Beauty in Brazil (Joshua)

When most people think of Brazil they think of lush jungles of the Amazon filled with large snakes, bugs, trees of all kinds, and lots of water. Southern Brazil is not actually like that at all. It is a plateau with a lot of farmland and is at 5,000 feet elevation the same as Denver, Colorado. However, while most of where we are is not junglish; there are patches that make us wonder if we are in the jungle. Steven and I did some hiking yesterday in a very thick and green forest area behind the home. After biking back aways in the fields we decided to venture into the forest to see if we could find the waterfall that we could hear from the field. It took us a while to get to the water as we slowly made our way down through the dense wood down a cliff and through some not so fun poky plants. But after a while we made it to the river and saw a beautiful waterfall. Steven was the first to notice that there were many rocks in the river that would be perfect to climb up the river. So, for the next hour or so we made our way up stream jumping on rocks and weaving into the forest when rocks were not available. We had traveled for so time when we realized that there were steep cliff faces on both sides of the river with no rocks in the river to jump to. Instead of turning around we decided we would scale the walls grabbing ahold of roots or climbing up trees. Steven was the first to get up to the top and with some help from him and a trustworthy tree I was able to get up as well. When we had climbed up the rest of the small hill to see where we were we saw that we were on the opposite side of the field from where our bikes were. So, we walked for about half an hour around back to the home and on the road to get our bikes. As we passed through the home we heard we were invited to lunch by Bethany and Juan (Bethany works here at CLM). We got cleaned up and went to eat at their house which is about ten minutes drive back on dirt roads full of pot holes and mud. We made it to their house and had a very nice meal of tomatoes and onions, rice casserole, and cabbage salad. It was very good. We talked for a while and then we found out we were going on another hike though some fields and forest back to yet another waterfall. We weren't quit prepared for it; me with my flip-flops and Steven in his dress shoes (his other ones were wet); but we took off on the trek anyway. I soon found out flip-flops would not work well when wet, so I took then off and hiked on the forest paths barefoot! The hike took about 45 minutes one way and it rained the whole way back. The waterfall was cool but I was definitely tired from the previous hike and was looking forward to a nice shower and dry clothes. Later that evening we went out to eat with Kevin and family to a Cafe in Victoria. Afterward, we watched The Sting on Steven's lap top, were pleasantly interrupted by a Skype call from my family, and then we went to bed. A very good and full day.

Yes, this is real life

One of Jake's Bike that we took

Beautiful

Awesome Spider

This is who I live with...