Just before I crested the east end of the cliffs on the way up, an extremely large bird flew low overhead. It was close enough to make me duck involuntarily. It was either a condor or a pterodactyl. (I’ll go with condor.) It had a much longer wing span than even adult eagles. Very cool!

Starlight Arch turned out to be only a class C arch but it was nice country to explore. A fast approaching snow storm made me leave the area sooner than I had planned.

Exhausted we trudge back down the mountain.

Strike two for Hepworth Wash Arch… but we’ll be back!

This is polygamy country. The houses are big and could easily house several families. Most houses have an unfinished corner, probably so that the owner doesn’t have to pay property taxes on the addition. Women and girls in the town seem to prefer wearing long dresses and bonnets while boys and men wear suspenders and hats. And one other thing that is odd for Utah - there are no obvious churches anywhere. (Utah towns usually have a Mormon church every couple of blocks.)

The south end of Hilsdale is actually the north end of the town of Colorado City, Arizona. This probably makes it easy to skip back and forth across the state border to avoid the law when you have more than one wife. A little strange but “to each his own” I suppose.

(As a Mormon living most of my life in Utah, I don’t believe I have ever met a polyamist. As someone who has been married to ONE wonderful wife for many years, I also find the idea frightening!)

The Eye of Heaven Arch is easy to find after a short hike up a canyon northeast of Hilsdale. It was a large class B arch located at the top of a tall cliff. The canyon below had a nice creek of water so the area was lush and green. Very nice.

On a hike above the cliffs overlooking Peavine Canyon, we were looking for Queens Arch below us. Along the way we see a number of horny-toad lizards. One was the size of a man’s fist. I had no idea they could get that big.

We did finally see the arch far below us and decided we needed to try hiking in from below. It wasn’t until later that we found out there was a jeep trail down into Peavine Canyon that we could take when the trails are dry.

We will be back.

My wife thought it was funny. I wasn’t as amused.

While hiking up Secret Canyon, we ran across some fresh animal tracks also heading up the canyon. For the next several miles we tried to figure out what kind of an animal it is. Not cat-like, not bear-like, not dog-like. Much too big for any kind of rodent. Large wolverine was my best guess. From regular fresh scat droppings, it was plain to see it had been over gouging on the squaw-berries in the lower part of the canyon, which seemed be causing a gastric distress. (You know what they say about “too much of a good thing”.)

The tracks disappeared in the bolders near the head of the canyon and we never did get to see what the animal was. To make matters worse, the arches we located were fairly small and insignificant.

Rats!

[I have since decided that the animal had to have been a young bear, though it did not leave tracks like any bear I had ever seen before.]

We are hiking into Laurel and Hardy Arches above Maverick Draw, when it begins raining. David and I take temporary shelter in a low alcove just large enough to sit upright in. As I crawl to a comfortable location, I take care to remove rocks large enough to hide scorpions or other unpleasant surprises. After a short but pleasant rain storm, I am preparing to leave when a rather flattened and crumpled scorpion crawls out from my sitting location and proceeds to limb to a safer local. That was good for a minute of belly laughing. Poor creature.

We climbed up a nearby slope to reach the cliff top and a class C arch we called Sheets Draw Arch since it is visible from Sheets Draw just below us.

From Sheets Draw Arch it was about a hundred feet of walking along a stone ‘knife edge’ shelf in strong winds to the area above Laurel and Hardy Arches. One side of the knife edge was straight down for 300 feet while the other side would of been a hundred feet of bouncing off the steep rock slope before plunging several hundred feet off another shear cliff. We then found that we should have brought ropes to descend to the arches since the incline is just steep enough to keep us from climbing down to the arches.

Oh well.

During the last week of May and first week of June 2001, my wife and I took a trip to Brazil to pick up our son who had served a two year L.D.S. church mission

there.

First Stop, the City of Salvador!

Located on the east coast of Brazil, Salvador was the slave trading center during the 16th to 18th centuries. The city is heavy with colonial style buildings from that time period and was once the capital city of Brazil.

Streets in the old part of town are narrow, usually one-way, and chaotic. Vendor shops usually occupy the ground floor facing the streets. Here you can buy tourist trinkets and postcards, prepared foods and drinks from cafes, phone cards (necessary for all public phones), clothes, jewelry, caskets, banking services, music (on CDs, cassette tapes or LP vinyl records), and even internet services.

Street vendors here are aggressive. (We learned to wag a finger in the air, say “No” and walk away. Without the finger wag, the vendors would simply pursue you further.)

Salvador is separated into a lower and upper city. The city is famous for the huge elevator which link the two parts. The cost to ride a crowded elevator car is 5 cents.

The traditions, clothing and foods in Salvador are influenced by the African slave trade and are unique to this area. Watch for delicious spicy foods in the food stalls and Voo-Doo in their religions.

Across the street, at the bottom of the elevator, is the old slave trading building, now home to indoor and outdoor shopping stalls as well as a beer establishment. The basement still contains the slave cells and a tunnel to a fort in the middle of the harbor where slaves were off loaded.

We stayed at the Barra Flats Hotel in Salvador. It was clean, safe, well priced and directly across the street from the beach. While we visited Salvador during the Brazilian ‘winter’ or cool part of the year, the weather was mostly sunny, humid and hot. Since it does not cool down much, even at night, we looked for hotels with working air conditioners.

The area beaches are sandy with some rock hazards. That doesn’t stop the local surfers though. Ask for location of “safe” beaches since sewage is dumped directly into the ocean from most cities.

One of several historic oceanside forts built by the Portuguese to defend against Dutch invaders. Later a lighthouse was added.

Churches are the focal point in the old city. Many churches have only one finished steeple since churches were taxed depending on how many steeples it had. Some plazas host several churches or cathedrals around the open square. These plazas are popular social gathering places for Brazilians especially on Sundays.

We were interested in the typical Brazilian housing. Though some people may consider many areas chaotic ’slums’, we found the inside of Brazilian homes clean, neat and well kept. For the most part even in the poorer areas, people were well fed, took care of their neighbors, owned a stereo and TV set and promoted a sense of community.

The red/orange color of the houses comes from the wide use of what some Americans called ‘Wonder Brick’. This was a small, hollow clay/cement brick which is used to construct everything; i.e., self-made homes, sheds, shops, fences and even high-rise skyscrapers. Luckily, earthquakes are not a problem in Brazil. (Apparently, neither are building codes.)

Salvador area: Tamar Sea Turtle Refuge

Just outside of the city of Salvador is the Tamar Sea Turtle Refuge. The refuge is located along miles of beautiful white sand beaches and is worth a visit just to leave the crowded city.

Small church just outside of the entrance to the Tamar Sea Turtle Refuge.

Ponds and palms at the ‘Hippie Beach’ near the refuge.

The beach at the refuge. This proves that parts of Brazil are truely Paradise.

More beach…. LOTS more beach. Absolutely beautiful.

Next Stop, the City of Recife

Recife is also called the ‘Venice of Brazil’ because of it’s location on the banks of several rivers.

Recife is home to the Recife Brazil Temple built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Within the temple compound is a dormatory available at a very low cost for visiting members of the Church. The temple compound also boasts its own water purification system which provides ’safe’ drinking water for even foriegn visitors.

Next Stop, the City of Olinda

Olinda is located on the hills near Recife and is famous for its many churches built during Brazil’s Colonial era.

Brazil’s Iguacu Falls

Iguacu Falls – One of the Natural Wonders of the Modern World. The falls are located on the border of Argentina and Brazil as part of the Iguacu National Park. The park has been declared by UNESCO to be a ‘Natural Heritage of Humanity’ region and is the last great reserve of subtropical rain forest.

The falls are the longest in the world at 2,700 meters long with a drop of 65 to 90 meters. (Special thanks to the Brazilian airlines that does a fly-by of the falls, for each side of the airplane, before landing.)

Because the falls are so long, you can’t see all of Iguacu Falls without also also seeing them from the Argentina side. Local tour guides can arrange for a day visit to the Argentina side without visitors needing Argentina visas or papers.

Down steam from Igaucu Falls is the Itaipu Dam and Power Facilities. This is the largest power generating facility in the world, dwarfing even the Three Rivers project in China.

Near the Brazilian town of Foz de Iguacu is the tri-corner borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Local tour guides can also arrange for a quick trip across the border bridge into Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Bargains abound in the Paraguay street markets where every imaginable product is available. Even Brazilians make this trip when they can.

After a rough drive down a jeep trail and a hard climb through broken country, we reach the spot designated on the map only to find a large overhanging rock and no arch. There are no game trails into that area so we guess that the canyon was a dead end. We started to explore the area and quickly find a nice class B arch just around the corner. The map apparently had the location off by a few hundred feet.

In the deep alcove under the arch, footprints would have been protected for many years but there are none. We do find the site of a very old camp fire though.

We continue exploring the canyon until a slot canyon becomes too narrow for my claustrophobia. However, we do see a large area of ‘arch country’ slickrock sandstone in the distance that we will need to explore someday.

After exploring a bit of this kind of country, there is no doubt in my mind that there are many undocumented natural arches out there. And THAT sounds like a challenge to me!