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Alto Paraíso and Chapada dos Veadeiros29 Jan 2006
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Valley of the Moon
God's Garden
Chapada dos Veadeiros
Somebody had told me to visit Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, 45 minutes from Alto Paraíso which was 3 hours from Brasilia. To cut a long story short it wasn't worth the effort as the park itself only had 2 walks available and they were only day walks so you couldn't really see much of the park or appreciate how big it was.
A couple of good things came out of this side trip, I met a brazilian couple, Marcos and Carolina, who adopted me for half a day. They kindly gave me a lift to São Jorge which was the village at the entrance to the National Park, they had warned me that it was crap though they said I should see it for myself. We went around various hostels before we decided that it would be better to go back to Alto 35km away and stay there! Marcos told me to keep quiet while he negotiated a deal at the hostel that I had been staying in. He got me a better room for only USD3 more per night!!! I couldn't thank them enough. The lesson I learnt here was as a foreigner, people put prices up, fortunately for me, I'only get outted as a foreigner once I start to speak (spanish is becoming increasingly useless)!
On the bus back to Brasilia, I met Nicole from Holloway who spoke no portuguese, we compared our experiences and went shopping when we got to Brasilia!
