ODO: 357,851
A quick morning walk is how we start our day before packing and moving on. We are six days out from our flight to the US, so we are all driving all the time. But first! We Need to fix the misfire. Because the hotel parking lot didnt work out, we head for a grocery store, hoping for some shade. Which we do not find. Berne makes quick work of swapping the coil. The one that needs replacing happens to be the only one we can change without taking all the tools out, and disassembling half the engine. Pouring sweat, its time to make some miles. We manage to find a very nice campground in the middle of a fairly rundown town, which makes the pristine Olympic size swimming pool very confusing. But this is the perfect spot to make something we’ve been carrying for a couple of weeks now…fondue! We have some bread and apples for dipping, and no real plan for how we keep the cheese from cooling off, but we’re doing it anyways. And it’s a big hit. Super fast and easy to make, just one packet that stayed liquid enough for as long as it took for us to eat all of it.
Clean up from dinner is not as quick and easy as the making was. This is mostly our fault for not soaking the pot. Or it may be because everything is harder when roosters wake you up at 4:30am. While we pack up, a nice Brazilian man comes over to admire the truck. After a short conversation, he offers us a place to leave the truck, should we need it, and gives us his phone number in case we need anything. People here are so nice! Our big adventure today is truck stop barbeque. In Brazil, the truck stop restaurants are all buffets with giant grills, where they cook sausage, and 5-7 different cuts of beef. Literally every single truck stop. We give it a shot, and we learn that just because it’s everywhere, doesn’t mean it’s good. The meat, while deliciously seasoned, is shoe leather. We chew, and chew, and chew, and chew. KoKo gives up and spits hers out. Adventure.
We stop for the night at a different truck stop, that also has a buffet and grill, but opt to make our own dinner. Our rear passenger door, aka the fridge door, decides to stop working for a couple of minutes, and then decides to act like nothing happened. We don’t understand, but are grateful we can still access the fridge easily. This is a popular spot, with men filing in and out of the showers non-stop. A group of men drinking loudly in the middle of the parking lot has us concerned about the quality of our sleep. Thankfully they have to drive in the morning, so all turn in before 11pm.
We are the last overnight vehicle to depart in the morning, around 9am. And then its more miles, and more miles. Replacing the flat farmland are tree farms, and a tiny bit of landscape. Just to be extra sure, we try a gas station grill again for lunch. It turns out the same as yesterday. So much meat, with no one who knows how to make it tender. The road takes us to a lake resort. The lake closes for day use around 5pm, so we have it all to ourselves for sunset. It is the opposite of the truck stop. We are the only overnight guests, it is dark and quiet.
Wake up. Pack up. Drive and drive. At random, we turn a rare corner on the highway, and are surprised by a giant Buddha statue floating above the highway. We have happened upon the Statue of the Great Buddha of Ibiracu! We immediately pull over to take a look. This is a Buddhist temple, complete with a beautiful garden and koi pond. There are very few people visiting, which allows us to have an awesome photoshoot with the Great Buddha, as well as the smaller line of Buddhas. You can get close enough to touch all the statues, and we do.
Back on the road, we make today a little shorter day, only 300km instead of the 400km a day we’ve been averaging. This leaves us two more days to Sao Paulo. We find a campground on a beach, that has no internet, and a giant pet rabbit. We are squeezed in next to a family with a couple of large tents across their camp spot. A very excited dog comes by to eat the tuna water Berne dumps in the grass.
Our day starts with an incredible sunrise, and then a little more sleep. While we do our dishes, KoKo finds some cicada shells. Giant cicada shells. We also learn that our campsite neighbor has a coffee farm. He gifts us several pieces of fruit we cant identify, but are excited to try. And now we drive. As we near Rio de Janeiro, we start to see really large wildlife bridges crossing the highway, but no wildlife. We arrive in Rio at sunset, and are able to see Christ the Redeemer from the highway. Sort of…Well, technically, we can see it…It’s just much, much smaller than we were expecting. And one of us may have misread the height on Wikipedia, adding to our confusion.
We arrive to camp around 9pm. Our camp host couldn’t meet us before then, so we wait. We land for the night inside a walled compound owned by an older European fellow. His father bought this land back in the 50’s before the city reached this far. In anticipation of the Rio Olympics, our host built several small apartments on the property, and was very popular with the global media because he was one of the few places that had room for giant news vans. Ever since, he has been hosting overlanders. He tells us we might see monkeys and birds in the garden in the morning. Fingers crossed.
There are no monkeys or birds, but our host says he will have room for us to stay during Carnival. Which saves us a couple thousand dollars. Yup, we’re making a last minute Carnival plan, since it will be happening just after we return from our work trip. After a quick stop for laundry, its more miles. Just outside of Rio, the rain starts. Not rain, the torrential downpour starts, and does not stop. We pull up short, and stay in a trusty Ibis Hotel. Soaking the tent before we pack it away for three weeks is not the best idea.
Today is the final push to our storage campground. It’s a short three hour drive day. We are staying at the house of an old school overlander. He is out of town, so we get to meet his very helpful groundskeeper, and most of his ten cats, and two dogs. The dogs are older, and rounder, and very excited to see us. The cats take more warming up. There is a fluffy white cat, and gigantic orange cat, a couple of different black cats, a Siamese, a calico, a cat with no eyes. We do lots of pet portraits. Today is our small bit of rest. Now that we’re done with the long drive, its time to get ready for the long flight. But not as long as the last time we flew back.
