- Excursion to the fascinating Gruta do Lago Azul
- Spend the afternoon by the pool and relax
So for today is the excursion to the picturesque Gruta do Lago Azul on the daily program. We can take it easy again. After an extensive Brazilian standard breakfast, we read and surf a little. At 11 a.m. we are finally ready to receive our private transportation (the others were fully booked) to be picked up. Everything works fine and after a good half hour drive on a gravel road through farmland and soy plantations you reach the starting point for the grotto. We get access to the private area with a voucher and take part in a guided tour with a good 15 people. The guide doesn't speak English either, luckily a family from Sao Paulo translates the most important things for us.
In oppressive heat and equipped with helmets, we walk a short distance through a patch of residual forest. Then it's steep and reedy down into the cave. We learn that the lighting conditions would have been better a little earlier in the morning, as the sun then shines on the wonderful blue lake inside the cave seems. Nevertheless, a fascinating underworld awaits us many stalactites, a few stalagmites and the towering Lago Azul. The further we work our way down, the brighter the blue of the lake and the more pleasant the temperature. We learn that a few years ago skeletons of long-extinct species such as saber-toothed tigers and giant sloths were discovered in the lake's sediments.
After this exciting excursion into the beautiful cave, we go back up into the heat and then back to the hostel, where we spend the afternoon by the pool and relax. In the evening we march into the center of Bonito. Here you can find all kinds of souvenir shops, restaurants and hotels, but that doesn't mean that most of the locals speak English, after all, the majority of tourists are of domestic origin. After a delicious hamburger at a street snack, we eat a salad in the Taboa Bar and taste the peculiar cachaca with cinnamon flavor.
