Saturday, March 18 we drove back toward Canela and up a little canyon to the Parque do Caracol where we hiked around the waterfall and river above it.

Raine and Carter wanted to take photos too, so I gave them the point-n-shoot. This one was one that they took.

We saw butterflies of every size and color as we hiked.

This giant blue one finally landed so that I could get a photo of him.

The hydrangeas were at the end of their blooming season, but they were still really pretty. I can’t image how incredible everything looked at peak bloom.

Raine and Carter tried out the playground in the park.

Next, we drove down a VERY rocky dirt road to Valle da Ferradura (Horseshoe Valley).

It was too late in the day for us to hike all the way down to the waterfall, so we had to look at it from above.

These bizarre-looking pinheiro trees were all over the place.

Here is Carter next to one of its pine cones.

Speaking of bizarre plants, these cacti were growing all over the cliff face.

The rocky overlook was full of couples with picnic baskets, waiting for the sunset. Raine found a spot to meditate. (Actually, Carter was getting tired of hiking so we told him to go calm down. Raine was demonstrating how Carter likes to do that.)

Fortunately, this park had a playground too. It was the coolest playground ever because it had a zip line. Raine and Carter made friends with the other little kids there (at least as well as you can when you don’t speak the same language) and took turns zipping down.

There were little saint huts all along the road, like the one in front of this church that we passed on the way down from the park.

The road between Gramado and Canela is lined with chocolate shops. Most of them are fairy-tale looking like this one. We stopped at a couple on the way back to Gramado. The last time were were in Brazil, I learned that Brazilian chocolate is really nasty, but I hoped that since this town was settled by Germans, maybe it would have German chocolate. No such luck, it was nasty.

Easter is obviously a big deal for these chocolate shops because they were all decked out for it already.

We didn’t want fondue again for dinner but it took some searching to find a place that had something on the menu besides fondue. Ratatouille’s had some great steaks and pastas on the menu so that’s where we ate.

On our walk back, we stopped at a churro stand in the Rua Coberta. This was Carter’s first taste of a churro filled with dulce de leche — he was hooked!