Life from Behind the Visor: A Thousand Shade of Green...part 2

After riding out of the twisty mountains we are hit with a Patagonia force wind blowing us around on the coastal highway BR101 as we arrive into the largest city we have encountered this trip.

Florianopolis, and I don’t mean just a large name the city is a sprawling maze of freeways that pretty much covers the entire Santa Catalina Island. This maze allows quick access to the over 50 beaches around the island, so picking one should be pretty easy, and thanks to booking.com we find a nice place on the beach. The weather was not as cooperative and that crazy wind we were riding in also brought clouds and cool ocean air. That plus it was almost 6pm by the time we got to the hotel and by that time the beach is over for the day. Sorry boys, no Brazilian bum pictures, just use google and you get the idea.

The reason the beach was not occupied by g-strings.

Our humble abode for the night.

Due to a somewhat aggressive schedule we are up early, eating another fabulous breakfast and hitting the road before 9am. We are on our way to Blumeneau which is known for its German influence complete with Oktoberfest. There are people dressed in character of traditional German heritage that walk around and entertain the kids. This area is also part of the clothing manufacturing center and as we approach the city there are numerous huge malls with bus loads of people at each one. We asked at the hotel and it is factory direct pricing and no taxes so it is very popular for people to make a holiday destination of it, plus it is just before Christmas so lots of presents to be bought.

Sights along the way.

We arrived early enough in the day to do a bit of walking and snooping, but we retire back to the airconditioned room after a nice supper. Geez it is hot here, even in the evenings it does not cool down much from the daytime high.

The next few days are just commuting days so there is not much to tell, we are aiming for Belem in the North East of Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazom River. There we will catch a boat of some sort to Macapa on the other side of the river. But until then we pass through some very lush sub tropical landscape. We are treated by fresh fruit along the roadside, very nice and inexpensive hotels, and of course great food everywhere. The Brazilians must take their food very seriously because there is no skimping on the breakfasts or any meal for that matter.

While in Ponto Grossa, our desk clerk spoke English, which he learned from watching TV, Music videos, and some studying in school. We have met many people who said they learned by watching TV, when we watch TV down here it is hard to even pick out where the sentences stop/start. I can’t imagine learning Portuguese via TV shows.

From Ponto Grossa we end up in Lins, and once again a self taught desk clerk greets us and later helps us print some forged insurance cards for French Guyana. Very helpful although I don’t think he would have helped if he had really understood what we were doing. FYI the insurance for French Guyana is very expensive and who knows if it is actually any good. It would cost us 118 Euros each for the five days we would be in the country, thus the creative solution. Today I installed a keyless entry system on my bike. The ignition wires are known to break off and today was the day. We had just passed through a toll booth when my bike died and would not start again. Somehow I immediately knew it was the ignition and reaching down below the key I wiggled some wires and the bike would start, then promptly stop. Okay, going to have to fix this properly which means pushing the bike about 100meters to some shade off the edge of the highway. There I could install a basic toggle switch in place of the key, lucky for us the bike has a two wire ignition.

The highlight of the day was a fresh pineapple stand along the road. A whole pineapple cut and ready to eat out of a dirty dish in a shack under some bamboo will run you about $2CAD. The pineapple was bigger than Brenda’s head so we ended up with some leftover pieces to pack and eat later. Itumbariara, was literally just an eat and sleep spot. We asked the desk clerk to order us a pizza and we ate that in the hotel cafe as we had no interest in getting back on the bike to find a restaurant. There was a wedding in town that night as most of the other quests were very nicely dressed, girls all fancied up and the men all wearing suits. I guess the Brazilians take weddings serous because we heard some people coming in at 4am while others were still arriving when we were eating breakfast at 6:30.

A nice spot to have a snack, this was at a truckstop along the way.

I know how crazy is that, us eating breakfast at 6:30am when we are on holidays. Not very good planning on our part. However due to the weather an early start is warranted plus it is raining and that usually slows us down a bit. We see our first shanty town along the highway today, not very big but it drives home the message of how much income disparity there is in this country. Another first today is that we pass through the aluminum pot manufacturing town, at least it seems that way based on all the vendors selling shiny new cookware. It was raining most of the day which was a good test for our waterproof riding gear, we both upgraded this year which allows us to not be troubled with packing and putting on rain gear. The new duds hold up great and we are both dry by the time we reach Uruacu –My kind of town, it is “Sunday at the bar for locals” as all the other businesses are shutdown for the day and a majority of the locals just hang out in the streetside bars drinking beer and watching soccer, sorry Futball.