3. Riding in Brazil
DAY 248. To Palmas
I am leaving the border region today and heading deep into the country. It is incredibly muggy outside. They don't have air-conditioning in the hotel lobby and by the time I'm done with checking, out I'm sweating. I need to get some airflow going.
I will be heading generally in south east direction towards the Atlantic coast. My first I have to go around the entire Iguaçu National Park with all those jaguars I haven't seen. There should be several hundreds of them there, allegedly.
There is incredibly heavy traffic on the road. I didn't expect that. Mostly heavy trucks. You get stuck behind one of them and you are going nowhere fast. As soon as I'm passed the national park, I'll be getting off the main road and heading more into the countryside. I hope there won't be as much traffic. But I was wrong again. traffic is the same, but the road is worse and more narrow. Luckily there is always something to look at. Beautiful landscape with fields and trees and forest and a nice rolling hills. It looks like countryside at the place where I grew up. There are lots of cornfields over here. Corn is used for livestock feeds but also for production of ethanol based fuels. It is quite big here in Brazil. It is quite confusing the first time to go to a gas station in Brazil. Too many choices and you don't want to mix them up. 1 L of regular gasoline costs $1.60.
The travel today is not as fast as I thought is going to be, but it doesn't matter, I have the whole day. At least the weather is nice, blue skies with some clouds. The temperature is in high 20s. Perfect. I didn't find anything spectacular today, but the whole day was very nice and relaxing. I ended up today in a small town, Palmas. Nice hotel with parking right underneath my windows. I couldn't find any restaurants so I was heading to the grocery store. Unfortunately, it was closed already as well. It is going to be a hungry night. I will survive.
DAY 249. To São Joaquim
Today was pretty much a continuation of yesterday. Unlike yesterday, there was almost no traffic today. That has probably more to do with the fact that it is the Easter weekend then with anything else. It is a beautiful ride today. The road is nice and has great flow to it. It is a little bit cooler than yesterday, around 25°C. it is probably because again some altitude and I am around 1,500 m of elevation. The big farm fields were replaced by pine forest and lakes. If you would tell me, I'm in the middle of Europe I would believe you. It is that similar. It is a beautiful Saturday ride. There were other bikers on the road as well. Brazilians like their big bikes. Most of them are big BMWs like mine. And they like to drive fast. There are a lot of bikes on the road generally. That is good because everybody is used to them.
Today was one of those days that nothing really happened, but it was a great day. I ended up again in a small town with a great hotel. The hotels in Brazil so far are at least one level up from Argentina and Chile and way cheaper. Also, nobody is asking you to pay cash or via money transfer like in Argentina and Chile. You book your hotel online, then check in and pay with your credit card on the checkout when you leave the next morning. As simple as it gets.
I took only a few pictures of the landscapes today, but that should change tomorrow. There should be some awesome places I'll be riding through and also I'll be getting to the coast. Looking forward to it.
DAY 250. Twisties and the coast
Morning today was pretty fresh, 12°C. It might have something to do with the altitude. I am at 1,500 m right now. The sun is up so I'm sure it will get much warmer very soon. The breakfast in the hotel was on the top floor with a panoramic view of the countryside. It was very beautiful with the rising sun. Small fields and the hills with forest reminds me very much of Europe.
I packed my bike and went to the reception to pay for my hotel. Unlike pretty much all other countries I've been through, in Brazil you pay at the checkout. Everywhere else they charge you when they greet you. I'm really bad with checking my receipts, but somehow I checked this time. It seemed that it was way more than what I was quoted when I booked the hotel. I checked my emails and indeed it was almost twice as much. The thing is that I use one website for booking so much that I have huge discounts. I don't pay what peasants pay. So I went back and I asked, and they gave me the correct price. Good thing I checked.
By the time I got underway it was already 20°. Long day today but big portion of today will be on the freeways. It was a perfect morning. A beautiful road in the hills and traffic wasn't too bad either. I think I will have to accept that there will be a lot of traffic in Brazil. My first stop is about 55 kilometres away. It is a viewpoint down the valley on incredibly twisty road through a deep canyon. When I got there, it was a zoo. There were cars there as well, but there were several dozens of motorbikes there. It is a great Sunday destination for many bikers. There are bikes of all kinds of makes and models, but mostly big bikes. More than half of them were BMWs. From what I've seen, Brazilians like their big bikes. Of course it helps when they are being manufactured in Brazil. When the other guys found out that I rode down here all the way from Canada, I became the centre of attention. It took me a while to get out of there. Brazilians take their bikes very seriously. Every city has several motorcycle clubs. They have their own jackets and colours. Everybody is very helpful and also very curious. I answered 1 million questions and head down to the valley. You can’t go too fast because of the heavy traffic. It was all about the view which was out of this world. Just beautiful..
I stopped for the gas at the bottom. Unlike in Argentina or Chile where gas stations are sometimes few hundred kilometres apart, it is difficult to run out of fuel in Brazil. There is a gas station at every intersection. And all of them have some kind of bistro or a convenience store. A good place to get my Red Bull.
I continued along the river through a beautiful valley. There are lots of vineyards around here. I have to check out their products. I don't think I've ever had a Brazilian wine. I will have to fix that. The traffic was busy and the temperature was climbing fast. I was getting close to the coast and you could feel the humidity increasing all the time.
Then I joined the freeway. OMG, what an experience. I was thinking my first days in Brazil pretty easy on a bike just to see what is going on. One thing was obvious right from the beginning, that they like to ride fast in Brazil. I mean Autobahn fast. The posted speed limit is 110 km an hour, but even the slowest truck was going way faster than that. I was doing between 140 and 160 wherever I could so I would keep up with other riders. Another thing I've noticed over here is that at least half of the bikers are riding two up. And that is pretty cool. And they are going as fast as everybody else. For their attire, I thought I've seen everything but then I saw a guy on a big BMW riding in his shorts and a T-shirt, barefoot! I haven't seen that yet. Bikers have kind of special status on the roads in Brazil. Everybody makes a room for you and lets you pass. I got into a traffic jam with cars few times, barely moving. It was 37° and I was sweating buckets even going and 140 km/h. Doing 20 km/h was not an option. Fortunately, nobody in Brazil expects you to do that on a bike. When there are two lanes in one direction, cars in the right lane stick to the right side and the cars on the left lane hug the left side does creating nice place for bikes to pass in the middle. And it is not just a few cars doing it. Everybody does it and everybody expects you to do that. When in Rome … If you tried that in Canada, drivers would go out of their way to block your path. Not here. And it works really well. Of course you need a full concentration for that. They were sections that we were splitting lanes at 120 km/h. Once you know the jungle rules on the road, life gets much easier. And I haven't seen the police anywhere. Nobody is enforcing speed limit on the freeway. They would probably give you a ticket for going too slow.
So I am howling ass on a freeway along the coast. It is basically one city merging into another one. And everywhere you see huge high-rise buildings. They look pretty skinny and they are incredibly tall, over 30 stories high. And they all look brand new. It is pretty impressive. I haven't seen so many high-rises in my life. Brazil has 220M people. I guess you have to put them somewhere. Riding along southern and central coast is out of the question as you drive entirely in a urban environment. I will head more inland and I will get back to the coast probably somewhere above Rio de Janeiro.
Another thing I've noticed are their huge supermarkets. Imagine, if you can, several COSTCO stores together and you have a general Brazilian supermarket. Everything is huge here.
It was so much fun riding today, I was grinning from ear to ear. It was nice to have a big and powerful bike. And I had to use most of my horses today. So far, Brazil is the most bike friendly country I have ever seen. And I am loving every minute of it.