"Don't Panic! Don't panic! ... I'm panicking!" - Me

(Just a stupid video we made of Rute's famous dance moves)

Slank, Me, and Rute

"Wow!  This is like a movie!" said Rute, or Lydia, our spring semester student teacher from Chicago, with whom I have become great friends.  We felt like we had arrived on the set of one of the Lord of the Rings movies.  The waterfall was behind us, dense mist gradually soaking our bodies, and an amazing view from every angle as we tried to capture the scene on camera, not giving the site any justice at all.  Cameras sure do provide a memory, but they cannot by any means encapsulate the moment in its entirety.

After we had our fill of seeing the waterfall from the bottom, we began the one hour uphill hike up to the mouth of the waterfall.  The hike was beautiful, and also difficult, so I, as usual lagged behind by about 15 feet practically throughout the whole thing.  Yet, this time "Slank" my bosses daughter accompanied me.  Rute and Josh led the way to the top and tried not to permit any loose rocks that made up the trail tumble down on us.

The park closed at 5, so we had to book it!  The first few minutes were very entertaining.  Some brazilians that were hiking behind us were calling back and forth with various bird calls.  We decided to join in with our own bird calls, cow calls, and whatever other loud animal noise that would only be a dead give away of our place of origin - "Os Estados Unidos," (The United States).  More about "easy targets" in a future blog...

The view from the top! (SUPER HIGH)

The whole way down was beautiful, and definitely easier than the trek up the mountain.  Soon, we were to the part of the trail with extremely loose rocks and a very steep descent, and again, Slank and I lagged behind.

Clank.  Slip.  "Woah!"  The rocks shuffled beneath our feet and we had to take each step pretty carefully.

All of the sudden, Slank and I saw her brother Josh swatting the air frantically and start sprinting down the rocky trail.  He was followed by Rute, screaming that high-pitched girly squeal that girls do when they are panicking. "Bees!  Bees!  Ahhhhh!  Bees!  Bees!  Ahhhhhhh!"

Attack of the Evil Bees! 

When we took a closer look, we could see bees swarming around part of the trail up ahead.  "Slank," I whispered.  "We gotta make a plan.  Let's be strategic."  "Ok," she responded.  "Let's deviate from the trail and go around the bees," I proposed.  And again, "Ok," said Slank.

In a panic, we migrated off of the trail of loose small rocks, and began trying to run down the bigger shoebox sized rocks.  We learned very quickly, that even though the rocks were bigger, it did not at all mean that the rocks were not loose.  Our attempt at running quickly turned to slipping, falling, and then scooting.  There were a few pauses and breaks in our descent.  For example, when Slank got her foot stuck under a rock and I had to lift the rock off for her.  We paused another time when I had to pick a bee out of Slank's hair.

Waterfall in the background.  (Josh, Slank, Rute, and I)

Pretty soon, we were pausing to rest and also finding out at the same time that our "plan" to escape the "bee attack" was not working.  They were smarter than we had thought!  "Slank!  Don't panic.  Don't panic," I tried to say in a calm and collective voice, as if I were not really talking to Slank at all, but giving myself a pep talk.  "Buzz.  Buzz."  The bees were crawling on my clothes.  They were stinging Slank's head from inside of her ponytail.  "Ahhhhhhhhhh!  IIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMM PAAAANNIIIIICCKKKING!"  I screamed this at the top of my lungs... I guess I am more afraid of bees than I thought.

A Similar Not-Trail

From that point on, we were shuffling our feet and scooting down the "non-trail" as fast as we could.  All of the sudden, we heard Rute let out an unbearable, and painful scream, "AhHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh!"  We felt so helpless.  We could hear her.  We knew that she was being attacked by bees.  Yet, we were trapped by distance and our own swarm of bees.  "Joooooooossssssssshhhhhh!!!!!!!!!" she screamed.  She desperately needed help.  We didn't know why, but we had to catch up to Rute and Josh.

A few minutes later, we came out of our "not-trail" because the bees were "gone" and we could hear Josh screaming, "Sarah."  Upon meeting up with them, we learned that Rute, instead of scooting down the rocky trail, she was running, jumping, and slide landing.  And, had a very rough landing on one of her spiderman leaps.  She landed with her ankle sideways under a tree root and had to limp down the rest of the trail with a very sprained ankle.   She was also screaming because there were bees inside of her ponytail and she needed a hand to pick them out.

Those shoes were blue! (After the "hike" down)

Even after we met up after all of that, we still had about 2 kilometers, a little less than 1 mile, left to walk and get to the car.  The rest of the "hike" seemed much easier when we weren't panicking, well, at least for the 3 of us without sprained ankles.  All of us were pretty sore, battered, and bruised up, most of the scrapes and scratches were covered in dirt, so we didn't even notice until after we showered.

For the next few hours, everyone was picking out bee stingers from scalps, arms, backs, ears, and necks.

You know what they say, "When a bee stings you, it dies soon after."  Well if that's the case, we must have been the cause of death for at least 60 bees that day.

I'll just add that to my scary times in Brazil section.