Rio Quente and Scuba Diving

So every year the employees of the Mato Grosso Conference have a trip of some sort to relax away from the office. This year in AMT instead of a day trip to somewhere closeby, they decided to go to somewhere a little farther and for several days. They decided on Rio Quente in the neighboring state of Goias. Rio Quente is world reknowned for having the largest thermal wave pool. It is basically a water park and all the water in the water park is warm. It’s the biggest of its kind in the whole world.

So we left Cuiaba Saturday night at 8pm and started our 14hr drive to Goias. Before we got to Rio Quente we stopped in Goiania the capital of Goias for lunch and to visit one of the best flea markets in Brazil. We finally arrived at Rio Quente at 4pm. The first evening, I did some scouting for the resort to see what activities there were to do. I was impressed it was a really big park with different types of activities and water slides. They have a warm artificial beach with waves and

several pools.

In the middle of the park there was a river for canoeing and scuba diving. The park had several outdoor activities like rock climbing and rapping. Overall there were a lot of different activities for most people to enjoy. The one thing that I thought was lacking was hiking trails.

The following day which was our only full day I took advantage of most of the different activities. My first destination was the wave pool or as they called it the beach. I stayed there and enjoyed some of the waves and then after the waves ended when to enjoy some of the slides. Of all the slides only one was really daring, all the rest we ok. The daring slide called the Half Moon really gave me an adrenaline rush. It reminded me of the water parks I used to visit in the states. I spent the remainder of the morning trying out the different slides.

After I decided to enjoy some of the other outdoor activities. Because there was an extra cost for them, I had to limit myself to only two. I decided to do the rappel in the laying down position called the hot fly position and the scuba diving activity. The hot fly was an adrenaline rush for sure, I started off on this very high platform and ended in the river. Very cool!

My next stop was the scuba diving station in the river. I had always wanted to go scuba diving and since the resort offers it at a pretty reasonable price I decided to go for it. The first obstacle or better yet challenge was getting accustomed to breathing only through my mouth. The oxygen from the tank came through a mouth piece so I only had oxygen going through my mouth. We (Nestrar, the person I went with, and I) practiced for several minutes before going in the deep. It was very exciting getting the scuba gear on, the mask, fins, and the vest with the oxygen tanks). The cool thing about this experience was that it was opening to people from as young as 4 years old and also non-swimmers. Nestrar, who is one of the youngest 58 year old women I have met ,did not know how to swim and prior to this experience was afraid to even enter the water.

The whole experience was surreal. It was like a whole other world under water with the fish as the people. There were so many different types of different sizes and colors. It seemed like they didn’t see us they just keep going where they were going. I guess they were used to having humans being in their space. Under water was like a busy city, with the various schools of fish going in different directions. It was amazing. All I kept thinking in my mind was that God has an amazing imagination and is the best artist.

In one part of the underwater exploration we had the opportu nity to go to an area of the river, where there were several fish, which looked more like mini whales, were gathered. We had the opportunity to touch the skin of one of the huge fish. It was very scaly and slippery as can be expected. I will say I was a little apprehensive about touching the fish because of it’s size and because it was a mean looking fish but I figured I was go for it. What did I have to lose? Only my hand, right? No just kidding, it seemed like the fish didn’t even see us, it just ignored us, thankfully.

The whole experience was very cool. I would reccommend everyone to go scuba diving at least once, you will definately be amazed.