.... 7km away. We set off over the cobbled streets on to the main road. The oncoming traffic was an instant reminder that Brazil drive on the opposite side to us. As soon as we got out of the town it started to incline. We were warned by a couple who had done this ride yesterday; it's a steep ride. They weren't joking. Just as our legs started to burn we saw the post were he'd told us to tie up the bikes. We walked across a rope swing bridge over the 50metre wide river then started climbing on foot. My legs were feeling like jelly but not enough to quit and let the 19 year olds think that me and lee are the oldies!!!
When we got to a stream one of the girls wanted to 'explore' the rocks so me and Lee explored the area to look for the waterfall. We'd gone the wrong way. We hurried down the muddy clay coloured hill to a restaurant by the bridge and asked in there. They told us the waterfall was another kilometre up the hill on the main road. We left the bikes and rambled on. Finally we arrived! On the road we'd met an Irish girl who hasn't been impressed by the waterfall. The water falls over a giant rock. This waterfall is for sliding down more than a scenic cascading waterfall. She didn't know n had looked at it, tutted and rode off. Now I wanted to slide! The 2 girls with us just wanted to watch? So me and Lee climbed up to the top of the rock then Lee felt the water, it was cold, and decided he didn't want to slide down. We were all a tad sweaty and roasting from the riding, hiking and climbing so I thought they were crazy (and boring) I was definitely sliding down! Lee was in front of me at the top of the rock, he wanted to watch me slide from the top but.... he took a wrong step and fell over, flat on his back. The first thing I did was get the camera out! Half of him was soaking so he thought why not and pushed off the rock, he went sliding down and crashed into the water. As soon as he'd come to the surface of the water I could see he was missing his glasses. I slid down very slowly (I chose a rubbish part of the rock to slide down) and more plopped into the water. There were loads of fish, the water was clear but we couldn't see to the bottom because of the waterfall. I tried to look for the glasses but I was freaking out with the number of fish around me and the uneven floor. Rocks were everywhere so at one point you couldn't touch the floor, then you'd stand on a rock, then no rocks, rock, shallow, deep. We got out and Lee decided we should head back to the hostel, get his snorkel and come back. It was really our only option because he only had a couple of contacts left and they are his only glasses. I've done the guide dog thing for him when we were scuba diving and he lost his contacts.... I'm not sure it would be much fun for the rest of the trip. I hate failing so I told myself to man up. I asked for 1 minute and sang the mission impossible theme tune (to encourage myself) whilst shimmying over the rock to where lee had fell in. I still couldn't see anything. I had to accept my failure and we headed out. As we came from the waterfall to the main road I had a mini brainwave. We could ask the little sweet shop/ cafe if they had a snorkel. She went next door and came back with a snorkel set! Woo hoo that saved us the extra 14k journey that we would have needed to do to get Lees snorkel! We went back to the waterfall and Lee jumped in. After a couple of minutes we swopped and I jumped in. It's really not that scary when you have goggles on. You can see where your going so I was fine zigzagging through the water looking for his gigs. It reminded me of when I was on holiday when I was younger and me and my little sister, Cheryl, used to throw things in the pool: it would be a competition to see who could get it first. Well after a few minutes of searching I found Lees glasses!!!
We did a little woo hoo and high fiving then headed back down the hill to get our bikes. The ride back was so easy. We didn't have to peddle for half the journey it was down hill.
Half way home the heavens opened, not a sprinkle, it rained buckets full. It was brilliant. We were already soaking so it was no worries for us. The 2 girls who'd chose to stay dry, at first weren't impressed but then they embraced it. It was like being in a film. I love the rain, I love puddles but it normally rains when you least want it to. I could ride through puddles, take my feet off the peddles and ride through the rain. Freedom!
When we arrived back at the hostel everyone turned to look at us. We must have looked a picture, stood in the doorway, dripping wet through with the rain bouncing down in the background. We left puddles as we dripped through, luckily it was wooden floor. We showered and came to the common area to get warm and chill out with everyone. Just to make the day that extra bit awesome lee said 'do you want some Frosties and a hot chocolate?' Yes please! We'd bought them the day before so we didn't have to go back out to get food plus we had Frosties!
That night we drank caipirinhas, played cards then, when the rain had finished, Lee ran across the road and got popcorn and crisps. We all sat around the tele and watched Avatar.