The blink, blink, clunk, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, noise wasn’t what I was hoping for when I’d hit the starter button on the 1100. We were kitted up, loaded and ready to go. A dead battery had put that on hold. 10 minutes later and with a jump start from Lisa’s bike we were waiving goodbye to our host's Richard & Tania and heading for the highway and ‘Routa Romantica’ (route 116), which would take us through Gramado. Even with heavy bikes the rolling twisting bends of the road were a delight. One after another, after another. The familiar rhythm of the bike rolling through continuous left and right hander’s was as exhilarating now as it had been the first time I rode a bike. Like a drug each sweeping curve leaves you drooling for the next. Makes a mess in your helmet though!!!

Gramado was a surprise. It was like all the architects had over-dosed on ‘Heidi’. This wasn’t Brazil this was Germany or Switzerland transported, complete with wooden shutters and cheesy Christmas decorations that seem to be up all year round. Very picturesque and unquestionably cute but this wasn’t the Brazil we’d come to experience, and so with a bite to eat at a local café and a few photos taken of a fantastic trike we’d parked up next to, we made tracks to Canela where we planned to spend the night.

My coughing fits were increasing and my concentration was deteriorating at a rate of knots.
1km from Canela centre and we simply had to pull over. It’s not every day you see a full sized, genuine steam train complete with carriage cars, ploughing out of the second floor of a large building.
“Thank youuuu for coming to our museum”! “Was the ride good” , said the smiling man in the long dark blue overcoat and the sea captain cap. “this had caught us both a little off guard. “Err, yes it was lovely thank you”, we answered, cringing at how horribly ‘English’ our answer had sounded. Santos introduced himself. What a star! He was in charge of…well we’re not sure? He seemed to speak to everyone who arrived with the enthusiasm as if it was his first conversation of day. Direct cars to available spaces and be a font of information for anything to do with the steam Museum. The fact his English was good made life easier for us. Before we’d even asked, Santos was clearing a path through the pedestrians. “Youuu come through here…yes please...come. You can park the bikes here and get a picture with our famouuuuse train”. We didn’t need asking twice, although we did feel pretty bloody conspicuous. The fact that more people were photographing us and the bike rather than the train wasn’t helping.

You can find the museum at GPS: S29 21.670 W50 50.079. The train has to be seen to be believed, the coffee is great and thh welcome warm.

Some time later and we’d failed miserably to find any hint of the campsite, which our Lonely Planet’ told us was 2.5km from the town centre (Tourist info office was closed). Back at the Museum Santos was just leaving work. A hurried plan was hatched, I said hurried not clever! Santos jumped on board his bus and Lisa and I tailed it for 3 miles through pretty much every part of Canela, until Santos signalled his stop, 2 minutes from his home. Well that was a first. We’ve never tailed a bus before!
Santos had suggested he’d grab his bike (a shiny new Honda 125) and he would lead us to the campsite. Even by his own admission it was a little difficult to find and easily missed even with good directions. (So if you find yourself in Canela and want to camp…it’s at GPS: S29 19.246 W50 50.720)

The tent got pitched in the dark and seemed to take ages. I’m feeling steadily worse and tonight it’s freezing.

Aaaaaaggghh!!! I feel like crap…that’s had the crap kicked out of it! The cold that started coming out a few days back has now truly arrived. Between the snorting, spitting, coughing and plethora of other pitiful noises that we men make, I got about 3 hours sleep last night. The desperate need to answer the call of nature at exactly 4:23am was about as welcome an ordeal as having my ‘balls’ waxed.

By 10am Lisa had finally taken pity on me, or more realistically just got tired of my consistent little wingy noises and had dug deep into the medicine bag and found a few Lemsip, which I sipped gladly. Feeling a little better and with a few more drugs downed, I dragged my pathetic ass out of bed and we decided to go and visit the Caracol Waterfalls at the ‘Parque Estadual Do Caracol (find them at GPS: S29 18.910 W50 51.261) a short 2km down the road.

What a great day…cough, cough, sneeze….spit…yep, I’m still ill. With our 5 Real each paid for entrance, we spent the day walking round this picture postcard park, with the highlight being able to view the spectacular falls close up. Somehow, Lisa had talked me into following her down to the viewing deck. 49 flights and 927 stairs down. I was going to make the most of this as the climb back up was probably going to kill me. The climb down was mesmerizing as we dropped from the daylight into the murky depths of the plant life that lined our descent. Dark emerald green foliage draped and entwined itself around the burdened trees, which precariously clung to life on the steep cliff faces. The looks on the faces of those climbing up was an interesting mixture of “wow, what a great a view and ‘holy shit’, turn back don’t do it”. The guys trying to look as nonchalant as possible whilst they discreetly gasp for air and the girls battling high heeled boots and glaring at the men with a look as if to say, “are you happy now?”.

It was worth every step. As we reached the bottom the icy-cold spray carried in the air hit us, soaking us. Our clothes, camera kit all drenched in a second. Past the horse-shoe waterfall, waves of emerald hills and valleys disappeared into a grey-green horizon, made all the more wonderful as shards of sunlight pierced the low lying clouds and illuminated spots of the landscape. If God’s got a torch, he was shining it now. It’s at times like these when you feel very small and insignificant but at the same time very privileged just to be here.

By 6:00am we were awake and debating if it was too early to get up. It was still pitch black outside but we were both excited about the prospect of getting on the road and heading North. With the bikes loaded and our 40 Real’s paid for our two nights camping we headed back down the hard packed mud track to the main road and headed towards Canela. We’d promised to go back and say a hello-goodbye to Santos at the Steam Museum. “Heeelllooo myyy frieeends”, yelled Santos from across the car park, before we’d even turned off the engines and parked up. Unbeknownst to us Santos had already had a word with the Manager of the Museum and somehow organised for us free entry and a complimentary tour. We’d planned to get on the road after a quick coffee but it was too good an offer to refuse. And so we enjoyed a 45 minute tour. We were both surprised as to how much effort and detail had gone into the museum. There must have 20 or so fully working scale steam engines performing different task highlighting how steam power had been used through the ages, from grinding corn to mass producing electricity. With a few more photos taken for good measure we said our thank you’s and headed out to the bikes. We were a little embarrassed to find that the bikes were getting more attention than the massive steam train coming out of the second floor of the museum. Santos was kept busy as he answered our questions for us. How far, how long, how fast…where to next, do you like Brazil? Lisa was in her element; she’d been hijacked by a group of good-looking young men who all wanted their photo taken with her, much to the obvious annoyance of the pouting girlfriends.

We needed to get going if we were going to try to get to Florianopolis by nightfall. As the crow flies Flori’ was only 300km North but we were determined to get of the tar and head across country. We were heading for a small town called ‘San Fransisco De Paula’ and so far the ride was reassuringly dry. We’d packed up the tent in a hurry this morning as heavy rain looked like a dead cert’. We figured the road we were on had been the victim of a ‘brain fart day’, when the guy’s job it is to name the road couldn’t do any better than the …’020’. Well, any way the 020 was going to be our ride as far as the small town of Cambara Do Sul, just outside the Parque Nacional Da Serra Geral and apart from the frenzied westerly wind was proving to be good company.

The track we’d been promised would lead us from Cambara Do Sul down to the coast was unmarked. It didn’t matter our U-turns needed the practice and besides I quite like being chased by packs of dogs down dirty dead end streets. The tar fizzled out quickly once we’d passed the last few houses of the town. Strange. Both of us breathed a sigh of relief to be off the tar and to be once again be riding something that would make us think, I know that sounds slightly masochistic and I’m pretty bloody sure we’ll be eating our words in the not to distant future when we’re sliding down some godforsaken mud hole of a track somewhere North of here. But for now we were relishing every moment. The track was leading us higher. The packed mud had been changes for loose rock and we were having to bounce the bikes over the larger rocky juts that had been exposed by the mixture of traffic and weather. As we crested a rise I grabbed a handful of brake. The view in front had been completely unexpected. Vast escarpments opened up to the left and right. Deep valleys like something from a Jurassic Park movie dropped away just to the left. We hadn’t realized how high we’d climbed or exactly how close to the edge of the ravine we’d been riding. We were stopping every few Km to take photos. We’ve both missed this. That isn’t to say that Buenos Aires is nice, but riding your bike on a sunny day, with no-one around, as breathtaking scenery unfolds in waves to your left and right, in a country which prior to this trip we never thought we’d really visit is what motorcycling is about, well it is for us anyway. The ride was fantastic. The descent even better. The loose rock and track all the more uneven from being torn at by the cascading water, which had visited recently. One tight hairpin after another. At the base of the track we reached Praia Grande. Neither of us needed to say a word the excited look on Lisa’s face mirrored my own.

As afternoon became early evening we once again found the main road and decided to get as close to Flori’ as possible. By 6:30 it was pitch black and the driving was getting scarier. With no camping to be found the Hotel Laguna is home for tonight. Ahh, the delights of a warm shower.

This wasn’t the first time that we’d woken to find our surroundings were a thousand times more magnificent then we’d imagined they would be arriving in the dark. The noise of the waves crashing against the shore had woken us, last night we didn’t even realize we were near water, yeah, OK..Duh, the ‘Hotel LAGUNA’ should have given us a hint. As we open the drab grey door at the back of our room, we were completely unprepared for the view. The lapping water was practically metres from the back of the hotel. The skies were hazy morning blue and in the distance lush tropical mountains loitered as if to say, “what are you waiting for”!

With two cups of strong coffee downed, we headed for the highway and submersed ourselves in the utter madness that is the I-101. It’s like a giant game of ‘dodgems’ with half the contestants confused by the rules and so just resort to playing ‘chicken’ at warp factor 10. 10 minutes in and I’d already had two very, very close head on misses and given Lisa a heart attack. Flori’ arrived a short 97km North and we buzzed straight through the city centre and across the bridge to the Island side of this schizophrenic city. We were heading for Campeche on the East side of the Island. We’d heard of a campsite near the sea and open all year round. By 2:00pm we’d ridden part of the coastline and found the site. Soft fluffy grass, toilets that actually get cleaned and a nice big gate to keep out all the bad men that might have taken a fancy to the kids. After 2years on the road, we’re pretty easily pleased.

We spent the afternoon walking along the coastline. White sand, blue sky and tropical islands a short boat trip away. We’re going to get an early night as I’m still coughing my lungs up and it sounds like Lisa’s coming down with the same. Mind you if you’re going to be ill it might as well be somewhere spectacular.

Quite impressive really? At 2:30am in the morning when your stock of tissue paper has run out and your nose is doing an impression of Niagra Falls and the two of us are coughing and wheezing like 60-a-day smokers, if you listen hard enough we were actually coughing and snorting a tune not dissimilar to the English National Anthem. OK, you had to use your imagination a little bit, but it put a smile on our faces at a ridiculous time in the morning.

With our morning jobs done, the washing hung up and the loose bits on the bikes tightened, we hopped on board the 1100 and went in search of coffee and a local shop where we could stock up on water and a few other essentials. The small road we picked up had been resurfaced recently; great, it made it all the more easier to take in the view around us. We were skirting the edges of ‘Lago de Conceicao’ and heading towards a cluster of buildings and small shops. Coffee taste so much better when drunk somewhere this beautiful. We snapped a couple of photos and took a slow leisurely ride back to the campsite to spend the afternoon in the Sun catching upon the sleep we’d missed last night.

Lisa battled last night to catch her breath and so ended up with little or no sleep. What-ever I have and am now getting over, I’ve kindly shared with her…she’s not best pleased! The day was getting warmer by 10:00am and with both of us on the 1100 we rode down to the local shops, the water we’d bought yesterday had already been drunk.

We’ve spent a lovely afternoon in the company of Antonio and Eleonor and their children Marilia and Rodrigo. Antonio had struck up a conversation at a small roadside café we’d stopped at to get a morning caffeine fix. The year he’d spent finishing his PhD in London meant that he didn’t have to suffer our feeble attempts at communication. After 20 minutes we’d accepted his kind offer to have lunch with his family a short 3 block walk from the café.

We enjoyed a relaxed lunch talking with new friends: Grilled locally caught Mullet and avocadoes the size of rugby balls. Thank you to the whole Marasciulo family for spending time with us and making us feel welcome. Hopefully we’ll see you again.

This is what has made our journey so incredible: The unexpected twist and surprise encounters that allow a simple 5 minute coffee stop to turn into an afternoon of friendship and conversation.
Right medicine time: Lisa’s still coughing and wheezing. The cooler evening air is having an effect.