In Goiania, the city where I am living here, May 24 is a holiday to honor padroeira de Goiania, Nossa Senhora Auxiliadora (Goiania's patron saint, Our Lady of Help). Therefore, many people do not have to work or go to school, and thus, travel. My family went to a place called Hot Park in a city about 2 hours away called Caldas Novas. Caldas Novas is famous for its natural hot springs and it has a natural hot-water river, the Rio Quente, that runs through it as well. Hot Park is a club that has many swimming pools, water slides and even mini-golf. It takes advantage of the hot water from the Rio Quente and there is even a section of the park where patrons can feel the river, rent kayaks, and feed the many, many fish that bask there. We went to Hot Park to enjoy the wave pools and people watch. It was wonderful to jump in the waves, relax, and spend time in the sun. On the way home in the car, all of us were sleeping except the driver!
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| This is a traffic jam in which we were stuck on the way to Caldas Novas. Notice that the road is not a highway, but two lanes and that all the traffic is going the same direction as we are. |
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| The state of Goias, of which my city here, Goiania, is the capital, is a cerrado. This is a tropical savannah which has beautiful scenery and consists of many rising hills and scrubby trees in tall grass. There is a lot of corn and soy beans grown here, much like in Michigan, but there is also a lot of sugar cane grown here to make ethanol. |
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| This section of the Hot Park has a restaurant in the middle of the warm pool. The scenery in the background is beautiful. |
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| The Rio Quente (translation: Hot River) with some kayakers |
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These are a few of the inhabitants of the Rio Quente. We saw two types of fish--the small ones were called caranha and the big ones were called pirarucu. The pirarucu were long like eels almost, but they had scales that looked like dinosaurs!
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| This is a much better picture of the scales on the pirarucu. |
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| Feeding the fish with my host father while standing in the warm water was so nice. |
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| Let's go fishing! |
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| The River Quente in the Hot Park even has a place to go snorkeling. |
