I.

I’ve long joked* that my super power as a traveler comes from my willingness to “just get in the car and go”.

A stranger on wheels pulls up and opens the door. Do you get in?

In April, Elisa and I had the pleasure of guiding a Valencia-born free spirit named Adelaida in the Espinhaço for 15 days.

“Ade” (AH-deh) was hitch-hiking solo across the country after visiting friends in the northeastern state of Maceió, where she used to live. She is simultaneously the first solo woman traveler we’ve guided, the first non-Brazilian we’ve guided who was already traveling in Brazil when she began her trip with us, and definitely the first traveler we met while hitch-hiking.

We met her at night in the tiny restaurant near Rio Preto State Park’s campground. There was a serious lightning show taking place at the campground that evening (one bolt struck the rod atop the chalet we were staying in—literally meters from our seats in front of the restaurant—causing us and the waitstaff to jump and shriek simultaneously), and we were taking it in with (what else?) ice-cold Heinekens.

Ade made a late appearance at the restaurant, completely soaked but grinning from ear to ear.

She arrived with plans and questions, determined to do a beautiful stretch of trail Elisa and I know well, and that we’d completed just hours before (albeit hurriedly given the approaching storm). She asked lots of questions and took careful notes. Trail names, people’s names, place names. I was almost certain she was a journalist of some sort. We told her everything we could, but also strongly recommended that she make arrangements to go with Deco, the Park’s longest tenured guide. Seven kilometers of the trail she wanted to do are right alongside the river, with multiple crossings necessary, and the water level was extremely high.

Once the lightning had subsided, we bid Ade and the waitstaff ciao, walked back to the chalet, and packed our things to get an early start the next morning. As we were getting ready to head out and journey north to Sempre Vivas, I asked Elisa what she thought about inviting the espanhola to join us. We’d been monitoring the weather across the region intently and knew it would be pouring for the next four or five days in Rio Preto. Ade was hitchhiking and the Park was completely empty. She’d be stuck at the campground for days, a tragic way to spend her first (and possibly only, given the circumstances) week in the Espinhaço.

After breakfast, we loaded up Gaúcha and drove to “the WiFi spot” (literally a covered bench with a single bar of 4G reception), where we found Ade hiding from the rain. We rolled our window down, told her we were going to leave the Park, and asked if she wanted to come with us. We could take her to Inhaí, Sempre Vivas, Pinheiros, Biriribiri, and then back to Diamantina, where she could catch a bus south to her next destination.

This time she asked few questions and took no notes. Instead, she grinned once more from ear to ear, gathered her things, and hopped in.

Over the course of two lush, storm-filled weeks with Ade, we traversed over 500 km of road and 120 km of trails—from the dense forests of Rio Preto (where we met) to the palm groves of Sempre Vivas, the rolling hills of Conselheiro Mata and the fertile lowlands west of the range. We visited 6 conservation units and 17 communities during her time with us, summitting two peaks (our attempt of Itambé was cut short due to lightning) and swimming at 16 waterfalls.

Elisa and I have been in the field almost non-stop during the four months since our trip with Ade, so I’ll (regretfully) do the same as I did for my Journal with Greg: keep the writing short, but attach plenty of pics.

I have a feeling we may see Ade here in the serra again one day…

– Eddie