Field Trip #10
Captures & musings from 10 (very) wet & wild days in/around + across glorious Sempre Vivas National Park.
Wood/Steel + Water
I.
The “Plan”
If you follow GOGO on social media or read our Journals regularly, you know that Elisa & my field trips are often planned at the last second. Between our kids’ school schedules and their increasingly busy social lives (they’re 13 & 14 now) and our desk work, Elisa & I have to stay ready and make the most of every opportunity we can to get into the Espinhaço backcountry—something we didn’t have to worry about quite as much during our first 2 years here.
That said, this particular excursion was especially unplanned, as we decided to throw 7 days of hearty bushwhacking & remote river travel onto a 3-day roadtrip to visit some friends of ours in the region… while we were on the Bandy on the way out to visit said friends. Our mission? To continue scouting & documenting lesser-known stretches of Sempre Vivas National Park, with a particular eye towards potential access points & trails along the eastern wetlands.
In the end, not much ended up going according to plan, but since we didn’t have much of a plan to begin with, the trip was refreshingly stress-free. It was an incredible way to spend 10 days, full of discoveries big & small, good times and (mostly?) good weather, and great company.
All said and done, Elisa, Pé, Nica, Júlio, Sr. Barbosa, and I trekked, canoed, and off-roaded about 178 km of trails & backroads in and around the Park, not including the multiple round-trips back & forth to Diamantina.
Not everyone keeps a duffel full of gear in the trunk, but if you don’t, you might consider it. Whoever said that the best adventures are the unplanned ones clearly went on a trip or two, and you just never know when inspiration might strike.
Steel/Grass + Sky
Roof Rack Laughs
The Old Telegraph Trail
II.
A (Temporary) Change of Glass
I’ve been shooting nearly exclusively at a 24 mm focal length since I first picked up a camera in November of 2017. From 2017-2022, I used a Fujifilm XF 16 mm 1.4 (the equivalent of 24-mm on a full frame camera), which I loved. When I switched over to Sony in September of 2022 (I currently shoot exclusively on the A1), I bought just 2 lenses: a pricey—but heavy—Sony GM 24 mm and a small plastic 35 mm.
I’ve used that 24 mm for 99.9% of my time with the A1, mostly because of its awesome optical quality, but also because, honestly, I’m just used to it. During this trip, however, I finally decided to try my hand at the little 35 mm, for a few reasons. First, the conditions in Sempre Vivas are always precarious, and I don’t use any sort of camera or lens protection aside from a (currently cracked) NR filter. Second, I planned on shooting mostly video during the trip and 35 mm seemed like an ideal focal length. Lastly (and probably most importantly), I really wanted to remember what life on the trail was like with a pound less metal on my right shoulder.
There’s zero question that the smaller lens made for a more enjoyable carry… but optical quality is a pretty big price to pay. In fact, when I first uploaded these pics, I thought something had gone horribly wrong. Then I remembered the lens.
In sum, the little 35 is great in a pinch, but I can deal with the extra pound. I’m definitely going back to the GM 24 mm (unless/until I get the GM 35 mm 1.4…).
Old Friends #1
Old Friends #2
The other side
III.
The “Kidnapping” of Barbosa
I knew from past visits that Sr. Barbosa loves walking, that he’s in incredible shape (not just for his age), and that he’s great company on the trail. Júlio & I planned to pick him up from his home in Inhaí on Day 3 and drive him in Gaúcha to the palm-laced riverside ranch where he was born & raised. From there, the 3 of us would hike three km to the old-growth forests of Cascilho, at which point Barbosa would return home on foot (as he did countless times as a young man, and was excited to relive) and Júlio & I would continue along the daunting trail to Taquaral.
It would be a short stretch together, but long enough to hear a few of Barbosa’s stories & enjoy his company, and to justify the robust day wage that Elisa & I were determined to pay him, despite his protests.
We cleared the plan beforehand with Barbosa & his beloved wife Lúcia, who prepared (at least) 3 days worth of delicious, highly caloric trail “snacks” (really, large meals), which have now become a staple of our trips in this part of the region. As destiny would have it, though, a series of unforeseen events resulted in Barbosa joining Júlio & I on a much longer & more ambitious trek in the Park.
Júlio, Elisa, and I have hard-earned reputations for adventure in these parts. Barbosa knew this when he got in the Bandy. He just didn’t know how much adventure he had left inside of himself.
Gomercindo In his element
Old Haunt
Wood/Steel + Water
IV.
Land Owners / TreSpassing
One of the most enjoyable & critical objectives of our field trips is meeting & building relationships with locals. While there aren’t too many residents in the places we visited on this particular trip, the ones we did meet were colorful.
As soon as we left Barbosa’s house in Inhaí, the 3 of us drove 30 km north along a dirt road to meet a rancher whose property line butts up against the National Park. We’d all had negative interactions with the man before, and we were all aware of his reputation for being fiercely uncooperative, but the meeting was important.
The substance of it was this: during an expedition back in 2022, Júlio & Elisa & I had stumbled upon a historic trail within the Park that had not been maintained for decades. We mapped the trail, and had recently received permission from both the Park and the owners of the land on which the trail runs its entirety (the National Park is comprised nearly entirely of privately owned ranch land—its a long story) to clean & maintain it for future use.
Unfortunately, in order to reach the trailhead and even the Park itself, one needs to pass briefly (either on foot or by vehicle) along the outskirts of a piece of property belonging to this rancher. And while he had agreed over the phone to allow us to skirt his property, he now stood behind a locked wooden gate in the middle of the road, smiling cynically, ultimatum in hand: our crew would be given right of passage during our trip today, but during any future trips we would either need to fork over $1,000 reais per person or be harassed and threatened with violence.
Barbosa was devastated. His hometown, Inhaí, just 30 km south, is the natural eastern gateway community to the Park. Already starved for tourism, the rancher’s ultimatum represented a deathblow (making matters even more complicated: the rancher is Barbosa’s brother-in-law. Yikes.).
Júlio gave the man an earful, but clearly we needed to come up with a Plan B for our field trip. There wasn’t much use in bushwhacking an arduous stretch of trail for 2 days if we weren’t ever going to be able to come back again. We decided to leave and come at the Park further from the north. Unfortunately, that meant driving 30 km back south, then 200 km north to the small quilombola community of Braúnas (luckily, we all love Braúnas, and the night was a blast. We also had to convince Barbosa’s wife to let him come with us.). The next day we took canoes to cross the river, and our circumnavigation of the rancher’s land was complete.
All said & done, we spent about 18 hours instead of 30 minutes.
There is a reason the Espinhaço is one of Brazil’s best kept secrets. You really have to enjoy the journey here. I know I do.
Back where It Began
Júlio. Day 7
V.
One Last Story; Rain
I can’t finish this journal entry without mentioning the second-to-last day of the trip, when Júlio, Barbosa, and I collectively badly misjudged distances, got lost, crossed a raging, waist-high river at midnight, and ended up taking shelter on the cramped front porch of an abandoned forest shack well after midnight, a literal moment before the rain began to pour down.
At one point in our misguided adventure that evening, I’d whacked an overhead branch with my machete and felt a pile of soft dirt fall down the back of my shirt, only to find that it wasn’t dirt, but an antpile whose residents bit me relentlessly as I frantically removed my clothing. We passed the small shack where eventually spent the night three times—using three separate trails, which all looped back—before giving up. At one point, maybe around midnight, we unknowingly entered a large apiary, which we discovered when we began seeing faint “keep quiet/be peaceful” signs posted to tree trunks here and there.
If all of this sounds like a bit of a nightmare, I think you’re normal. I personally loved it, but I was also maybe a bit more excited than usual to get back home to Elisa & the kids. GOGO trips are hard, but our field trips might be harder.
Water Break. Day 2
Trail Snack. Day 2
Sweet Refuge
