Sao Bento - Pedra do Bau

I flew from Bahia on the eastern point of Brazil back to Sao Paulo on Friday and the next morning Aggie and I rented a car and drove for three hours to Sao Bento, a small village in the mountains.  Aggie had booked us a room at a new pousada that was at a farm.  It was very picturesque with green pastures and lots of cows, that mooed all night.  That afternoon we drove to a waterfall, but the water was too dirty from the cow poop to swim in. That night we went to dinner at a nice restaurant in town.  The food was good and very inexpensive.

Sunday morning we got up early, had breakfast, and drove to the base of Pedra do Bau, a famous rock formation, that is at 6,400 feet elevation on top.  When started up the trail to the base of the rock about 10:30 and there were only a few other people on the trial.  It was already getting a little warm, but we had plenty of water with us.  There are iron bars imbedded in the face of the rock to form a ladder and we climbed about 800 feet up ... then decided that the exposure and risk without a rope

 outweighed the potential reward of climbing to the top.   So we climbed down and drove to Cachoeira dos Amores, that are beautiful waterfalls just a hundred yards from the road. 

We cooled off and ate the left over pizza from last night's dinner, then drove to Bauzinho, another rock formation just west of Pedra do Bau.  But the difference is that the road to Bauzinho goes almost to the top of the rock.  It is only a 500 yard scramble over rocks and along the arête to the top.  The view was incredible.  A thunder storm was rolling in and we could see the lightning approaching.  We knew we did not want to be on top of the rock when the storm reached us, so we hurried down, just as the rain started. 

We drove to Campos do Jordao, a quaint tourist and vacation town that looks like it is in the Swiss Alps.   Most of the buildings have typical Swiss architecture.  We wandered around the shops, had an espresso, Aggie was stung by a bee, then we headed for Sao Paulo, arriving at about 9:30 p.m.  It was a very nice weekend and it seemed like we had been gone for several days, rather than just over night.