Return to Brazil

I took a flight from Pisa Italy to France to Atlanta Georgia to Rio de Janeiro and I might be mistaken but I think my travel time was the equivalent of a 40 hr workweek. 

 

It was happy days as I arrived in Rio and discovered that apart from someone tying a scrub brush to my rear turn signal that my bike was exactly as I had left it. The gas had gone bad in the 6 weeks that I was gone, in fact the liquid I siphoned out of the tank was brown like gutter water. I got the bike started and the new tire installed in time to relax for the evening. The next day I headed to Paraty before a big rainstorm came in. Nice to get out of Rio. I spent the next couple of days waiting out the rain and updating this neglected blog. When the rain let up I headed to Sao Vicente and met up with Fabio and Marcos again and met their friend Renan. They took me into Sao Paulo for a day and we toured a musuem of Brazilian Independence and then had lunch at the central market place. The next day I hooked up with Marcos who drove me around on his 125cc Chinese motorcycle as we did some shopping errands and went to a Maritime museum. That evening I had the privilege of joining Fabio at his English class and being the guest expert on our fine language. The next evening was the best. Fabio, Renan, and myself drove our motorcycles to Sao Paulo for a weekly Tuesday evening motorcycle rally. We would meet Marcos, Fabio's cousin, and a gang of other motorcycle guys their. 

 

If Brazilians love soccer #1 then they love motorcycles #2. The event was held in the parking lot of a soccer stadium and there were probably over 1000 motorcycles within the grounds. The lot was full of food booths, booths selling motorcycle paraphernalia, and best of all an Iron Maiden cover band that was really good. Brazil has been memorable but meeting Fabio was the best luck I had and my experiences with he and his friends is what I will remember most.