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It was a hell of a busride from Paraty to Sao Paulo; I was still tired from the night before – however only managed to get a bit of sleep during the ride. We arrived in Sao Paulo in the … Continue reading
After we got back to the hotel, David and myself decided that there was still enough time to check out the Caminho do Ouro (Gold Trail), so we got on a public bus to Penha (about half an hour ride), where we started a short hike along a portion of the caminho. We got back in time to catch the bus back to Paraty.
The group split on our second day in Paraty; the majority went to visit some waterfalls in the jungle, as well as a Cachaça distillery; Leo, John, David and myself opted for diving. As neither John nor myself did have a diving certificate we had to take the Discovery Dive option (aka. “batismo”); however John already had some experience in diving, for me it was something completely new. During the first dive I was more busy with myself, in getting used to this new situation – however it worked out during the second dive – and it found it all really enjoyable 🙂
The option of choice for our first complete day in Paraty was a boat trip around some of the islands around Paraty – including lunch, several stops for snorkelling, swimming and having fun in the water.
The first real day of the trip, mostly spent on a bus from Rio to Paraty – however a good opportunity to get to know each other (Amir – Kathleen’s real profession is not being a call girl…). After arrival Leo (our tour leader) gave us an orientation walk around town.
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The second part of the city tour – featuring Sugar Loaf Mountain – took place the next morning; after my return I took the metro to the city center to take the bonde train up to Santa Teresa.
I arrived in Rio de Janeiro Sunday afternoon on a delayed flight from Madrid, got over to the hotel and started discovering the surrounding area (primary goal – as usual when arriving in a new city – stock up on water and cookies). I went to bed early, as I did not feel too well after the flight.
For the next day I had booked an all-day city tour (to ensure I see the important bits…), however due to an accident they had to split my one-day tour to two half-day tours (one for Monday afternoon, the other for Tuesday morning). So I ended up doing a beach tour on my own on Monday morning and going up Corcovado in the afternoon.
Once more we found ourselves in transport for a close to a full day – on our way to Lijiang, which would be the last stop for the tour. A nice town with a huge old city.
Lijiang has been partially destroyed during an earthquake in 1996; however most of the old buildings – built in the Naxi way – survived. Today Lijiang is a famous tourist attraction for Chinese tourists. We spent the day mostly wandering around – in the touristy and less touristy parts of town.
Day 1: After a transfer from Dali to Qiao Tou and a late lunch in the Gorged Tiger Cafe we started our trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge with the short hike up to the Naxi Family guest house.
Day 2: The next we left the Naxi Family guesthouse at around 08:30 – with the 28 bends directly ahead of us (elevation gain of roughly 400m). After a shorter stop in the Tea Horse house and a longer at the Halfway House we arrived at Tina’s guesthouse in the late afternoon — after a day of incredible views, superb and ever changing vegetation – or one of the best hikes I ever did — unfortunately followed by the worst accommodation of the whole trip…
Day 3: We left Tina’s in the early morning for yet another hike – this time down into the gorge close to the river; after a short stop at Sean’s we had a transfer to the ferry bus stop (and another walk down to the river to catch the ferry – and another climb up on the other shore as well).
We made it into Dali in the early afternoon after a six hour bus ride from Kunming, enough time to explore the old town of Dali.
The following day the group split; I joined the group going for a bike ride. At first we headed down to the port to get a ferry to the other side of ErHai sea. Here we passed through a temple complex to finally follow a street to the next bigger village – and ended up doing a 40 km loop.
