The paradise is in Tocantins region (BR)

Communion with the wild nature in Raimundo´s backyard, situated in the Cantão State Park, Tocantins, BR

In 2014, I decided that I wouldn't have to stop at a series of airports, have long lists of places to see and face the typical travel chat (how many countries do you know?) with other tourists on my vacation.I decided to go against the grain and commune with nature.For that, nothing better than traveling to Tocantins, the youngest state in Brazil.

One of the most beautiful places I visited there was Cantão State Park, where we stayed at Raimundo's house.We left by speedboat from the city of Caseara and after a 40-minute journey we arrived at Raimundo's house, located on one of the river bars of the Araguaia River, in the Parque Estadual do Cantão, Tocantins, BR.We continued walking along a 10 km trail in the woods until we reached paradise, located in Raimundo's backyard.Seu Raimundo lives in a shack by the river, in the heart of the State Park.Surrounded by fruit trees from the cerrado, on the fringes of the southern Amazon, he spends the day among his little herb garden, his chickens and the manufacture of cassava flour.Stress?He doesn't know what that is!

On the first day we bathed on a beach at the edge of the park.Just us and God.And a dolphin that approached us and spent half an hour just swimming around us and coming up to the surface to breathe and observe us.The sun was already low when we decided to break the spell and return “home”.Mosquitoes then started attacking us.Seu Raimundo didn't hesitate and took out a can of insecticide spray, spread the poison over his whole body until it made a white foam, and like any good gentleman, offered me a little bit.“No need, Seu Raimundo, I'm fine.”So, I decided to go into the lagoon located at the back of his house to take a bath, dragging my feet so as not to step on a stingray.The master's student, specialist in giant otters, who was also staying at Seu Raimundo's house, hadn't had the courage to enter the lake until then."Stingray stings are very painful", she told me later.But I didn't know that by then.

They set up a tent the size of a house for us, which even had two beds, a table and two loungers!In front of the fire there were three pacus that had just been caught in the pond.When summer starts and the Araguaia River starts to dry up, 830 or so closed lagoons are formed in the park area.The fish that live there are trapped in these small ponds and spend the entire summer there just getting fat.It is the guarantee of a hearty meal.On that day we saw a jaguar trail (see the photo of the footprint), paca, tapir, capybara and a teiú, that attacked the nest of a tracajá to eat its eggs.The alligators in the lagoon in front were shy and didn't stick their heads out.Alligators here are only killed when they reach 6m in length and become so mad that they start attacking children and eating dogs.

Seu Raimundo promised me a night of peace and absolute silence in his lands.But when the generator was turned off, all that could be heard was a crazy tune of crickets and night birds, in addition to the endless snoring in the bed next to mine.I slept badly, I woke up dead tired, missing the purr of the air conditioning in my room to lull me to sleep.After dinner, Seu Raimundo called us to do alligator spotting."You must shine the flashlight on the surface of the lake so that the light is reflected by the alligators' eyes."We went down to the lake at the back of the house, turned on the flashlight and the lake lit up with a constellation of little eyes.There were alligators everywhere.But many were no more than 60cm long.Last summer there was a 3m alligator in this same lake, but not even this one attacked the chickens, the dogs or the people of the house, because the lake is always full of fish, ensuring that the alligators are satiated.

What wonderful days I spent here, Seu Raimundo.It will be hard to go back to my normal life.