Years ago I discovered that Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants were actually Deutch - Germans - whose ethnicity was altered by sloppy pronunciation in the New World. Germans came to South America in droves and Brazil got its share. Germans, not Dutch.
Sunday started at the beach in Pontão de Paraná (Paraná Point as we were on a peninsula) and we were planning a long day ending up in Deutch country at 3300 feet. Jean our Swiss neighbor turned us on to Colonia Witmarsum three hours inland.
Jean is an interesting guy, still very European even after forty years in Brazil. He likes Trump for his immigration policies and for attacking Muslims whom he thinks are overwhelming Europe’s weak leadership. His is not an unusual point of view among Europeans, if not their leaders obviously. I found him very enjoyable to talk to at the campground, even if I had to talk French, which is not generally a useful language in the land of rapid fire Portuguese.
“Travel is my therapy.”
Whatever.
We bugged out at eight o’clock Sunday morning, and I should note we are now only one hour ahead of Eastern Time since daylight saving came into effect in the US.
We buzzed through town and took the road connecting the beach to the freeway which would get us back once more to the city of Curitiba.
But the freeway was blocked by an accident and Google Maps sent us into the back country on Paraná State Highway 410 into the mountains. The unknown! Adventure! Oh dear. We were forced to follow the red line to avoid the blockage.
It turned out to be a delightful discovery, a Sunday drive through glorious rainforests climbing up past restaurants and through villages filled with Brazilians enjoying their day off: it was a great drive.
Mountains ahead. Not sure what sort of Sunday this dude was enjoying:
Sunday exercisers in spandex were everywhere, and on the winding hill road with no sidewalks we met plenty of suicidal Brazilians walking and cycling among the curves. I’m pleased to report we killed no locals on our gasoline powered hill climb.
When we got to the other side of the hills we stopped for gas and the attendant thinking we were planning to drive there said we couldn’t possibly complete the route as our van was too long. Little did he know we’ve seen plenty of far more gnarly roads.
Only cars buses and vans on this road the authorities say prohibiting commercial truck traffic. We met lots of tour bus Sprinter vans so it was really no problem for us.
It all reminded me a bit of Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont, a winding road we drove in September 2022.
Protection is respect for life and our future.
When the road got twisty there wasn’t much opportunity for photography but I did get a chance to highlight a few miserable miles of Roman road in the middle of the drive. 
I hate this stuff as it makes GANNET2 bounce so I drive below twenty mph as cobblestones are as bad as dirt road surfaces for us.
That involved lots of pulling over to let others participate in the destruction derby.
By eleven we were at our first stop, a second visit to the Niemeyer museum in Curitiba. This time we knew where to park near the ticket booth, and we knew to carry no bags, and we knew where the entrance was, and we knew we old farts (“Idoso”) got in for free. We had it down. However once inside we found this much desired museum was not what we were looking for, which was art relating to Curitiba or Paraná. 
Teaching kids to draw:
But the problem was there was no explanation to speak of, no biographies no way to understand how this art related to Curitiba. It just seemed all random.
African art, Asian art, beautiful stuff displayed beautifully but it all just flowed over us with no real idea of what we were looking at or why. Plus the typically quirky Niemeyer architectural style we had learned about in Brasilia was not at all apparent on the inside of the museum.
A row of rocks. Very cool looking I thought.
African statuary from various west African nations.
A door from Mali:
At least we finally got to it for ourselves and now do have you. We left at two and got driving to Colonia Witmarsum, an hour out of Curitiba, a place in the country where German immigrants landed, Anabaptists, refugees from revolutions in Europe, and though the people we met were thoroughly Brazilian the traditions live on in this little community.
The best and most prize winning cheese factory of Paraná… we bought plenty.
The food was excellent as was the beer but we got leftovers and plenty of them from our sixty dollar meal. Pretzel to start:
Lunch for two (hundred): Schnitzel, roast pork, sauerkraut, cabbage, mashed potato, apple sauce, sliced sausage. Phew!
Ordered through an iPad on the table. Weird. 5.3 Reals to the dollar.
It started to pour but we made our way to the cheese shop where Layne went shopping while I went with Rusty under the drizzle. 
And we camped out after the employee said it would be fine. We skipped dinner and listened to the rain. 
Sleeping in Germany.
