Equatorial Brazil

We swept from Winter to Summer in the space of a bit of light action on the brakes. I was in summer below, Layne and GANNET2 were in winter. 

We left the hotel around 10:30 after a buffet breakfast, a swim in the pool and after Rusty tore himself from the air conditioned room we went for a walk. $40 well spent and they ended up not charging Rusty ten bucks for his stay. 

Highway 174 is paved but it’s pretty terrible pavement. 

The average speed was dismal, maybe 30 miles per hour. 

The road provokes some weird driving. In the distance you might see a truck weaving crazily like a drunk driver; it’s a signal to slow down and be ready to meet some craters. 

There is no way you can drop your guard because if you do you might pop a tire or dent a rim. 

The shame of it is this could be a delightful drive through forests and ranch country but instead it’s a nightmare of dodging holes and oncoming vehicles. 

Then there is the fact that this is an Indian reservation for large tracts of forest. You wouldn’t know it except for the signs that include an admonition not to leave the highway. 

We saw no people in loin cloths exercising indigenous hunting skills nor walking their infants to school or anywhere else. 

Nor did we see any of the exotic animals promised much to Layne’s irritation. 

And then we came to the much anticipated line. 

Pardon me but doesn’t the monument look like a hockey stick buried in a dog turd? 

But unlike Ecuador where there are at least three equatorial lines staffed by people seeking money, this one is in the right spot according to my phone and it’s just there not commercialized. 

We took the pictures and drive north into summer reminded that 9% of the worlds population lives in the southern hemisphere, the area preferred by Webb Chiles who sent me commiserations. 

Layne put our sticker here:

You tell me what it looks like: 

Enough of that nonsense, we had miles to make.

The plan is to spend a few days lounging in Boa Vista then on Tuesday we drive to Lethem in (formerly British) Guyana and from there to the Atlantic Coast. It’s the unknown South America. 

And then after two hotels told us, very nicely “no dogs,” we resigned ourselves to sleeping aboard on another hot sweaty night. 

We are resigned to the fact that our rooftop a/c is going to blow a bit cold but not freezing like formerly. But we can’t run it hard all night as we lack the electricity. So we open the doors and windows and run our fans. It’s adequate but we are old enough to prefer comfort in a room in these temperatures, I cannot lie.