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When I arrived in Lencois, I met a couple of English people off the bus, James and Yalena, who were heading to the same pousada as me. We walked up the steep, dirt track streets through the town centre, which only took about 5 minutes.
The town is built on tourism, so you always have people in the town coming up to you offering various tours and treks. The one I decided to do was the Formasa trek, which would last two days. Lencois had been recommended to me by a number of people, so felt it worthwhile to forego the beach for a bit and see some supposedly wonderful scenery.
After meeting the rest of the group, we set off from the town at around 9am. The first hour took us to a river, which led led to a pool at the bottom. The river was like a natural slide, so our guide told us we could slide down from around 20 metres up and swim in the large pool at the bottom for a bit. So, after changing into my boardies, I manoevured slowly over the running water to the start point and sat down. Following a little push from the guide, I quickly picked up speed as I went down the river on my backside. Since it was rock I was sliding down, I bashed my arm a couple of times, but managed to clamber back up the side of the river feeling okay. We each tried it a second time, but this time, I couldn?t prevent myself from turning headfirst on the slippy rock, flew off a part that was like a jump and bashed my lower back when I landed. This really hurt, and since I couldn?t see where I was going, held my breath before I went into the water. I definately didn?t do it a third time, since my arm was bruised and I could barely walk for nearly breaking my back!
So anyway, I recovered and shortly after we continued with our hike up a steep incline towards our lunch stop. The rest of the afternoon we trekked through some forest in a valley where we eventually reached our place to sleep at nightfall, around 6pm. We slept only in our sleeping bags, under cover of the rock which was overhanging our position. It was quite cool to sleep under the stars, but it was a bit uncomfortable, as the rock wasn't completely smooth to lie on.
I woke up a few times during the night, with my sleeping bag slipping down the rock slightly, but luckily not as far as the puddle of water a couple of metres away from my feet! I awoke the next morning not fully refreshed, but enough to trek again with purpose.
Since we were doing the trek in 2 days, which was usually done in 3, we had another long day ahead of us. We set off at a good pace, walking along the side of the river, hiking over boulders, rocks, tree roots and streams off from the main river. It wasn't easy, especially with my backpack on, but we made good time and arrived at the base of the next hill we were to climb. That part was difficult, as we ascended quickly, having to scramble much of the way and use rocks ahead of us to pull ourselves up. At a reststop along the way, we were glad of the break and some water. Now running out of the water we'd brought with us, we collected some fresh water from the mountain, our guide helping us with a filter made from leaves to prevent the dirt getting in.
Still in the heat, we continued to where we would be having lunch, a tranquil pool with more fresh running water. We had a dip in the pool to cool down, sunbathed and had lunch. The afternoon hike took us to an incredible waterfall. It was at the top of a large canyon, fileld with trees and greenery. The updraft from the wind was large, so when we lay on the rock, and slid slowly towards the edge to take a better look, the scale of the view was impressive. The best thing though, was that the waterfall actually flowed upwards, due to the force of the wind blowing up. The water would flow from the rock down at first, then to the side and as it became finer, flowed up like a large sheet. As you approached the area, you could tell you were close as from above and behind the waterfall, you would be soaked every now and then by the water from it. It was weird to be rained on in a cloudless sky. So, we stayed there for a rest and to take some pictures (and video to prove it flowed upwards!), before heading on for the final few hours of the trek.
By the end, my legs were getting a bit tired, but we killed time by playing the name game and chatting. By the end, I was ready to get back to Lencois, get a shower and have a good meal.
I left Lencois the next day, bound for Salvador. On the bus, I sat next to an American guy, who I got on really well with. He works as a translater in Buenos Aires, so I was picking his brain about what life was like there and how he came to do that type of work. After chatting for some time, he told me he was from a place called Montauk in New York state. He told me it was famous from the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I'd heard of it through other channels, which Alex confirmed to me was true. Apparently, there is an old military base there (true), where time travel experiments were conducted but shut down due to things going wrong between dimensions (unconfirmed).
The area around Lencois was beautiful, but by the time I arrived, I was looking forward to seeing the beach again, for the last few days of my journey.
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