Caraça - Days 5 and 6 (April 28 - 29)

Day 5 - April 28

We arrived at the Caraca reserve and monastery in time for the evening meal. A few other people were already eating at long tables. We gathered our delicious food from top of a wood-burning stove (soup, rice and bean, vegetables). After dinner we enjoyed the monastery's medicinal wine and apertif.

At 9 pm we saw a short video about the Caraca reserve and monastery which historically served as a boarding school for boys. We also learned of the possibility of local wolves visiting the veranda at night to enjoy the leftovers from dinner. Some of the group waited for the wolves to visit and were rewarded when two wolves visited, one at a time. The next day we learned that the two were a pair and were expecting pups.

Day 6 - April 29

The day began with a mystical mist enveloping the monastery and its grounds. The background picture to this page captures this morning mist and is taken from the veranda where the night before wolves walked. After a hearty breakfast, which included some folks cooking eggs over the wood-burning stove, we toured the monastery grounds and buildings and then hiked to a waterfall.During our hike, the mist lifted and we were treated to blue skies and sunshine. We then shared the monastery's cafeteria with a school group. Our guide created quite a disturbance when he announced that one of our group was a Hollywood star and the rest of us were part of her entourage. The teachers were good-natured about it, letting us know that they talked him out of saying we were all from Hollywood.

We left Caraca after lunch for our long bus ride to Ribeirao Preto.

to see the Caraca slide show, click here.