18th Feb – Amnesia alert.

It’s always nice having breakfast and getting all of your gear organised and the cacophony of engines and exhausts just radiates through hotel foyers and parking areas. It’s an orchestra of brilliance.

Pulled out of Curitiba very early this morning with 730 kays laying down in front of us – our longest day on the rally in distance terms. Maybe not time-wise. We had a driving time of 11 hours 15 minutes today and I had thought of so many interesting things to talk and ramble on about here, but now after a giant buffet dinner and countless return trips to the desert bar, my brain has been turned into an oversized perfetta rolls (porfitta?) and I have forgotten everything.

I do remember how bloody cold it was at 6:30am after how hot it was yesterday. We were hoping the sun would warm things quick smart before Dad and I had to don some jumpers. We even had to turn off our air conditioning.

David and Karen Ayre in the Itala didn’t get in to the hotel until after 2 in the morning with continued engine issues. Not sure what is wrong but they are somewhat making some ground back…. somewhat.

Today’s driving was entirely in ‘rural’ Brazil which had either 2 kind of farms. A 2 acre tobacco farm and a few other beans and pea crop running along a fenceline. Or, thousands and thousands of acres of some leafy green plant (I’m not a botanist or horticulturalist to even begin to guess) with central silo’s and processing plants. No irrigation in sight, alllllll dry land faming with some beautiful rich and red dirt. The kind of dirt you could think you could almost grow a baby in it it is so nice. The downside of nice nutrient rich soil is that when it gets wet, it sticks together and turns a slightly bumpy dirty road into a slightly bumpy road which has traction similar to an ice rink. And I can tell you one thing ladies and gents, our car is many things, but she is not a zamboni machine.

Penny did have a bit of a temper tantrum today. Bad Girl. We heard a very loud PSSSSSTTT of rushing air. WTF IS THAT SOUND? I proclaimed. I immediately realised that our rear right tyre was flat and had rolled the tyre off the rim. I managed to maneuver a 2.5tonne, 3 wheeled, 105km/h car pretty well to a stop on the side of the road and NOT end up upside down in a gutter, like 2 trucks we passed in the hilly bits of today. Changed the tyre, pushed on to the time section. Lucky we had an hour and a half to wait before our scheduled time at the test so we re-tubed our broken tyre and did a full maintenance service in our down time. This subsequently got Dad and I absolutely filthy dirty and greasy from our ‘mens work’ and we certainly looked a bit out of place in the foyer of the Iguaca Resort, with hanging chandeliers and polished marble floors. Sorry about the grease and mud trails guys. Our bad.

A Rest day at Iguazu falls (Foz do Iguacu) today and the rally has included a boat ride underneath the falls. Something tells me we will be getting very wet 🙂 I could tell you the facts about the falls, like the 270 odd discrete waterfalls or the so many millions of liters of flow and all the subsidiary river systems, but you can just check out wiki and get something much more accurate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguacu_Falls

James

edit: I FORGOT ABOUT THE COW INCIDENT. On the time trial section through the muddy farm tracks, we came barreling around the outside of a long sweeping corner overtaking a mercedes 280 and all of a sudden there was a huge Jersey cow (who actually knows what kind of cow it was, not me. black and white anyway) in the MIDDLE of the road. This monster of a mammal could not have been any more in the middle of the road. Dad yells “COW” like I didn’t see it. Hard on the anchors (in Penny does not stop very fast), fish tailing under brakes, cow goes to the right, I go to the left, cow goes to the left, I go to the right. Still hurtling along I needed to make a decision and Dad calls RIGHT, it seemed the best option I will admit. Now I don’t know whether it was my 7th sense kicking in, or just super reflexes but I went left which at the time did not have the best likely outcome, and missed the cow doing about 50kph by about 30cm (1Foot for you imperial blokes). It was a close call for us having beef for dinner, or the cow having human for dinner. Go us!