Chapada Diamantina (11-13/Oct/06)

Salvador, Brazil

Lençois is the main town in the Chapada Diamantina national park. Lençois means "sheets", and the town has this name because it was an old mining town and during the initial diamond rush most of the prospectors lived in tents, which looked like sheets spread out. The diamonds here are pretty low grade so they are used mostly in industry, not for jewellery. A lot of the drills' heads used in the London Underground's early years came from here. Production now is virtually zero because the area is protected so the town has turned to tourism.

The first day there we were pretty tired so we just went to a nearby rock pool which has a cool natural slide. Slid down that a few times, jumped into the pool from some rocks, and generally sunbathed for a bit. The next day we did a van tour of the edge of the park, taking in the sights from the top of one of the mountains, saw a couple of caves and some more rock pools, and had lunch by a river. Could have been a bit more adventurous and done a few days trek but after so much trekking we couldn't be bothered. You have to go with a guide as well, which we don't really like doing. The third day we went up to see more rock pools near Lençois, and an area with coloured sandy rock where the local "artisans" get their coloured sand and make pretty pictures in a jar to sell. The same afternoon we went back to the slide for a last few hours before getting the night bus back to Salvador.