Brazil: Chapada Diamantina after the diamond rush
Once plundered by miners, the Chapada Diamantina is now a national park offering riches of another kind, says Andrew
By Andrew Purvis
Borne by a slow current through the water, I watched a shoal of silvery characins scatter as my shadow drifted over them. The size of small goldfish, they nibbled my legs gently as I passed – but the spotted, torpedo-shaped fish five feet below appeared larger, uglier and more predatory.
Lancing through the reeds and feathery grasses that fringed the shoreline, they stopped and hovered above a pair of giant aquatic snails before swimming off through water so clear I could track their progress for 100ft (underwater visibility in the Mediterranean might be 40 to 50ft). Duck-diving down, I swam parallel with a tilapia until it darted under a rock, then I surfaced, cleared my snorkel and continued my slow circuit of the lagoon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activityandadventure/7204600/Brazil-Chapada-Diamantina-after-the-diamond-rush.html
