hello dear friends
it's time again, on the way through serbia, i wrote some lines in the train. today my topic is the trip to, and my visit of the serra da capivara national park in the northern state piaui ...
On the way to the park I had a car accident, now read how it came to this and what exactly happened. I also report on an alternative theory that describes the colonization of America.
have fun reading, does not fit here, but hopefully I can snatch you for a while, from your everyday life and take it to a beautiful foreign country. I would like to apologize in advance for the extra length. sorry
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DateA2pja57LOJoFK52BEGDuXJ0hwJzh&usp=sharing
11.3. - 17.3.
the first day of the new week i startet early, I had arranged an appointment with Paul to drive through the city together and look for a new headlight glass for the bruno.
After a while of searching we found a car dealer, but unfortunately it is only possible to buy the headlight complete, but i just need the glass cover and it is therefore quite expensive. We continued to search for so-called sucatas, which are junkyards or retailers of used car parts.
Unfortunately, we found nothing and that's why we startet the second task of today, because I also wanted to buy a bluetooth speaker, my old one had been broken, for some time. on the market in alecrim I bought a cheap speaker. We also drank a delicious tea at the market and ate a sweet piece of cake.
then we drove back to lunch in a fire station, at which paul also taught from time to time, courses to handle the gas cylinder. After we ate, we went back to the house of Paul where I rebuilt the headlight and later i installed the new emblems that I had built in bariloche, made of hardwood. the little turtle made a living here in the house.
then it was time to say goodbye, i thanked Paul for all his help and his first class teaching. i also expressed my sincerest wishes for his trip to sao paulo. I drove on to the house of Edson to pack all my stuff here. My last nights in Natal I would spend again at the apartment of Hudson so I said goodbye to Edson after I wrote another blog post and thanked him for his hospitality.
After a dinner with hudson I fell asleep, i was looking forward to the upcoming trip.
It rained all night. even in the early morning, the weather did not provide any motivation to leave the bed. At some point, however, I was hungry and so I ran and bought stuff to make a sandwiches. I also thought the whole day, how my journey from Natal should continue, I still had about a month until my flight to Portugal starts.
After a research on the internet about the national parks in the northeast of brazil, i decided that i would like to see the serra da capivara park in the south of the state of piaui. On youtube I found this video, which really motivated me to go there.
The park is about 1200 km from Natal, which means I have to budget a lot of money for the ethanol and at least three days for the trip. I overcooked the cost while eating yesterday's leftovers.
at the afternoon i watched some netflix: the photographs of mauthausen, a netflix original production representing the incidents and the life of a nazi-photograph in the concentration camps of mauthausen. I also wrote a letter to a friend in Florida and I cut the video with the diving shots from the last post. Early we went to bed because the day tomorrow is sure to be long.
The rain did not end and I had a melon on the rain-covered balcony, before I said goodbye to hudson and dani.
just when I was about to sit in the car, a thunderstorm started. I thought that these are probably not the best conditions, because even the wipers on the car are already 30 years old and slow. I was looking for the street that would lead me out of natal and also for a post office, to send the letter. Unfortunately, I found none that was open.
When I was about 100 km away from Natal, when the rain got weaker and at some point he stopped completely. I was very happy to be alone on the street again, only with the steering wheel in my hand and my thoughts in my head. i heard a wonderful audiobook from jack london: the call of the wild
I also enjoyed a couple of songs from the playlist that stehp had put together back in sao paulo, really good music.
In the afternoon I reached a water hole where I had a late lunch break.
I then traveled on and on, until I found a place with a nice view to dinner and a short time later in a small town, on a dam, i discovered an unlit sleeping place for me.
i slept very well until this morning on the dam.
After having breakfasted and having Bruno refueled, I finally drove on sandy roads and bumpy bumps towards the west. to skip some time I heard the audiobook Demian, from Hesse. also highly recommended.
after crossing the border of the states ceará and rio grande do norte, I drove to the view point at pontal do padre cicero and relaxed here for a while with a cool fanta.
the further road led me near the small town of assare. then that happened with which I had not expected. here in brazil, it is relatively common to see people walking and playing children on the streets, especially near cities, so I drove slowly along the ring road of this small town. I slowed down again when I saw a bicycle in the sand on the right side of the road. Suddenly, however, a boy jumped onto the street next to the bike, grabbed his bike and, without looking right and left, just hit the road. I honked loudly and braked, but all this did not seem to come along and drove on towards the middle of the road, in an attempt to change the road to avoid him, i tried to extend my braking distance. he noticed at this moment apparently something was wrong and a split second later i hit him with the front of the car. luckily he sat on the bike and rolled over the bonnet, but still broke the front disc in 1000 small pieces as he got impacted. it was like an animal, running into the street and not hearing or seeing anything at all. I got a shock and then jumped out of the car to look after the boy. he was lying on the floor for only about 2 seconds before he got up and shocked me asking what had happened. I told him he had driven in front of my car and that he was very fortunate that nothing worse had happened. then he realized that he had started to bleed through the slices of the window splinters and I gave him some water before I wrapped him in my poncho and we drove straight to the hospital, fortunately only a few blocks away. Here the boy was received by doctors, who first cleaned his wounds and then sewed them together again. It took at least 15 stitches to close all the cuts in his skin and stop the bleeding. During this time I was in the treatment room in a corner and felt, like the worst person, just shit. A doctor then asked me about my version of the story and I painted on a sheet of paper, how i experienced the accident. then I was asked to wait outside until the doctor could talk to me. The hospital was in a relatively bad condition with lots of mold on the walls and relatively few staff. The rooms smelled like a lot of chlorine and the other cleaning agents were used here.
What shocked me most was that the nurses, that treated the boy, were all the time laughing and joking, in the end they even wanted to know where I had bought my pretty square sandals. felt somehow wrong, if there is a little boy is bleeding on the table.
in an interview with the doctor, he explained to me that in such cases usually an agreement on a money is made, which is then paid by the causer to the injured. However, he immediately told me that the family did not want any money from me. Furthermore, he said that the little boy was about 13 years old, was already well known here, he probably has a slight mental disability and problems with the peripheral perception. His mother had expressly forbidden him to play on the street several times and when I apologized for her afterward, she just kept saying that she was incredibly happy that I had come directly to the hospital and had not left. I thank her and said that is the most normal thing I could do in the situation.
I apologized to the young man and the rest of the family members and then said goodbye. With the shock in my bones and the terrible thought of what could have happened, I drove something out of the city and then went to collect the splinters of the window and remove the bloddy leftovers.
The doctor also recommended me to get out of the village as soon as possible. So I once again drove briefly through the city and then quickly further west. but because the story was shared around very quickly, two people in the street called aloud: eyy, alemão, behind me and I saw that I neended to gain distance fast.
With the broken windshield I could not drive so fast and chugged at 50 km / h on the highway. In the early evening shortly after sunset I reached the small town of campos sales, where I bought some food and then drank my evening beer at a street kiosk. I also tried to call some people to talk about what happened today. Unfortunately, it was already quite late and so I just talked to Sören and sent a few voice messages to the other people.
A cozy night in the hammock later I wake up by passing cars.
I drove back to campos sales for a small breakfast and immediately start looking for a new windshield, but as expected, I did not found it here.
I drive on to Picos, still well ventilated from the front. When I arrive in the bigger city, I visited many different shops and ask myself through, even at the volkswagen originals carcenter, I ask briefly if they could order the window, so I can pick up and install here after visiting the national park here. However, they told me that this would take about 45 days since you have to order the part from Sao Paulo.
Of course that was out of the question and so I kept looking for smaller shops in the city center. In the early afternoon, i found one and a couple of boys installed the new one and I paid the equivalent of about 100€, quite okay.
Afterwards, I go back to find some money and continue to drive.
I passed a gigantic cactus, certainly 4 meters high and finally, shortly after the sunset I drive to one of the entrance gates to the national park. crazy days...
After this long journey, I am very happy to finally be there and enjoy a beer in the city, I also learn that you absolutely must have a guide to visit the park, and that they are quite expensive.
My sleeping place I find again on a small remote sandy road just a few blocs apart from the center.
as the first action of today I took a bath in the local lagoon, which is dammed up behind the dam and supplies the city with fresh water.
after breakfast I drove up the hill to the museo do homen americano. a great place that describes the special history of this national park and introduces the incredible archaeological discoveries that were made here:
short excursion:
it is about early human migration routes and theories that describe how humans overcame the oceans and colonized all continents. how did man come to south america?
The well-known theory describes the possibility that about 14,000 years ago, after expanding across Asia and Siberia, our forefathers reached the Behring Strait, which lies between Northeast Asia and Northwestern America. in the ice age you can cross the frozen passage by foot. therefore, there are also 12,000-15,000 year old references to human civilizations, both in south and in north america. such as cave paintings, fireplaces and so on. from north america they traveled through the caribbean and into today's brazil. that's why there are similar references here with about the same age.
But when, in the 80s, a Brazilian archaeologist, Niède Guido, came to Piaui to explore the cave paintings, she and her team discovered something incredible.
Under one part of the caves they dig carefully layer by layer into the earth, covered under dust they discovered a fireplace, which had about the same age as the paintings. they dig on, at some places up to 6 meters deep. through the dust of millennia. The result was older fireplaces, and the subsequent analysis showed that some of the charcoal pieces they excavated were up to 100,000 years old.
an incredibly long time ...
Now, however, a question arises, why do you find these ancient references to human civilization only in here in the south and not in northern america?
the current theory is as far as I understand, this one. it was cold this times, so long ago, so more water, in the poles of the earth, was bound as ice and thus the sea level was lower than today. As a result, there were several more islands between Africa and South America. So it is believed that humanity has spread across these islands across the ocean to come over here to today’s Brazil.
this theory comes to a complete rethinking .. how can they have succeeded? the hints that they were here are valid, it's just not yet proven how they came here.
the exhibition in the museum also deals with relics of another kind, which the researchers found here, while digging.
When I had seen at everything and was about to leave, I was asked to register in the guestbook, out of curiosity, I then leafed through the pages a bit and found that, from the at least 1000 last visitors, i was the only one living in Germany. quite nice, something so special and remote, you’ll hardly find on any bucketlist.
Later, I went to refuel and then back to the entrance of the national park to wait here for a larger group of tourists with whom I could then book a guide to pay less per person.
However, I waited without success and then visited the other museum of the region at 15 o'clock, with 30 real expensive, but worth every centavo in my opinion. the museo da naturaleza deals with the emergence of our planet and the evolution of life on it, through the epochs you move through the architecture of the building like on a big spiral or snail from inside.
it is one of the most beautiful museums I have visited here in south america, everything is really very vividly illustrated and interactively designed to participate.
the highlight is a kind of virtual reality based flight simulator, you strapp yourself into it and then you can fly overhead to watch the national park like a paraglider or eagle. really nice and a real magnet for school classes, just like me, gringo pauli even had to do some selfies with the boys and girls ..
When I went out of the museum, a man introduced himself as a guide and promised me that he could lead me through the park all day long tomorrow, for just 25€.
I told him that I will think about it and then drove into the nature, one of the few paths along that have no control post, I hope to get somehow in the park.
At some point I park Bruno and continue on foot into the valleys formed by erosion.
Bruno has some difficulties with the on the steep dirt roads , he is just not a 4x4 ... I almost got stuck because I want to avoid a fallen tree. i could save us with a lot of patience from the difficult situation, I also decided that instead of getting into serious shit here, I'll book the guide tomorrow and see what else in there in the park.
i took my evening beer at a street bar in the sunset, before I went to sleep, I sleep in spite of loud party music in the village on a lonely dirt road and then only was woken up once again by the local police, who ask me what I do here and why I do not sleep in an a hotel. I explained my life briefly and then they turned laughing back to the car and drove away. the rest of this night was quieter.
A very special day started quite early today. I woke up on the small road and packed everything in the trunk, went to the kiosk to buy a few snacks and then I drove back to yesterday's bar to connect with the wifi and there i got a message from rafael, he is the guide from yesterday. he wrote me that everything workes as planned and we can meet at 9 at the entrance gate to the park.
When I arrived, I waited a moment and saw a bunch of monkey families passing by, even with two baby monkeys clinging to their mothers. shortly afterwards I jump on the motorcycle behind rafael and we continued the gravel road into the park.
the first toca which will then be reached by foot, is the sito do meio, in the photos you can see a honey collector and some dancers, painted 6,000 - 12,000 years ago on the walls and ceilings here.
then we went to the toca do boqueiro do pedro rodrigues. where we come across cave paintings that are also about 12,000 years old and tell of sex, emus and religion.
on the way to the mirador da pedra furada, a viewpoint from which we overlooked a considerable part of the national park, we saw a coroa de padre cactus and then the beautiful wide view.
the path to the toca da fumaca, then led us back down into the valley and past the pedra furada, a gigantic rock, which got a huge hole by erosion.
There are other paintings of fish, acrobatics and also of a pregnant woman.
At the fundo do baixo da pedra furada we passed by a 9000 year old excavated hearth and also a painting of a jaguar.
another rather long and strenuous part of the hike took us through a canyon an up to the caves at baxio do paulinho. We climbed ladders through the last narrow piece of the canyon and then took a short break for a while.
From here the road is very overgrown and Rafael said to me, there are almost never people here, because the ascent is so difficult. the long-to-be-missed tocas up here can easily compete with those in the valley and I'm glad to have seen them.
down we went the same way and visited another view point, from the other side of the pedra furada you can look at the canyons and the surrounding area.
After a little break in the visitors' center of the park at around 13 o'clock, we continued to the special excavation site of which I had already spoken. the toca da boqueirao da pedra furada, a gigantic stone wall full of drawings and just up to 100,000 years old fireplaces, which were buried 5m deep, by the dust of the time.
there are plenty of animals to see, as well as, a kiss, a backpacker, the capivaras, the park's symbol and even a "backpacker". The many colors painted on it suggest that this wall has been used as a kind of temple for thousands of years and was a major cultural meeting point over all this time.
when we then ran back to the entrance, after the about 11 km we stomped here at full 27 degrees through the stones, i was very tired and spend the afternoon with book and beer. the balenario jenipapo is a great place for doing this. in nova santa rita i felt sleepily in the hammock shortly after the sunset.
woooow, you have held out neatly for a long post, thank you very much!
I would be really happy if future posts are as recognized as brazil 20, please consider upvoting or curating...
love
pauli
here my current contact data:
mail: pauligetkekse@googlemail.com
Phone: +49 151 47459958
whatsapp: +54 9 11 2693-6601
blog: https://steemit.com/@schningelnatter
in case you want something more updated, instagram:
previous posts of the south america trip:
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