Bonito - Boca da Onca

On our fourth day in Bonito we did an ecotour called Boca da Onca. It was a day at a farm that included a 4 km hike to see 11 waterfalls and swim in 3 of them. No one in Bonito thought we could do it with 3 small children, but they did not know us very well.

Here is my hiking hunk.

Group shot by a cool tree. It is so fat because it stores a bunch of water in it's trunk.

Isaac with one waterfall. Normally the water is crystal clear, but since we had torrential rainfall the day before, the water was muddy.

My tree cuties looking at a waterfall. They all hiked awesome, and were very interested in the waterfalls.

Here is the crew climbing some stairs after looking at a waterfall.

This is Traci and I swimming in the first swimming waterfall. The water was freezing and it was not even very warm that day, but we were not going to let that stop us. I am so glad we took the plunge because it was exhilarating! Behind us you can see a small opening above the water. We had to swim through that small opening. It was scary at first, but then super amazing.

A view of Ethan on the bridge above the waterfall from behind the waterfall. We could not talk the boys into swimming in this one.

Traci under the waterfall.

It was so fun I was able to talk Scott into swimming with me...so romantic.

Here we are hiking again. Off to some more falls. The boys loved walking on the bridges.

The water was much more clear at this waterfall, so everybody swam.

Traci and Isaac swam out to touch the fall.

The last waterfall was the tallest. We sat in these chairs to view it at just the right angle.

This is the waterfall called Boca da Onca (Mouth of the Leopard). You can see a leopard face in the rock.

The boys walked back and forth on this ledge 4 or 5 times.

Owen sat this one out.

The water was absolutely freezing at this waterfall, and we were the only ones to swim out to it. Out legs were numb for 20 minutes afterwards. Totally worth it.

Finally, we climbed 860 stairs back to the top without the boys complaining once. They are amazing little adventurers.

The boys wanted their picture with the sign that said they climbed 860 stairs. Even though Isaac's face looks unhappy in this picture, he was very happy and climbed the stairs awesome. Ethan, Scott and Owen were one of the first groups to make it to the top!

The boys were very excited to ride in the back of this truck.

After our hike the farm fed us a delicious lunch of regional dishes, amazing! Here is Owen chowing down.

Ethan loves chicken legs!

Traci is sipping her after dinner cafezino (little coffee) by the pool.

And because we had not had enough excitement for the day, the boys decided to play with these berries from this crazy looking tree. As we were heading out Isaac started to itch terribly. He could not stop itching, and he was crying it itched so bad. We do not totally understand what happened, but we think it was from this tree. We washed him up really well, and tried to take his mind off of it while we drove an hour back to town. When we got to town a little Benadryl cream took care of all the itchiness that was left. Whew!

 

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