Caxambú

Few days late but I wanted to create a video to go along with this blog...
So Susan and I decided: You know what? let's go on an adventure... We're comfortable enough with our knowledge of the language and the culture to be able to go somewhere on our own by now right? And so we did...
We of course had our handy friend Lucas to help us pick a place and he ended up suggesting Caxambú. And so the following day (Friday) we got on a bus and headed there. It was about a three hour bus ride from São João del-Rei. Trip there wasn't to bad, rained a little, had to stop in two other cities before we got there, but generally fun. Once we arrived in Caxambú, our main priorities were: food, shelter, and money. Well as we wondered around the town, we began to notice that this was obviously a tourist town full of fancy hotels and nice bars, the trick was to find a hotel that was a bit more affordable seeing how we're college students... Our first try was a semi-fancy hotel, but in the middle of town. Cost about 160 reals a night! No good... And so on we went, we found a bank where I would be able to get some money out of the atm(which I later found out I couldn't because they didn't have the right atms), found a nice little plaza/avenue area with a few bars and restaurants, and finally, after about two hours of walking around this strange, new place, we came across a hotel that seemed a lot more affordable and so we went in, checked it out, looked at one of the rooms, and got it(only 80 reals a night). For the price, I was actually surprised at the quality and service, we pretty much got a suite; main room(big), bathroom with separate bath and shower, and a little entrance hall room with a fridge. So we set our things down and took off to go find food seeing how it was now around 8 at night. We decided to go back to the plaza and go to a little pizzeria. Good food, great service, and a decent tab. We then proceeded to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.
We woke up around 8 the following morning to try to get a head start on the town. Our first order of business was to see how we were going to get back to São João del-Rei. Head to the bus station, check the times, the price, and that's fine. As we're leaving we see a "ski life" operating on the other side of the road. Lucas told us something about there being a "water park" here and so we went to check it out and ended up taking the life to the top of this huge mountain overlooking the city. There was also a statue of Jesus but it looked really funny because of all of the radio towers around it:



After enjoying the view for about an hour, we take the "ski lift" back down. On our was up and down the lift, we notice that what we are traveling over seems to be some kind of park so when we arrive at the bottom, we proceed to go into the park. Lucas's "water park" ended up being a nature park with mineral springs all over the place. Part of the park was like a childrens playground, another was full of monuments with the different springs dictating what this water was for. One of the springs, you washed your eyes with, another one was for gargling with. Another part of the park contained a lake where you could take swan boats out on, and part was full of tourist attractions and venders. After spending the day there, we decided to go back to the hotel and take a nap. Later that night, we ended up going to the same pizzareia for lack of creativity and energy. At the end of our meal, they asked us where we were from and asked us to sign there guest book. So if anyone goes to Caxambú, look for us in that guest book. We actually found someone from Rio Rancho, NM. small world right? The following day, we left the hotel at 7am, got on the bus and headed home. So far, Caxambú is deffently one of my favorite places to go, wonderful people, beutiful park, and the price wasn't to bad. overall spent 400 reals for the two of us for a three day trip, not bad at all... Here's a little video I put together on our trip:



Cyrille Gindreau