welcome to the jungle

My second weekend in Brazil I decided to take a break from the fast-paced city and check out a nearby mountain town, Petropolis. I booked three nights and started reading about the retreat town with European flavor, and how it was where the imperial court went in the summer to avoid Rio's noise and mugginess. Perfect, I thought. When the hostel called to say their pipes had burst and they were shutting down for the week but they could redirect me to one of their sister hostels in Rio, Sao Paulo or Casimiro, I almost canceled my weekend. I was trying to get OUT of big cities, not looking for a get away in the same city or worse a bigger city, Sao Paulo...wait, where's Casimiro? They told me it was a nature reserve off the beaten track, a place called Jungle Beach Hostel. I guess if there's a jungle and a beach it's probably pretty peaceful. Ok, I'll take it. I hung up and looked again in my Lonely Planet...no mention of Casimiro. No website for Jungle Beach Hostel online. Huh, I guess it is off the beaten track. This is going to be an adventure...

I woke up late the next morning and knew I was running late to make all of my connections to catch the last bus from Casimiro to the Jungle Beach Hostel. First I had to take the 1 hour trip to Novo Rio Rodoviaria (the main bus station in the center) then take another 3 hour bus ride to Casimiro. And by "3 hour" I was pretty sure it meant what most other schedules mean down here- around three hours, probably more. I hustled to the bus station and caught the bus, hoping to make it in time. I had no idea where I was actually trying to make it to...

On the bus, I met a Brazilian named Luiz who works in the offshore oil industry. He spends one week with his family in Rio, then the following week working in Macae. He was all too familiar with the bus ride I was taking for the first time. We talked for most of the trip and he wondered what I was doing going to Casimiro. He told me there wasn't really anything there. I told him I was going to the Jungle Beach Hostel. He had never heard of it. When we got to Casimiro I had just missed the last bus that would head up into the jungle. I wasn't sure how to get to this remote spot where I was headed or how to explain it to a cab driver. Luiz told me to stay put while he went and talked to a taxi driver. Rates for taxis and hostels and just about everything else down here tend to have a Brazilian rate and a foreigner rate. Luiz got the local rate for me and said the taxi driver knew exactly where the hostel was. I thanked him and headed off in the taxi into the darkening hills looking for the jungle.

We wound up and around, bumping our way along a mostly paved road. The air felt exquisite coming through the window, cooler and softer than the city air I had been breathing, and it smelled like fresh rain and flowers. From the "main" road we went through several gates along smaller dirt roads, much darker and rockier, until we got to a bridge. A black horse and her foal scrambled out of the way to let us pass. I could hear a waterfall not too far in the distance but couldn't see it. It's always strange arriving in new places at night, without any sort of orientation or visual mapping. I was there, that's all I knew. I was psyched to figure out what that meant.

Through the open window of the main house I could see a man dancing and playing with a bunch of kids. Music was blaring and every one was laughing...fun. I was greeted warmly and shown to my room which I shared with a German girl, Anja. She was in her 10th month of travel in South America and was on her last leg before heading home. Other folks were visiting Jungle Beach, too: Five Irish and English guys, and five girls from Sweden. For the next three days we took amazing hikes through the Serra Mar region of the Atlantic Rainforest, cabled down a steep mountainside to swim under the most amazing waterfall, laid around the giant rocks of the river, played sand-volleyball (boys against girls- we won), were shown by the kids who live there which tropical fruits you could eat off the trees, and otherwise had a great time. One night we rented a van and were driven to the nearby town of Sana, an old hippy colony that was intentionally hard to get to, and wandered around the cobblestone streets til morning. Around every turn was another type of music blaring from a different open air bar. We met some locals selling their hand-made jewelry. Around 3 a.m. we were shown the way to a Forro party down a long dirt road with a folky-rock band and lots and lots of dancing. In the center was a big fire pit and even a few clowns and fire-dancers. Ah, I felt right at home.

Back to the hostel, the owner is working on a couple of interesting projects right now which he asked me to help out with: An environmental education program to alert locals and visitors to the preservation of The Atlantic Rainforest (in English, Spanish and Portuguese) and a center for local women to sell their hand-crafted wares and make a sustainable living. I'm not sure yet what I might be able to contribute to his projects, but I have a feeling I'll be going back again to this magical place in the jungle...