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 free-spirited Valencian traveler Adelaida in the Espinhaço for 13 days.

“Ade” (AH-deh) was traveling the country after visiting friends in Maceió. 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 visited us, and definitely the first traveler we met while hitch-hiking.

We met Ade at night in the little restaurant in Rio Preto State Park. There was a lightning show happening all around us (one bolt struck the chalet we were staying in, just meters from our seat in front of the restaurant, causing us and the waitstaff to jump up and shriek simultaneously), and we were taking it in with a Heineken.

Ade made a late appearance, soaked but grinning from ear to ear.

She wanted to do a trail we’d completed just hours before, but intensely. She asked a lot of questions and took notes. Trail names, people’s names, place names. I thought she might be a journalist.

The next morning as we were getting ready to leave the Park and head north to Sempre Vivas, I asked Elisa what she thought about inviting the espanola to join us. We’d been monitoring the weather in the region intently and knew that it would be pouring for the next four or five days. She had no vehicle.

We packed Gaúcha and found Ade at the WiFi spot, hiding from the rain under . 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.

Over the course of the expedition, we covered nearly 560 km of fluorescent green, saturated high savannah ground—mostly by vehicle, over very rough roads. We visited 6 conservation units, overnighting in two, and 10 communities, overnighting in five. Waterfalls weren’t a priority of the expedition, but we came across 12 (and enjoyed all of them).

This was my third time guiding Greg in the range, but it was our first long-form expedition together. It was, as always, an absolute pleasure to hit the road with him, to explore the many different landscapes and (new word alert) “phytophysiognomies” of the Cerrado, and to spend time with him in the small communities of the Espinhaço.

I have so much more to say about this crossing, and I’ll return to it soon. For now, here are some photographs from yet another wet & wild April in the range.

– Eddie