Water, water everywhere

It's fun staying at this beach house with other travelers. Manuela and Lea are both from Paris and are traveling around Brazil about the same amount of time that I'm here. They both work for vente-privee.com, an online shopping company that sort of combines the best parts of TJMaxx and Amazon. Our host Aldolfo is a really interesting guy as well. He's a software developer and while he's never lived in the states, his English is amazing. We all had cocktails and pizza together last night and it was a great time.

This morning (after a bit of a slow start) our host Adolfo took Lea, Manuela, Peter and me to a cool waterfall (cachoeira) about 10 minutes away. You can park right on the highway and walk in. It's a popular spot, but a great way to cool off on another hot day.

Lea, Manuela, Aldolfo and Peter.

Adolfo, our beach host. The waterfall is in several tiers. You aren't supposed to swim in the top pool because the first drop is a pretty big one. The words painted on the stone say "nao passe - perigo de morte," which means "don't pass, danger of death." (We were just sitting up there, but swam in the lower pools.)

Peter on the rope swing. I have 6 seconds of great video, but Blogspot is not cooperating.

After the waterfall adventure, we drove a little further up the coast (Highway 101- go figure). We had a beer and a snack at a cool restaurant with probably the best view... oh, EVER. Those hills are all part of a national park and are covered in rainforest jungle.

After returning to the house, Peter and I headed to the beach. He went snorkeling while I read and hung out with my little crab friends. There were seashells on the beach, but none that were very interesting. Peter saw one fish while snorkeling.

Itamambuca Beach looking toward the point.

Itamambuca Beach

Meet Crabby. The little critters have holes all over the beach. He would come up carrying an armload (pincher load?) of sand, pause to look at me, and then skitter away. (hmmm... I'm hot going to think too hard about that one ;-)

There are a lot of surfers on this part of the coast. This is the Itamamabuca Surf Clube.
The waves haven't been that big the last few days - perfect for just messing around in the water.