I was anxious to explore more of Extrema. There was an environmental park and rock art from the ancient inhabitants of Brazil, plus an international festival with Taeko drummers. I was ready to pack up at 9:30 and get going. But no one else was. So we played soccer (which Grace called the campus of Soccer because in Portuguese a soccer field is called a campos de futebol), we played Ping pong, foosball, read stories in a hammock, went swimming, had lunch, THEN finally packed up for our days adventures.
I really wanted to see the Rock Art after seeing such interesting things in Utah. We did that first so we could let the sleeping kids stay in the car with Jamison while I went on the hike. It seemed simple from what we read, a 15 minute hike to the rock.
Well we have seen plenty about the rock in lots of brochures and websites. But when you actually drive out there there at zero signs. We stopped about the right 7km out from city center. Oliver came with me and we asked an older couple driving by if they knew of the trail head. They said it was across from the tree down below.
Well we took one way and it led to a cliff.
And the other way was a barbed wire fence teaming with big ants.
On further inspection it was a large wooden stick I could open the fence with. I finally manage enough courage to grab the stick with ants and open it up, then came the trick of closing it so the cows in the pasture wouldn't get out. We started up a trail, and got stared down by a rather large bull. That's when I figured it just wasn't worth it. The trail didn't look really clear, it could have just been a cattle path, and with no real signs to know we were doing it right I was super unsure. And we bailed. But of course we had to get back out of the gate with the ant covered barb wired fence.
We met up with Jamison and he said there was another opening to the fence that he was willing to try. He and Oliver tried that "trail" that for about ten minutes. But came back saying it didn't look right. By then a couple we had seen came down by the first place I tried, Jamison ran ahead to talk with them. They said they were hiking all over the area and still couldn't find the rock.
Really?!?
If you are going to have a super cool thing on a brochure don't you think you would want to take the effort to make a sign or something! Or give directions to those who might want to find it for themselves?!? People wandering through fields avoiding cow patties having to break through barbed wire fences isn't good management of your natural resources!
Oh well. It was a lovely drive.
The rest of our plans changed due to an oncoming heavy rainstorm, we decided to drive to another town that we heard about. We hoped that the rain would stop in the hour or so it took to get there (which in truth most rain storms in Brazil do end relatively quickly). But we arrived at a super cool playground place for the kids that was closed due to the rain, so no archery for us, or zip lines, or tree adventures, just a bathroom stop and back in the car to find a place to eat.
Finding a place to eat was an adventure in itself I will spare you the details. After about 3 lengthy tries we finally found a place to eat. I had trout, the kids were so grossed out that it still had it's tail on the plate. They kept asking to see the tail and the skin then running away in repulsion. Asking where the bones were, where the head was. Geesh! It is just a fish, most people eat it all the time!
It was chilly in the mountain town with the rain at night. And we wouldn't make it back to the festival for the drums. So we just put on a movie for the kids and headed home, to the pousada.
In Utah Jamison loved to drive new roads. He had a special map that he would mark off when he had done them. Today he drove a lot of new roads I hope he feels the deserved sense of accomplishment! We did make it to another state in Brazil, out of Sao Paulo state, and into Minas Gerais.
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