A short yet great video of our trip to Ibitipoca

Here is the link to the video of the trip Tanyu and I made to Ibitipoca last week. This video was filmed and edited by Tanyu and I have to say that he did a great job. I hope that you enjoy.

Click here to see the video!

Ibitipoca, Hiking, and Waterfalls

So it has been over a couple week since I first got to Juiz de Fora. I have been doing a lot of walking all over the town and know my way around now. I will begin to attend the university this Monday and I would say it is just about time to start going to classes anyway. Now that I will be going to class I have the chance to meet some more people, hopefully, and to also have something to occupy all the free time I have during the day. It will be interesting to see how classes will be in Portuguese.

Juiz de Fora

 

Metropolitan Church (I believe...)

Today I just got back from the state park of Ibitipoca. Tanyu and I felt that with a week with zero classes we could not just stay in Juiz de Fora so we decided to go somewhere new. Our Journey started on Tuesday with our bus ride to Lima Duarte at 6:30 in the morning. Once we arrived there, we realized that Tanyu had been misinformed about the bus schedule and that we would have to wait until 3:15. The visitor center for Lima Duarte suggested that we hitchhike to Ibitipoca. We ended up walking to the hitchhiker hot spot and threw our thumbs up for a few hours without any luck. We finally gave up and decided to grab a bite to eat and watch the day go by.

Thankfully, we also managed to take a nap on a bench in the park. Once we got on the bus we had a rough ride to the small village in the mountains. We ended up making a new friend on the bus who told us about the cheapest place to stay and the cheapest place to eat. The village of Ibitipoca seemed like a place that relied heavily on tourism. Although it was very small it was also very "cute". All the roads were either built with stone or brick. Seemed like they also had some music festivals such as Ibitipoca Reggae and Ibitipoca Blues. The day after we arrived we got up bright and early and walked 3k to the entrance of the park. At first we had a 16k loop in mind for our hike but we decided to go for it all instead and did the entire park loop. At the end of the day we managed to do a total of 30k (18 miles) of hiking. The park was fantastic and also not very busy. I could try to explain it but I think the pictures speak for themselves.

  

 Our Pousada

Church in Ibitipoca

Road to the Cemetery 

Behind the church

Our humble room

Millipede 

Cruzeiro (Tallest point in the park)

Entrance to a Gruta

 

Top of the Cachoeirinha

 

 

Janela do Ceu (Window of the Sky)

Waterfall at the Janela

Cachoeirinha

Cachoeira dos Macacos

After our long day of hiking we ate at a buffet, with all you can eat homemade food for the cost of 10 reais. We went to bed at the late hour of 7pm and headed back to Juiz de Fora at 8:30 in the morning. I am glad to say that we were able to find our way around in Portuguese with ease and also received many compliments on our speaking. Many people thought we were tourist from Sao Paulo! I cannot wait to see what adventures I will have next.