Month: December 2008

Quick post – no internet here – morning spent getting Gui a new tire
then driving the entire afternoon (300 miles) to get to Campinas and
then to the farm where Dudu (another cousin) was waiting for us 🙂
Now doing some churrasco (barbecue) and drinking some beer 🙂
Tomorrow day 80 and Sao Paulo!!!!

Great day – visit to Usina Vale do Ivai in the morning – sugar and alcohol production plant – always learn something new when I go there.
It’s one of the most self sufficient industries I know of:
– Sugar cane by itself is a renewable source of energy
– The fibers of the sugar cane are burnt to produce enough electricity for the entire plant + surplus to sell back to the grid
– The soot from the burnt fibers is spread on the soil as a fertilizer
– The unused/old yeast is used as an additive to livestock feed
– The “vinhaca” – a bi-product of the fermentation process is used as a fertilizer as well
– The yeast-cream is bought from breweries around the country to produce more dried yeast, which comes with 6 alcohol by the way, for “free”
– The residue from the sugar process is sent back into the alcohol plant to extract even more sugar
– The water used to wash and cool is always filtered and could be bottled for drinking
… and the list goes on…
In any case… after the visit we had lunch at the farm, had a nap and headed towards Londrina – only an hour and a half away.
There we met Otto and Guilherme who rode their motorcycles (BMS 1200GS and a BMW 800S) from Sao Paulo to meet with us.
Later on we went to another cousin’s house – Adriana Carioba – to have some beers then dinner.
Very pleasant dinner at a Japanese place in town.
All drunk from Saque now going to bed 🙂

Short but exciting post!
At my family’s farm in Parana, 450km northeast of Foz de Iguacu, +/- 1000km west of Sao Paulo next to a small town called Sao Pedro do Ivai.
This is where I spent most of my childhood vacations and have many fond memories of.
Very cool to arrive here by motorcycle, especially coming from so far away.
It all looks great, smells wonderful, and tastes amazing. We had some chicken with orange sauce along with wild rice and beans and salad. All local produce and by default “organic”. 

All day tourist day 🙂
Tour bus picked us up at 9:10am and took us to Iguacu Falls – very cool walk along the pathways and very impressive the size, noise and amount of water of the falls.
Amazingly few Brazilians – most Argentineans and Europeans… interesting… well… not so surprising – I’ve lived in Brazil most of my life and never even thought of coming here to see this!
After the falls we stopped at a buffet style restaurant where we ate a bit – well – more like a lot – feijoada, cupim, farofa, guarana, suco de acerola and all the Brazilian food I missed quite a bit!
The afternoon was dedicated to Itaipu – the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world in terms of megawatts produced.
It’s a “joint” project of Brazil and Paraguay but the story goes that Brazil basically paid for it… Paraguay pays it’s share now with electricity.
Paraguay uses only 7% of the energy produced, selling the remainder 43% back to Brazil. This 7% supplies 90% of Paraguay’s needs.
Brazil in turn utilizes 93% of the energy produced supplying 20% of our energy needs!! Crazy.
Apparently the new Paraguayan president wants to increase the price at which they sell the electricity to us. According to the deal signed back in 1973 the price cannot be readjusted until 2025. This has been causing some friction between the two countries along with a land reform the Paraguayan president promised the people before being elected. A good chunk of land in Paraguay is owned and run by Brazilian farmers. The people are now protesting against this Brazilian position and demanding that the Brazilians leave their country and land… uff…
Back in the hotel waiting for the torrential rains to go by and then go out into the city again.
Tomorrow we’ll be back on the bikes riding to Sao Pedro do Ivai – Fazenda Barbacena!!

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Some of the TED Talks I liked in no particular order… 

BRASIL!! We have arrived!!
Easy day of riding, some more turns than yesterday thankfully and a little bit more mountainous terrain but not that much 🙂
We arrived in Puerto Iguacu and stopped for lunch and some tips as to where to stay – Brazilian or Argentinean side.
We got an irrefutable offer from Alejandro – a good rate a Hotel Suica and a free tour of the falls and Itaipu tomorrow!
The border crossing was one of the easiest and fastest ones we’ve done so far – we both got 40 days to stay in Brazil – I came in with my Italian passport thinking it would give me some advantage over coming in with my Brazilian one – effectively I would not have been allowed to come into the country with a used motor-vehicle!
We found the hotel after some running around, called our folks, and jumped into the pool… very nice 🙂
Now going out to check the town out and celebrate our arrival in Brazil!

Hum… straight roads… very green… very humid and hot… lots of Brazilian trucks on the road.
Presidente Roque Saenz Pena is a cute little town with a few restaurants and quite a few people cruising along the roads – nothing compared to Salta, which has a vibrant street which is shut off to cars and people just walk up and down two large blocks filled with bars (boliches) and restaurants.
Posadas also has a lot going on at night at the Avenida Constanera – an avenue that runs along the river where people drive up and down on their cars and motorcycles to see and to be seen. The bars and restaurants along the avenue are all packed with people and the avenue is lined up with parked cars with their back door open blasting music to the ears of the crowds around them.
It seems like everywhere you go, no matter what country you are in, how “remote” it is in your head, you always find people doing all of the same things… going out, socializing, mingling, and trying to have a good time…
Getting closer and closer to Brazil now… Foz de Iguacu tomorrow!