Day 241 – Maravilha to Santa Tereza Do Oeste, Brazil

Day 241 – Maravilha to Santa Tereza Do Oeste, Brazil      04/19/11       Mileage: 199

I lingered this morning to enjoy my sweet digs, use the wifi, and get my $35 worth of the very nice breakfast.

The Maravilha Park Hotel….very nice for $35 USD….

Complete with a regulation soccer field and sand volleyball court…

I had to do some financial reshuffling also as I haven’t found a bank ATM yet that likes my card. The weather was clear and warm and the road north was also great fun twisting and turning over rolling hills.

Odd town sign at the entrance to Maravilha…

I was trying to make time to make up for my late start so I didn’t stop to take many pictures. It also started raining for the last 2 hours of riding and again the roads got very slick.

Darkness caught up to me about 90 miles from my destination…Iguacu Falls. That will have to wait for tomorrow morning, and another one off the life list…

Day 240 – Sao Sepe to Maravilha, Brazil

Day 240 – Sao Sepe to Maravilha, Brazil     04/18/11     Mileage: 285

I awoke to the sound of diesel engines which is of course no surprise as I was camping in a truck stop. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em….so I packed up the bike and split.

It was raining on and off and the road, while paved, was very slippery in spots and it caught me off guard the first few times the bike got loose on me. The rear end broke loose and fishtailed when I was braking for a speed bump and another time simply by down-shifting. Granted I’m on knobby tires with high air pressure to survive the highway speeds, but I was used to that….this was different. What I finally figured out is that most of the side roads are not paved, and the dirt…this reddish brown clay…gets dragged onto the paved road by other vehicles. It was this reddish brown clay that was making the roads slick in the rain, but it was hard to see.

Taking a break and drying off a bit…

I stopped several times for gas and to dry off a bit, and the bike seems to garner a bit of attention again like Central America. Several people asked me questions, but I couldn’t answer of course as the extent of my Portuguese amounts to 3 words…oi, which means hi, obrigado, which means thank you, and caipirinha, which means 2 oz’s of cachaca or vodka, 2 muddled limes and sugar, shaken on the rocks….which is only handy if you’re thirsty and in search of a hangover. If they spoke a little Spanish then I was able to get some points across. But compared to my Portuguese, in Spanish I’m virtually a cunning linguist. I jest of course, as Helena and Gustavo’s sons, age 5 and 3, regularly trounced my Spanish and had to speak to me in English. They are being raised bilingual…how great is that! So anyway, I arrived in Maravilha and saw a nice hotel set back off the side of the road. Chilled and soaked, I decided to just ask even though it looked out of my budget. It was actually only $35 USD…above my budget but within reach for one night….and breakfast and all the wifi I could use was included. It also had a well stocked bar…enough said. After settling in I adjourned to the bar for a beer and burger. Most beer down here is available in liter size, and like all beer the first one goes down fast. The second liter sometimes takes a you bit longer and sometimes…..the last bit gets a little warmish for optimum consumption. Well, this hotel has a solution in the form of a liter size beer cozy. Perfect!

They also march to their own drum in the hamburger department. I ordered the hamburger completo…which usually means lettuce, tomato, cheese…etc. Well, this burger completo was very completo! It had the lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, bacon, mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup….I’m with it so far…ham also….OK…a fried egg….hmm…sure why not. But they strayed from the reservation with layer of peas and corn.

Fried egg…..

…peas and corn.

Don’t get me wrong, I still mowed that thing down like Rosie O’Donnell at a Krispy Cream buffet, but it was a little odd.

 Bloated….from the burger or the beers, I’m not sure which…I wallowed back to my room to sleep it off…