Weekend in the Mountains

While I had thought it was difficult sitting through 8 straight hours of class every day last week, little did I know what was in store for our weekend adventures. We checked out of our hotel at 7 am saturday morning to head out on a long bus ride to visit a large farmer near Sao Pedro. Carlos-- owner and manager of the farm-- showed us his 350 head dairy barns and parlor, explained the 3 cycle harvest he practices, and shared other interesting facts about sugarcane, corn, and soybean harvests in Brazil. It was very interesting to learn about the government participation in Brazilian agriculture. Carlos shared that there are no government subsidy programs for his crops, no insurance options, and no help in drought years, leaving many farmers bankrupt after a bad 2008 crop.

After leaving his farm, we headed a half hour to dairy co-op. This co-op is a venue for nearly 100 small dairy farmers to market their milk around the state. We toured the processing plant, taste tested their pinapple, strawberry, and coconut yogurt, and also visited one of the participating farmers in the area. We wrapped up saturday with dinner at Intervales state park and stayed in a cabin for the evening.

Sunday was quite the adventure. We got up early, put on old clothes and boots, and headed out for a nearly 10 mile hike through caves and rainforest. While this would be a difficult task in itself, it had rained the entire night and day before, making all trails (especially hills!!) extremely slippery and muddy. We hiked up and down the mountains for nearly 2 hours before reaching our first cave. Here we crawled inside, scaled across the rocks, and got to see a beautiful waterfall. While it was quite the process, with me falling down 3 times and getting a handful of thorns along the way, the scenery was breathtaking. One cave down, we hiked to a meadow area to eat lunch and rest up before Cave 2. The second cave was quite different, as we waded knee-waist deep in water the entire time over much easier terrain. About 3 hours later we walked back into camp, physically exhausted, and quickly showered and boarded the bus to head back to Piracicaba.




This week is full of class for 3 days, visiting Brazil's largest flower market, and spending the weekend with our Host Family somewhere around the state. Stay tuned for more pictures and an update later this week or over the weekend!!!

**This is supposedly a fountain of Healing Holy Water in a park we visited. When asked where the the water came from Jena, my AZP friend, responded, "I'm sure its piped straight from America"