Ola Beast Crew

The Beasts have just started roaming around Brazil after some fairly major gearbox failures and the subsequent major overhaul.  The webpage has been updated with piccies from our trip along the coast of Uruguay and photos of the start of our trip through Brazil.  Apologies for no updates of recent but when you have to drive nearly 6000km across a country, wait for your car to be overhauled and be subjected to cup after cup of Cachaca there isn’t much time to sit down and write!

Buenos Aires (Argentina) – Colonia del Sacarmento – Montevideo – Piriapolis - Punta del Este (Uruguay) – San Lourenco do Sul (Brazil) – Porto Alegre – Bento Goncalves - Balneario del Gaviota – Florianopolis – Sao Paulo – Petrol Station

9th – 23rd January 2007

“How do you drive? It must be so difficult. How do you overtake? How do you accelerate?  How do you brake? How do you change gear?”  We have never been laughed at, asked so many questions and gaped at by so many open mouths as we have in South America especially Brasil and Uruguay.  For those of you who haven’t yet experienced a quick look inside the Beast, it is a British vehicle… we have the steering wheel on the right hand side!  Normal for those of us in the UK, Aus, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and a few other countries across the world but for those who have never seen a big red driving brick from the UK it is the most hilarious thing ever!  We have even been pulled over by perplexed looking policemen dying to have a look inside.

We said sad goodbyes to Sandra and Javier at Dakar Motos who had helped us out so much at the start of our adventure around South America and have become very great friends.  We had the Beast checked over for problems and had the leaky rear differential seal replaced by Navas Services, one of the best Land Rover mechanics in South America.  Then we headed to the port for our ferry over to Uruguay.  The borders between Uruguay and Argentina had been closed for several weeks due to an Argentine politician who had asked for a bribe of $20million when a Finnish paper company had offered to construct a very green paper factory in Argentina.  They refused his demand and had offered to construct the factory in Uruguay instead; they jumped at the offer and ever since the borders had been closed between the two countries within a 400km distance.  We had waited for the ferry to Uruguay to start running again and we drove the Beast out of Argentina after a 4 month epic journey to the end of the earth and north towards the tropics.

We arrived at 3am in the town of Colonia del Sacramento and managed to find a hotel that would allow us to rest our weary heads before we headed out to the beautiful cobbled streets to see the quirky UNESCO town in the baking heat, where you can take a meal in a 1920s Model T Ford.

We headed east through the swiss populated rolling green countryside to the pretty tree lined capital of Montevideo where the horse drawn cart riding cartoneiros (rubbish/recycling men) jostled with the cars and the buses. An interesting part of the Uruguayan culture is the number of people who walk around brandishing leather satchels to hold their thermos flask, mate and mate pot.  It is an obessional afternoon pastime with couples and families all going to the city parks and squares to enjoy a communal mate.

From Montevideo we headed north through Piriapolis (which is based around a magnificent hotel which was once the largest in South America) and on to the Cote d’Azur of Uruguay, Punta del Este.  Punta del Este is a little built up peninsula off the town of Madonaldo.  Real estate on the peninsula is so in demand that youth hostels charge US$70 a night.  Foreign politicians (mainly Argentine) are known to have invested their bribes and stolen government money and bought flats and houses on this exclusive zone.

We headed north and rolled over the border into Brasil without getting stamped out of Uruguay or into Brasil, an easy border crossing!  After handing in our temporary import and then obtaining a new 10 page version from the Brasilian border guard, we re-entered Brasil.

We followed the coast line heading north through mounting heat (pushing 40oC inside the Beast) and stopped at Porto Alegre.  The media hype from the western press had made Greg superparanoid about the security of Brasil, so after many arguments it was decided that we would stay in hotels all the way through Brasil, with secure car parking for the Beast.  We parked the Beast up outside a hotel and explored the beautiful city of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state.  The state was a major settling place for Germans and Italians. After exploring the city we returned to our hotel to find we had been left a note from some other overlanders.  We met up for a drink with them which turned into several and a lot of discussions about routes, places to go and their route down to Ushuaia and back in a month (it took us 3!).  They recommended that we visit the wine region, located just north of Porto Alegre…as travelling alcoholics, that became next on our hit list, as well as recommending that we visit the Quebrada de Serras, some canyons along the way.

So the following day we set off on a quest to catch the wine train, an old steam train that runs through the Bento Goncalves wine region and to visit one of the most unusual wine regions in the world.  The cobbled roads that weave between the vineyards hide away about 180 vinyards that have restaurants, hotels and tasting rooms.  We indulged in a hotel where we were treated to all the local wines, liquors, ports and grappas.

We headed across to the stunning Quebrada de Serra, a canyon coated in thick Mata Atlantica forest with a drop over a 1000 metres down into more lush forest, an amazing dust road drive down to the coast and on to Florianopolis.  The party island of Florianopolis, with enormous sand dunes for sandboarding, neverending beaches, tranquil inland lakes and all night bars, was where we met Audrey and his cousin Victor.  When Alexis lived in Brasil 10 years ago, Audrey’s family became her South American family.  It was great to meet up and many beers and Cachacas were consumed in the celebration!

We headed north to Sao Paulo on a fateful run.  Sao Paulo has a population of over 17 million and the population is crammed into high rise buildings with constant traffic, constant noise and constant movement.  We hit Sao Paulo at 3pm and after nearly 5 hours of sitting in traffic, driving around and around and around, attempting to read signs that only sent us to the next suburb, we somehow managed to escape the rabbit warren of roads and bad signs out onto the motorway.  Our headlights were sporadically working and so we had to drive with our sidelights on (our rear lights would then work) or with our high beams on (our rear lights stopped working then). A clunk and a grinding noise suddenly brought our incessant driving in the dark to shuddering stop.  Greg slipped it out of normal gear ratio and we managed to splutter forwards another few kilometres before we lost all use of all gears.  We sat at the side of a black motorway with our four way flashers on, only a few kilometres outside of the most dangerous city in the world (according to the CIA)…. What do we do?

Notes on Uruguay:

Notes on Brasil:

• Brasil’s capital is the city of Brasilia located in the centre of the country.  Some consider the city a major architectural masterpiece; it is designated a UNESCO site.  It is shaped like an aeroplane with designated districts for government, dining, shopping and residential housing.  The major problem is that they cut down rainforest to locate the capital there and in doing so the ecosystem was changed. The humidity in Brasilia can drop to 5% and residents hang wet clothing in their houses to prevent bleeding from their noses.
• Brasil has a population of 186 million.
• The Brasilian currency is the Real which at 2007 rates £1 = Rs 4.
• Brasil has lots of different kinds of fruit, only a few known outside of Brasil.  Some unusual fruits – Umbu, Acerola, Butia, Guarana and Acai.  The Caju (cashew fruit – a red apple shaped fruit) is used in drinks whereas the nut is more commonly known to foreigners.
• There are only a few ATMs that will accept foreign banking cards in Brasil.
• Prices in Brasil double at the time of Carnaval.
• If you wish to stay in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval you have to pay for a hotel room for a week, even if you only want to stay for one day.
• Sao Paulo has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan.
• The name Brasil is spelt with an ‘s’ in the country and with a ‘z’ outside of the country.
• Cachaca is the national drink – a white rum.  It can be mixed with lime, sugar and ice to make Caipirinha or condensed milk, sugar, ice and fruit to make a Capeta.
• Sao Paulo is officially the most dangerous city in the world with more murders per year per capita than anywhere else in the world.