for the brasilian hoilday, my family and i traveled to a small farm town called marlèria, about an hour away from ipatinga.
our adventure to marlèria began on a dirt road. no seriously, we drove on a dirt road for about half an hour. im getting car sick in the backseat while my brother is sleeping like a precious angel. sweet.
anyway, we get to the hotel, and it reminds me of in "the parent trap" where lindsay lohan's father lives in calif, so freaking beatuiful. more of a big cottage than a hotel. it's around 7ish when we arrive so i'm getting a little hungry for our "dinner" which is basically our lunch. we settle into our rooms and these "maids" come around with cheese and rolls. i'm thinking, "ohmygosh, this is dinner? im going to be eating crackers and a grape this whole weekend."
then my father turns to me and says, "remember this moment ariana, because this is the last time you will be hungry this entire trip." he was right. i turn around and there is a FEAST behind me, more food than we have at christmas at grandma judy's house. like double. so i eat plate after plate of brasilian delicious-ness.
the following morning, we spent the day by the pool, just hanging out and i got my first brasilian sunburn. woo-hooo! after lunch my family said we would go on a little hike with the owner of the hotel, see some beauitful sights and he would show us some constellations.
a little hike, it was 14km! the whole time, up hill. for you americans who are reading this, you can figure out what 14km is in miles because my legs are still aching for me to go check.
i was struggling bigtime. i honestly didnt think i was gonna make it. BUT the view was incrediable. when it got dark out, because it gets dark around 6ish here cause of winter, i looked up in the sky and i have never seen a sight so amazing. words are failing me right now because seriously everywhere i looked, stars after stars after stars. sooooooo beauitful. the owner pointed out mars and i was in ashtonishment.
the next day, we drove to the top of one of the surrounding mountains and you could see all of marlièria. gorgeous !
we then drove to a national park where there was this beauitful lake. because they havent had rain in 3months (yeah, 3months!) the water was very shallow but we got in our bikkins and cooled off.
**note of brasilians: almost every lady wears bikkinis and men litttttttle littttle shorts. i saw one little girl in a one piece the whole weekend. even if you dont have a "bikkini body", you are showing off what you got.
monday was a lazy morning by the pool. until we went on another 14km hike. it was a different walk but still very difficult because again, it was up hill. again, was still beauitful
the owner of the hotel turned to me and calmly said, "ariana, you are in charge of this flashlight (since it was getting dark) if you see an onca (jaguar) just point the flashlight in his eyes and it will be leave us alone."
JAGUAR?!! QUE? SERIO?!
if i see an onca, i will not calmly flash the light.
i will fumble for it. drop it. break it. it's game over. so not funny. we didnt see an onca, luckily.
tuesday was our last day in paradise but before we left my father wanted to take me to this waterfall. "just a short walk ariana" it was only 3-4km (which now appears short to me)
but he forgot to tell me we were going into the mini-amazon.
there was no path, we made our own. we got lost for about a good hour, just me and him.
i'm panicking. amazon = Anaconda's. my thoughts are going crazy:
"ohmygosh, i'm gonna slip and fall into an Anaconda nest"
"ohmygosh, i'm going to grab onto a branch and it's actually gonna be an Anaconda"
"ohmygosh, i'm gonna accidentally kill a baby Anaconda and the mother is gonna eat me alive"
little did i know that Anconda's shouldnt have been my mind, but in fact KILLER ANTS! we finally get to the waterfall, step down, my father screams, then i scream. i look down and see an ant the size of my thumb nail, getting angry and crawling all over my leg! (kristi jones, i know youre struggling to read this) after we saw the falls and took some amazing pictures, we make our way back to "our path" and my father is like "ohh, look, where the ants attacked us"
thousands, thousands ! of killer ants going nuts.
i got nausous and almost lost my breakfast. get me outtta here
we made our way back, safely, watching out for both killer ants and anacondas. two extremes.
back at the hotel, we packed our things and unfortunatley, had to leave paradise...
maerlièria was a wonderful place and i reallllly enjoyed itt :D
