The road to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!

Having some bike trouble on the side of the road here.  It just dies..  it happened last night for the first time, not sure why.. but James is carrying the jump wires and forcing it to start.  It will start, but it's always a surprise from here on if it will start after the next fuel or lunch break.. sometimes yes, sometimes no.. ;-(((

James is really good to travel with... Since the bike is acting up, he pulls over to check on me often.

No worries at the moment.. how could there be! Look where I am!!!

This is one the most magical sunsets I've EVER seen.. ANYWHERE!!!!  Now I am officially in love with Brazil.  I was already, but this put the icing on the cake.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro... for most of my life a goal destination on the high list!!!

Rio is just the most beautiful city to ride through.  I can't get over the sheer BEAUTY!! I'm not a city girl at all, but this one might change my mind.

I'm totally aware there are favelas (slums) surrounding the city riddled with hard core crime.  But we are lucky enough to stay the city... the most beautiful, comfortable, secure part of the city!!  Have I ever mentioned I love my life!!??

James best friend from school in London is born here and we are going to be staying with his Mom and Stepdad in a neighborhood called Leblon, right near the beach.

 Greeted by the most friendly doorman in Leblon...

And our most wonderful hosts, Paula and Roberto whom we lived with for a full two weeks!!!  This is the life!!!

From the front window are views to the beautiful hills, and the other side has views to the big Jesus (Christ the Redeemer), the beach and beyond. What a perfect place to be in the world.

From just about anywhere in the city, you can see Christ.  But we did the proper tourist thing and went up to get close and personal!

The place is super crowded with tourists, there is absolutely no way to get any photos without heaps of people in it, unless you point the camera right up.

Remember young Patrick from previous posts?  I can't help but to think he was the model for this statue.  I had to include this photos as the reminder because of all things, I took this photo in a sanctuary in Colombia (Las Lajas) and the miracle 8 legged cow and 2 headed lamb.. the miracles.. Jesus! ;-))

The harp plays....  Laaaaaaaaaa

James and I are off to see the view from Sugar Loaf.  I am using his photos here because it seems I have a completely lost a large photo file in my computer.  I was transferring big files while in Rio to another external drive and I am guess something got missed there. I'm really bummed out, I had some night photos of purple Jesus at night.. Aww well.  They'll be in another back up drive (I hope), but it's easier just to use these for now.. thanks James!

Paula and Roberto work very hard during the week and on the weekend they go to their country home in Petropolis.  We've been invited along and couldn't believe we just went from awesome to more awesome!!

We went to see Paula's favorite tree on their property, the Jequitibá.  (The big one in the middle).   "One of the biggest trees in the Atlantic Forest, there are some old trees in Santa Rita do Passa Quatro and near Petrópolis. One of the trees is more than 3000 years old."

This tree is rare and they bought this property mainly for the Jequitibá.  My Mom did that years ago too, for a huge beautiful Oak tree in Indiana. Anyway, Paula tells us that many people come and walk through their property just to visit this tree.

While we were there, I asked what the story was with the Jesus head at the base of the tree.  She's never noticed it before!

Hmmm, now we know for sure how special this tree is.

Besides other beautiful things here, I learn a new fruit.

 

I had to write Paula as I couldn't remember these for anything and I knew writing them down I'd still get it wrong.

 "The name of the tree with the little black fruit is JABUTICABEIRA and the fruit is JABUTICABA"

I ate SOOOO many of these guys once I tried one.  Even after everyone was gone, I snuck back under the tree, then climbed it!  Because I ate all the ones close to me, and eventually lost my footing and fell.  A quick jump up, nobody saw me thank goodness!

It's just pure paradise here.  What a beautiful life they have.

Back into Rio.. after our holiday from our holiday.. and I can't wait to go for another daily walk on the beach.

The following photos look different, because I'm only out for my speed walk with my iphone and music.  My phone is old so the photos are not the best, but part of the fun..

I had to bother to take this photo, because after being teased by everyone the whole world over about my duct tape windscreen... I'll have you know I am in good company with those of us who have good taste.  If the top quality Sheraton in Rio de Janeiro can use tape, then I am justified to use my tape as well and call it classy, right ?!;-)

Dreadful self iphone photo! ;-/  But my memories of many walks here, so I want to keep it.  I know full well how lucky I am to settle into the good life here for longer than I would have expected.

I remember thinking and taking this photo of the soccer Mom's.  What a difference to the soccer Mom's I know. I bet they all wish they could be watching their kids play on the beach in Rio!

My bike has a ticking noise and just out of having the luxury of plenty of time in Rio, James decides to take my bike apart and track down the tick. He found that I have too much space between the rocker arm intake and the shims.  Nothing I can do about it here as they don't have a KTM service in Brazil.  My luck they went bankrupt a couple years ago and gone.  Hopefully I will make it to Paraguay where they do have the parts.

James finally got his tires delivered from Sao Paolo, and we can begin moving south again.  Not too soon for our hosts!  They never complained, but that was far too long to be a guest in anyone's home.  Luckily they are far too gracious and you'd never know if they wanted us gone or not.. ! ;-)

The places my motorcycle takes me.. and the people I'm lucky to meet. Thank you again, Paula and Roberto!! Adeus Rio de Janeiro!!!

Riding the Brazilian Coast - Recife and Maceio

Continuing south along the Brazilian coast, it's a part of the world I'm finding to be unique.  It's comfortable in a touristy vacation beachy sort of way, yet it's not full with overseas tourists, only locals.

It's still super super hot and usually after a couple hours or so, we'd want to stop in a shady spot.  I was looking around at all the yellow things on the ground, when it hit me. CASHEWS!!!

I've eaten tons of cashew nuts in my time, far too many, but it was exciting to see the fruit that grows from the seed I eat just hanging about on the side of the road. Only in Brazil have I tried he actual fruit and the cashew (Caju) fruit juice. I've never seen this bottled or offered in my own country. I'm not sure why it's not made or marketed in other areas, because the Brazilians drink it quite often and it can be found in long life packaging on supermarket shelves here.

 Cashews! (Caju in Brazil)

For your Cashew learning pleasure from Wikipedia: Attached to the cashew is the cashew apple (in botanical terms an accessory fruit). The cashew apple is rich in nutrients and contains five times more vitamin C than an orange. It is eaten fresh, cooked in curries, or fermented into vinegar as well as an alcoholic drink. In parts of South America, natives regard the cashew apple as the delicacy, rather than the nut kernel popular elsewhere. Cashew apple is also used to make preserves, chutneys and jams in some countries such as India and Brazil. Cashew apples are not popular, in part because of highly astringent taste. This has been traced to the waxy layer on the skin that causes tongue and throat irritation after eating the cashew apple. In cultures that consume cashew apple, this astringent property of the cashew apple is typically removed by steaming the fruit for five minutes before washing it in cold water.

So.. there ya go! Probably more than you needed to know.. ;-)

We've come to a place called Praia de Pipa which was recommended by a couple people.. They have a beach here you can swim with the dolphins and I would love to do that!  I'm fortunate enough to swim with dolphins before, but I'll take any opportunity I can get.

By the time we unpacked the bikes and got to the beach, it was a bit late.  So I watched for the dolphins, saw a couple, but the high tide didn't look ideal for swimming. ;-(  James brought his big camera along though and took some really nice photos.

Praia de Pipa, Brazil

It was a lovely proper holiday-like place to stop, really nice.  Our next stop is only 250 km down the road, Recife.  Even through I've recently changed the front tire, now the rear tire is very bald.  James needs a new tire too and we understand that Recife will have the sizes we want.

We pull up to a beach view in Recife to get our bearings and to start the nightly hunt of where to sleep tonight, when a lady walks up to James and starts talking to him in Portuguese.. I get involved and try to work out what shes saying and why she wanted to talk to us so badly and so quickly - even before we had our helmets off!

We understand that her husband rides a motorcycle and she really wanted us to follow her home to meet him and stay at her house.  That sounds really nice, we could tell she was genuine, so we followed.

And sure enough, we met her wonderful husband.  He rides a Suzuki V-Strom and belongs to a MC club of which I now own a super cool shirt. Literally, it's like a mesh shirt that I've never had before and it's much cooler to ride in this hot weather.. I love it!

Anyway, they explain to us that the place that we stopped on the beach is SO dangerous, she knew if we pondered our map for long that we would be robbed most likely at gunpoint.. for real??  It looked like a nice enough beach stop!  But she was adamant about the danger and we needed to get out and that's why she stayed with us and invited us home. Once our bikes were parked in the fenced yard, there were 2 Pitbulls to guard them overnight.  Whew!

So the family settled us in, fed us and they were off to church leaving the one person at home that speaks a little English, their son Mayke (pronounced Mikey).

After a really nice sleep on some mattresses in their attached beauty shop, Mayke and his Dad guide us into Recife to find the tire shop via their little scooter.  Dad goes off to work and Mayke is supposed to go to school, but he has permission to stay with us as long as he wants, because at school he'd be taking his English class. However, he is getting a better English lesson by staying with us!  And I promise I didn't teach him any bad words! ;-)

Two rough looking bikes getting a little TLC today!

Me and Mayke

Our next stop down the road is in another gorgeous coastal town/city called Maceio.  This place was so beautiful and awesome, we stayed 2 days!  I never heard of it!  It must be off the radar a bit, or I wasn't paying attention to my Brazilian Must-See List..

James has his big camera out again today, so we're doing a lot of modeling with it. I've been missing my nice big camera since it was stolen in Bolivia and there's no replacing it as of yet. So I'm really grateful for the photos James is taking and sharing with me.  I did get a bit carried away... This is my Pamela Anderson in a Rukka Suit impersonation.. ha!

This drunk guy came up to us, drunk as could be, and took James helmet and starting modeling too!  He was hilarious..

And check out the fermenting alcoholic Cashew (Caju) bottle.. I want it!! ;-)

Loving life in Maceio, Brazil

The next morning we started off down the coast again, but not a morning goes by anymore where we need to pull over into a shop because James needs to drink Guarana. It's the equivalent to Coca Cola with a natural caffeine supposedly, but when I looked at the ingredients one day, there was no mention of the guarana content, or guarana even being an ingredient, which is a bit disappointing as he's got himself convinced now that he NEEDS it!

On the road today we come up to quite a bad accident.

The car involved looked as if it would only be a miracle if the driver survived. The person well and truly gone by ambulance, the locals are doing their part to clean up.  Free veggies for everyone!!

This guy was just worth taking a photo of..

The girl down the hill has her stash of veggies and she's guarding it!

Later on, we find a place to pull over for the night.  It's easy to be happy in Brazil...