Sebui Rainforest Trip

Our trip to the Sebui Rainforest this weekend was amazing, though I believe some of my companions may have had a rather rough time of it!

The trip there was long but not too bad, everyone is aware of my motion sickness in cars and buses so I was able to sit in the front seat for the hour long van ride to the port.  The ride through the mountains was gorgeous and we were able to travel through a part of Brazil that had been severely affected by the recent mudslides.  It was amazing to see where mud and water had completely taken out an entire concrete bridge and how the red stains of mud covered the streets.  It was quite impressive how quickly the cleanup effort was taking place.

After the van ride we took a 2 and a half hour ferry ride to another smaller boat which took us about a half hour into the private ecological reserve.  With us through this all was a man named Enzo, who I would come to find out, is the owner of this 500 acre private nature reserve (which he purchased 10 years ago for $50,000… amazing).  Enzo is Italian and quite the impressive man, and he obviously holds a bountiful appreciation of nature.  In addition, he is a huge advocate of supporting the locals and purchases all his supplies from his neighbors. 

As we arrived at the reserve we unloaded the boat and began our short 20-30 minute hike to the camp area.  The hike was incredibly muddy, almost swampy and marshy, but incredibly beautiful.  On the way to the camp we passed a small wooden hut which we were informed was the home of Jaoa, an older gentleman that lives on the reserve to help maintain it.  He would prove to be our entertainment in the evenings and guide during the day.  Our camp was small and basic, but incredibly charming. 

We hiked to a different waterfall each day and each was absolutely beautiful and all the more rewarding to see because of the often challenging hikes, which, due to the climate, were not like your typical hike.  Muddy and slippery each day of hiking proved to be a great adventure!  We were able to swim at each each of the waterfalls and the water was incredibly cold, but also refreshing especially on the second day when we had a slightly longer hike.  Most of our hikes were recorded by  a camera crew filming a documentary for the national news station about the reserve.  We were all a little unsure of how they would be portraying us and I decided to attempt to stay out of the camera’s lens as much as possible. 

The women in the kitchen, a mother and daughter, were amazing cooks and prepared delicious meals for us morning, noon and night.  One evening we had a traditional oyster bake which was quite an experience, even though I do not actually eat oysters myself.   Just getting the oysters was an adventure.  After canoeing through the mangroves, in the pouring rain I should add, we took a short boat ride to a locals house.  We pulled the boat right up to his house, he came out and waded out into the water, hoisted up a tin of oysters and brought them right to our boat.  This is a perfect example of how Enzo supports the locals!

On our final hike out of the rainforest on the last day we had to hike over killer ants, we were told to run over the ants.  There were so many ants it appeared as if the entire ground was moving.  It was a bit unnerving as we were told that under no circumstances should we stop, or the ants would simply overtake our body.  It was a pretty intense experience!

All in all it was a wonderful trip.  I felt that I bonded with many of the girls on the trip and had an opportunity to see the Atlantic rainforest which is said to have the greatest ecological biodiversity in the world.  It was truly an experience that will remain with me for the rest of my life.