In Search of Jabuticaba (pronounced jabuchicava)

Hi all! I just want to first apologize about the absence of entries for the past few weeks. I have been battling a cold due to the change in weather. Prior to coming here, I was told that it was hot here and that it was never cold. I was told that, there were only two seasons. The dry season and the rainy season. It just so happens that the rainy season is also the cold season. To say the least, I was not adequately prepared for the cold. Anyways, you live and you learn. I am just grateful I did bring several long sleeve shirts. The rain has also led to daily power outages and problems with the schools internet server. Let's just say I am happy, I brought my flashlight, because it comes in handy at nights.

Prior to getting sick, I had the opportunity to go hiking and this blog entry is about that experience. I hope you will enjoy. Here goes......

One Sabbath afternoon, a friend invited me to go with her to finds some jabuticaba. This is a fruit native to Brazil. When I first saw a jabuticaba tree, I was struck by with how the fruits grow on the tree. Jabuticabas are small round black fruits probably the size of grapes that grow practically right from the branch of the tree. They do not grow in bunches like the grapes, but are attached individually to the tree branch by a little stem. It’s a very fascinating sight. At first glance, it looked like the tree had a disease because the branch was just covered with these black things. I actually got goose bumps. When I was first offered one right from the tree, I was reluctant to try it just because of how they looked on the tree. But after close examination, I could see that they resembled very dark grapes and we not some disease on the tree.

I finally decided to try them and I was not at all disappointed. They have a sweet and tart flavor. You eat the fruit by piercing the skin with your teeth or nail to get what is inside the fruit. Inside there is an off-white jelly, surrounding a small black seed. People usually just eat the jelly and then discard the rest. I did not know that when I first tried it. I ate the whole thing, which was not too nice. When I got the hang of eating the fruit I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only thing is you have to eat several of them to have a real jabuticaba experience. Your appetite is just being teased with one because they are so small and there is not much juice in each one. They are also very addictive. Jabuticaba reminds me a lot of a fruit we have in Jamaica called Ginep (not sure of how it is spelt).

The previous week my friend had found this abandoned farm which had several jabuticaba trees and she wanted to go back there. To get to this abandoned farm we had to hike approximate 4 km to and 4km back. In my mind I was thinking that these fruits were not worth so much effort because on the school campus there are several trees. My friends assured me that the jabuticabas were much bigger and sweeter than any of the jabuticabas on campus and that I would be getting a real Brazilian experience. What really influenced my decision however was the fact that I would be able to get a close-up some of the amazing scenery I had been seeing in the distance.

We start our journey at around 4pm. For the first 45 minutes we were just walking through these plains. They did not have much vegetation because apparently the trees had been cut down to make way for the grazing of cows. As we were walking, we were getting closer to some mountains to the northwest of the school. In the distance the path we were taking appeared to abruptly end. The path actually had a very steep decline into a valley. As we descended, we had one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. For as far as we could see we saw green mountains and valleys. There were also several cows grazing on the mountain sides.

After the steep incline we went though this dark forested area. The trees were very tall in this area and they met at the top forming like a canopy as a result there was not much sunshine in the area. When we got to the other side of the forested areas we were more or less a valley. In the valley there were several cows who were eying us suspiciously. Many of these cows again were white, which caught my curiosity again. I was told that the white cow were not dairy cows. This breed apparently got mature very quickly so they were reared for their meat. We also passed by this little stream which was only above land for a few meters, because it just appeared from now where and then when underground abruptly.

When we finally got the abandoned farm with the jabuticabas tree, I was astonished to find so many jabuticaba trees. The jabuticabas were in indeed bigger and sweeter. The trees were laden with so much fruits so we had a lot to choose from. We spend a lot of time just going from one jabuticaba tree to the other. We also filled our bags with jabuticabas for the trip back home. While eating the jabuticabas, I realized that nothing could beat the taste of a jabuticaba right from the tree. The skin was smoother and could easily be broken and it just had a fresher taste.

We were all happy with our jabuticaba feast but our happiness was short lived because it rained most of the way back. With the rain was a lot of mud because we used dirt path. The dirt in that part of Brazil is a red so all out cloths and shoes were covered with red mud and we were wet. In retrospect we should have know it was going to rain because we are in the rainy seasons and it rains almost everyday here. In spite of the rain, it was a good day to explorer and I had a lot of fun that day.