25 Feb 2012 – Chapada Diamantina, Brazil – Judgement Night soundtrack
Brazilian diamonds, oooooh hot diggy. One place that is a must visit if you get the chance is the Chapada Diamantina. A Place in Brazil like no other. It has some of the oldest soil in the world, and it was even once connected to Namibia at the bottom of South Africa. This place has been brewing diamonds for millennia.
As the years have passed, it has seen a number of boom and bust cycles.
Miners coming in, raping the land in the hunt for precious stones, and eventually destroying it. Nowadays the park is protected from industrial mining. The rock formations are strange indeed, massive boulders that are made of a lightweight sand. Pink, blue, purple and orange river beds and some of the tastiest drinking water flowing through underground caverns.
 Lençóis, base to Chapada is a sweet little town with some nice hostels. |  Our little posse stayed at Pousada Daime Sono. It was a little comfy home away from home. |
 Here’s our little gang. We went about discovering the local environment. Our first way we headed out to find a local watering holes. |  And what splendour we discovered!! It was beautiful. A fresh water stream with local daredevils leaping from the boulders. |
 The stream had formed this natural slide. The local heroes invented a nice game to show of there skills, sliding down standing up. |  I donned the tighties and had a crack myself. Graceful is definitely the word for it, unfortunately for the tighties… they gained a hole….poor poor tighties |
After the nights sleep, we were booked onto a local tour of the sites. It was going to be a full day, for about 80 reais if I remember correctly, quite expensive.
 First stop the devils waterfall for an early morning dip. The brown colour comes from the tannins of the dying vegetation, apparently it washes your hair as you swim. |  Next stop the smoke caves. Not sure why this name, but there were some very nice stalagmites and stalactites |
 Off next swim in some of the clearest water in the world. This lake is on a bed of blue limestone, |  and it flows into the side of this hill. Here you can hire a snorkel and head into the cave with a flashlight. |
 At the other end, there is the opportunity to don some scuba gear and hit the underwater caves. |  Some say that Jesus lives deep in the cave, here I am basking in his glow. |
 Our last stop was a climb to the top of the mountian Inácio. It’s views…well…fantastic. |  Our friendly guide for the day, Jack, was well educated. He explained to us how the mountain got it’s name, you can read the sad love story of Inácio here. |
Land as old as time, unfortunately we didn’t find any dinosaur prints, or diamonds for that matter. But all was not lost, the place was fantastic.
And my short time in Chapada was going to get even better with the arrival of my old amigo from Alemania, Frank. We’ve had numerous adventures in Central America together, namely our adventure with Pirates in Panama.
 Cervejás for the reunion. It was great to see Frank again, it had been nearly a year. We decided to hang out for a few days, see what trouble we could find. |  These swimming pools are freaken sweet. Only 5 minutes walk from town. Best time to go is during the week before the locals arrive. |
 We came across these odd caverns. Made up of giant boulders of coloured sands. This place was strange. |  The local streams were super refreshing. The water, maybe the cleanest in the world filtered through ancient limestone caves. |
Chapada Diamantina and Lencois, a very special places indeed. I recommend a few days diamond hunting to anyone, especially if you are a fan of warm weather, lovely clean water and swimming.
Laters.x.b.rad
