Mabu Parque Resort Curitiba

... Thanks to the money we spent on buses yesterday and the fact that stuff shuts on mondays, we have been avoiding paying to go into any attractions and as such are nearly halfway to recouping yesterday´s budget deficit. Gordon Brown would be proud.

Cheers for all the comments guys, good to know people are reading (if not actually enjoying) this. Love to all, R&D (The order of our initials in no way reflects our relative importance, it is merely intended as a delightful joke)

... drop below us, it is hard to decide whether to be exhilarated or scared. Imagining what would happen should we topple downwards is a brown trouser job and I doubt there would be anything left to be identified of any passenger. But it was fun and hugely enjoyable and playing the railway anorak for a day provided a complete contrast to any other experience we have had in South America.

The railway grinds to a halt at a little town called Morretes. Although ...

Arrived in Curitiba today so I can have meetings with a potential supplier on Sunday. Depending on how that goes, I'll either need to go and have another meeting in Sao Paulo on Monday, or go somewhere else in Brasil to meet with another supplier. Either way, looks like I won't be getting home until Tues or Wed now ...

... Oscar Neimeyer Museum which is a really interesting art museum. At night, I went to a couchsurfing meeting at a bar. To my surprise, there was a band playing country music there! I was even more surprised when half the people at the bar knew the lyrics to all the songs! Apparently a lot of people in Curitiba like country music for some reason ...

... dressed as mimes and clowns. Several blocks away, I started seeing guys in suspenders and clown noses juggling at intersections for money. I saw about 3 groups of guys doing this several blocks apart. Tough living. Back at the art fair, the food stalls had Polish Pierogis with the vendors wearing Polish Pride T-shirts. Across the street was a German Biergarten and several more German restaurants were nearby. There was an antique car show on the street where ...

Hei hooo Drei Laender in drei Tagen... Nicht schlecht wuerde ich sagen! Aber ja doch gestern war auch noch ein ganz anderer spezieller Tag: Aufstehen bitte: Und zwei, drei: Tritts im Morgenrot daheeer............... Eigentlich kuemmerte es dort keine Sau, aber ich feierte gestern ganz fuer mich allein 1. August in Argentinien! Ein ganz komisches Gefuehl! :-) Warum wir diesen Ausflug nach Argentinien machen, ganz ...

... anymore. But I'm paid a daily "bonus" for each day that I work. Which is much better than before when I was paid the same whether I worked 5 or 7 days a week. I'm more likely to work 7 days a week than 4 or 5 when I'm traveling. I'm very happy with this new arrangement. When I'm not working, I can be anywhere I want to be visiting friends and family or working on the trucks, instead of worrying about getting stuff done in the office.

... driver said we had to go to the other side of the square. After alot of walking around the sqaure and asking questions to which the answer indecipherable (Portugese is not our strong point) we gave up on the Botanical Garden and went to a park instead. This turned out to be a bit like a zoo, a free zoo at that. Following that we wandered the city visiting a couple of art galleries and ending up in a German style beer garden.

... arrangement for your legs and blankets and pillows - all very comfortable - I think I managed to sleep for 6.5 hours. The half way stop was a very organized place. They have a system here where you recieve your own bill card as you enter the establishment and it is tallied up at the checkout when you leave whcih means there are no big queues before you even get your food and drinks etc. You ...

... of the City Brasilia, the capital of Brazil! It is a glass house and I can not imagine if it has good acoustics. Wow I am tired! And so hungry, because we didn`t eat something. But there is only one more sight to visit. The Television Tower. And we had a great view over the city for 3 Reais. But the windows were reflecting and so I ...