Breaking Rules

 We decided it was time to leave Garibaldi and drive south. However Layne had a couple of painful infected spots on her legs, something like insect bites gone bad. Antiseptic wasn’t healing them so we decided to stop by a dermatology office on our way out of town. Clinica CuoreDerma looked right, rave reviews and modern facilities.

Trouble was the first appointment was at 3pm. We paid $75 for the consultation and went back to the campground to take a nap and wait. We paid the thirty dollars we owed for three nights at the drivers social club.

Lots of photos to celebrate their club activities. 

Then we went back to the dermatologist  Layne got a prescription for her wounds and a skin cancer inspection which she passed.

Great news.  The doctor spoke English, the office as you can see is impeccably appointed  and the process was easy and very reassuring. It must be obvious by now that medical care across Latin America is professional affordable and accessible. It’s not perfect of course but it’s not horribly 19th century either. Try dropping in to a doctors office at home and getting a same day appointment…it can happen but I wouldn’t count on it.

We came out of the office to see this Ram 1500 pickup parked on the street. It’s about as long as GANNET2 but I had been terribly gringo fussing about taking up one and a half spaces where he just sprawled. At least he didn’t stick out into the travel lane. I also with great struggle paid the dollar fee for two hours parking at the machine. My Portuguese is improving steadily as I pretty much understood the instructions. 

The drive down to sea level was pleasant and without incident but we left Garibaldi  yesterday around four on a lovely sunny afternoon.

Electronic toll ahead -$1. 

We have thirty days to pay it but I doubt the bill will reach our US tag. 

We stopped at a pharmacy along the way to fill Layne’s new prescriptions so Rusty and I parked in a taxi spot and stayed put waiting for an angry cab driver to come by and  claim his spot. We never saw a cab driver but this dude saw our front license plate and stopped and stared.

That happens a lot but he came up to my open window and started chatting. He apologized for only speaking German and Portuguese but we talked about retirement and travel and the beauty of southern Brazil and before I could ask about his family (a good ice breaking subject) he smiled a broad smile and wished me a “ good afternoon and a good journey.” Brazilians will smother you with kindness long before they will ever rob you. Do not be afraid to visit. 

Then things went bad. In Porto Alegre traffic was jammed in every direction. Google Maps took three tries to find  routes around the chaos. I think it was a bad accident at a critical intersection because an ambulance muscled past us and police had several streets closed off. We drove in every direction in ever larger circles through some really rough neighborhoods as darkness started to fall. I kept muttering we should have never left so late in the day and if only we had stayed in Garibaldi…etc…however we had no choice but to press on.

It was well past dark by the time we reached our planned stop forty miles south of Porto Alegre, a Brazilian version of Cracker Barrel, a restaurant selling souvenirs next to a butcher counter, a bakery, a pastry shop, and tons of processed packaged stuff and of course an overloaded buffet. 

I do not like driving at night and we should have spent the night in Garibaldi but we stupidly pressed on for now reason other than stubbornness. The divided highway was rough with lots of patches and dips and uneven surfacing, it rained, cyclists were wobbling on the shoulder without lights, so it was everything an experienced overlander should avoid. But we made it and the most important task was done before the rain returned. 

Then we fed ourselves and the desserts were excellent, strawberry mousse, lemon cream, trifle and crème caramel - as much as we wanted. Be jealous.

As well as all the other choices for $12 for each of us.  Plus draught beers, ice cold.

It was easy to restrain ourselves from buying pastries as we left the restaurant after we had eaten that food. And don’t forget the grill master with some excellent meats and sausages. (Rusty got a share later of course). 

I fear I may miss Brazil. 

Eccentric country. 

Good night.

A Slow Weekend

We planned a couple of days of Italian food and wine.

We tasted nine wines and bought three bottles. 

They are pet friendly if you can believe it, and Rusty reciprocated the kindness by being his usual perfect self.  

I’ve never tasted so much wine at a sitting and we had also been led to believe we might get some cold cuts. As a result we tasted on an empty stomach which required a nap in their parking lot afterwards. 

Happily our solar panels combined with a little daily driving have amply supplied us with electricity to sleep comfortably air conditioned at night. The weather has been unseasonably scorching hot. 

Sylvia our English speaking hostess. She moved to the area to enjoy the Italian culture. Who can blame her? 

On our way out Rusty made some new admirers as I paid the bill. I can’t imagine Napa valley wineries encouraging dogs in their tasting rooms. I think South America may be spoiling Rusty. 

Saturday night is right for …laundry downtown. My dog is a lush:

Air conditioned do it yourself as usual with soap dispensed by the washing machine. Rusty approved. 

Back at the campground I watched a trucker cooking dinner in the kitchen he keeps in a locker on  his trailer. 

Not a bad place to camp for a quiet weekend.  

We spent Saturday and Sunday in the $10 a night social club for Garibaldi motorists. Yes I know it sounds weird and we are only the second people to check in on iOverlander but it’s an excellent camping spot with all facilities. It’s got lots of room for trucks but also fits in some motorhomes too though we were as usual alone.  So we decided to take advantage while we toured the area eating and drinking. It is as Richard pointed out in a comment the proper way to grasp the local culture, so we did.

No wine this time but refreshing Italian lime sodas washed down our abstemious lunch. 

Olive oil tasting and bruschetta appetizers. 

Lamb risotto:

Pork spare ribs with barbecue sauce: 

The owner, a nice guy with about as much English as we have Portuguese. 

I had an apple strudel for dessert:

While Layne had a brownie.

Back at the campground we plotted our departure heading for Uruguay on the coast road. We’ll have to stop at the border a couple of days to get Rusty’s permit to enter Uruguay, a job we haven’t done since Guyana. Back we get into the flow of mainstream South American overland travel.

Brazilian Wine

It seems we have left behind the German migrant population of southern Brazil and located the Italian community. 

Layne located a winery she wanted to have lunch at just outside the city of Bento Conçalves (“con-sal-ves”) the main population center in the wine valley inland from Porto Alegre.

It’s steep hills and deep canyons and the twisting roads tested our brakes as hard as when we were in the Andes. The villages are basically agricultural centers so the poverty reminds me of the Italy of my youth, not desolate, but a feeling of not being in the forefront of social development.

It’s charmingly picturesque but in the Umbria where I grew up  people fled to the cities for opportunity and haven’t gone back to the fields. 

The countryside here is lush and green and every home has a vegetable patch or a field of corn  growing wherever the land is open enough to take it.

Bike paths for tourists and the well to do out taking their exercise. 

We drove up and down following Google’s blue line between Garibaldi and Bento Conçalves lost in a land of Italian, not Portuguese place names in villages clinging to hillsides: 

Clear or light mountain in Italian : 

Endless vines growing close to 2,000 feet above sea level. 

Capanna means shed in Italian. 

Borghetto means little village. 

Dom Candido’s founder arrived from the province of Trento in northern Italy in 1875 and he got busy growing his grapes.

The winery is located on Via Trento a street name to honor his roots and they take pride in the history of the place. 

Even though it no longer appears to be family owned. 

We’d never thought of Brazil as a wine producing country but I suppose there is no reason for it not to given an area in this vast country with a suitable climate and soil. So we had a fancy lunch for $20 apiece. 

This just shows up as an appetizer tray. Baked polenta in yellow, a potato meat ball of some sort in gray with cheese and salami. There, lunch is done. 

Hell no; up next soup:

All this served in a gussied up wine cellar. We got ourselves a bottle of Chardonnay as Friday  was baking hot outside. Rusty was under the a/c sleeping during this episode.

We took a booth like this below:

After the soup we got our main course  you had a choice between risotto (Layne) or pasta (with mushrooms- me) and a meat, lamb for Layne and picanha Brazil’s national cut of beef for me.

Lamb above and beef below with side plates of mashed potatoes and salad. We had plenty of left overs from all this. 

And then the “sobremesa” Portuguese for dessert. Ice cream and wine sauce for Layne:

Sago in a tart berry sauce with custard for me:

It was a luscious meal far removed from van life and camping for a couple of hours. 

I think the fact that our van really is our home and comfortable combined with our ability to indulge occasionally makes this less of a vacation or a journey and more of a life  lived. 

And yes the wines are as you would expect, some we liked and some we didn’t but they are as wide ranging and sophisticated as any anywhere. And I’m no expert but I liked a couple very much. 

Layne asks everyone for a photo and she usually gets them. 

We don’t have to cram experiences into a set number of days or fear missing out because we have no time limits so after lunch we casually tasted some wines, bought a bottle…

And took a nap under our air conditioning. And Rusty got his walk of course.

Slow paced retirement. 

We have to park in the sun to charge our batteries as we can’t use shore power at the moment. 

We drove back to Garibaldi foregoing the charms of the big city of Bento Conçalves, population of 120,000 founded in 1875. 

The history of this area is as mad as you probably have come to expect, and if I tell you there was a Ragamuffin War here in 1835 I trust you will believe me. Bento Conçalves led a rebellion by that name against the empire of Brazil and proclaimed a republic in Porto Alegre.

The problem as usual was taxes imposed by the central government, in this case of salt and on exports. The region exported salt beef and the taxes meant Argentine and Uruguayan exports could undercut their prices. So they formed a breakaway republic, as you do in this circumstances (consider Philadelphia in 1776).  

The Italian trouble maker and future liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi was wandering South America at the time and he got involved helping to declare independence, hence the name of the town where we spent the night.

Eventually things settle down and after the war with Paraguay Brazil created a new state in the far south and encouraged migration from Italy to populate it.

The best space we found to park in Garibaldi is an odd mixed use space organized by the motorists’ association of the town. I never knew such a thing existed. 

They have a fenced off area dedicated in part to truck parking, a strip to motorhomes, a playing field and open spaces for dog walking and picnics and wholesome stuff like that. We have electric outlets, drinking water and toilet dump stations all for $10 a night. 

It’s difficult to grasp sometimes how easy van life can be in South America. And still no corruption or armed robberies. 

Rusty likes it here, especially when I give him a chest rub.  

Assis the gate guard age over to chat. Goes spent forty years in Brazil but he’s from Uruguay, literally growing up on the street at the border in another of these open cities. He missed being Brazilian by 50 feet but he’s ended up in garibaldi anyway, but he does obviously speak Spanish. 

He retired in 1999 and he likes to go home to see his family in Uruguay. He says it’s more expensive there but much more peaceful than Brazil. My curiosity is piqued. Give it ten days and I hope we’ll find out for ourselves.