Heeeyho Readers! Waterfalls in Brazil are the best.
I dawned to a penetrating smell of dew over grass. Mornings in Urubici are chilly yearlong. Leaving the sleeping bag requires a heck ton of willpower. I unzipped the tent and noticed the surrounding mountains at the acampamento had preserved the night’s fog, whereas the sun slightly filtered through the trees. André was up with the maté ready. My head hurt—either the wine or a constipation that insists on affecting me every-single-trip. I felt ready for more cycling regardless.
“I’m not cycling today,” objected André during breakfast, “yesterday’s ride crushed me. I’m not prepared for hardcore cycling.”
Not without mumbling, I agreed to use the dinosaur-eating machine that day. We set sight to a series of waterfalls. Three to be precise: Cachoeira do Avencal, Cachoeira do Rio dos Bugres, and the third whose name I never discovered.
Cachoeira do Avencal
We first approached Avencal from the top, where queues of desperate people crowded all observation platforms. Too touristic… I rushed to photograph before darting away from view. Fun began indeed when we penetrated a rain forest at the bottom and followed an easy-to-navigate trail. The sheer force of water over rocks echoed across the valley. Before long, sparse droplets began to reach us. There it was: Cachoeira do Avencal, in all its majesty.
The name Avencal derives from a fern (a type of the Adiantum genus), a common vegetation in Urubici. The small river that forms the waterfall is called the Funil River, an allusion to the large semi-circle wall that forms the 101.4 meter-high waterfall.
Cachoeira do Rio dos Bugres
Free from the horde of frenetic tourists, Andre and I aim to a greater, wilder, and harder-to-reach waterfall. Cachoeira do Rio dos Bugres is at the end of a meandering trail in a private property, where we paid a modest fee to get the keys to access the farm gate. In other times I would’ve sneaked inside, but in no way I felt extorted by the kind lady who received us.
I laughed when André dressed his fancy pairs of whatever those rubber shoes are called. “To walk inside the river,” he explained. Then I bursted as he slipped anyway as I tiptoed ninja-style from rock to rock ping-pong across the river in my good ole running sneakers. The trail went across the river a handful of times and my sneakers ended up soaked anyway. Who cares?
Bugres River (Rio dos Bugres) originates in a region known as Campo dos Padres, a flat area of highland fields. A gigantic cliff cuts the highland, where the drop plummets 218 meters into an open cave. The water dances with the wind gusts as the river falls into the emptiness of the cave, sprinkling with life the dense forest.
Nameless Waterfall
Back to camp, and provided with spare time, we finally decided to walk to a smaller cascata near the camping Terras do Sul. Not without another modest fee, we roam across a cow pasture and into a forest. André jumps into the lake. My friends say I’m averse to water—I don’t deny. Dipping the ding-dong in freezing water is not my thing. I took the time to photograph instead.
Another bottle of wine and a bonfire awaited us after a well-deserved shower. We ended up not cycling, but that's how life is; sometimes we gotta go with the flow. Soon the campsite flourished with backpackers gathering to share stories. The next day we planned to drive to a nearby town, where the saga continues in yet another breathtaking landscape of southern Brazil.
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Disclaimer: The author of this post is a convict broke backpacker, who has travelled more than 10.000 km hitchhiking and more than 5.000 km cycling. Following him may cause severe problems of wanderlust and inquietud. You've been warned.
