17th Feb – *insert quirky title here*

Landed safe and sound once again in the city of Curitiba after our first nights stop in Maresais. Not all can be said for all the cars though. The attrition rate is somewhat, undesirable. The Jag of Mark Robinson left us on a truck to Sao Paulo to get some work done. Lloyd and Traecy’s Sunbeam is getting seriosuly hot with a suspected water pump problem, very sick. And David and Karen Ayre’s Itala is having some rare issues, the Itala is usually such a strong performer. Dad spent until about 1am last night (from 5pm) with David helping him pull apart his engine to get to the cam shaft and investigate a horrible noise. When we left this this morning everything seemed ok but the Itala was spotted driving in the wrong direction, maybe to go back to a flat spot to do more open heart surgery. They still haven’t shown their faces in the Raddison hotel thus far.

Dad was a bit tired today and had to have a bit of a nap. Tired fella

Some beautiful driving today, along the coast and making our way through some undulating hills on some nice roads. Hang a right hander and suddenly we headed up a plateau and left the coast behind us. Nice! We got our first taste of some nice hill climbs. Not overly steep but today brought us some very long climbs. We monstered them in the Vuaxhall with us only doing the overtaking, gossip around the foyer suggests a few of the group were teetering on the ‘bit too hot’ side of things. It is sooooo tropical here, everything is greener than you could imagine being green. Banana trees all over the place.

When I was a bit younger than I am now, I use to think that Eucalyptus trees only ever existed in my home continent, then I saw them in North America. Then I saw them in Asia. Then I saw them in Africa. Now I saw them in South America. Apparently, I was late to the party and they are not only in Auz, but all around the world. Well I never! I was wrong.

Brazil has been awesome and strange. First the awesome. As a Strayan (The A and a few other vowels are optional for us Auzzies) we love the beach, but apparantly not as much as a Brazilian. The amount of people that are on the beaches that only have a tiny little town next to them is ASTONISHING. A spare bit of sand is sought after more than gold. No one wears shirts. It’s pretty cool. Damn our sun and it’s ability to thrust skin cancers on our delicate skins! The strange part is one of the most peculiar things I have seen around the world. So the fact is about 20% of the population live in the slums of the country called Favela’s. No tax, no building deeds, no ownership, stolen power, all that kind of stuff. I have seen some slums from top to bottom Africa and poverty in China but never have I seen a Favela where every lean-to or piece of tin metal acting as shelter has a satellite dish within arms reach. These guys living in the Favela’s of Brazil have instant access to the newest season of Big Brother, or Master Chef, but at the same time have to worry about their neighbour who might want a new addition to his house, at the cost of yours. Odd.

Tomorrow is Iguacu Falls day! yay. Then a rest day. I want to do a helicopter flight over the falls. Huzzah.

p.s. Best news yet: After yesterdays regularity section Mr James and Max Stephenson in the 1923 Vauxhall are currently placed 1st with total penalties at 14seconds. Lets hope we can keep it up! Tomorrow will tell.

James