One of the things that is so interesting and amazing about Brazil, is that it sometimes feels like many different countries in one. When you travel from the north to the south of this immense country, you’ll experience not only differences in the climate, geography, fauna and flora, but also in culture, architecture, food, the way people talk and behave, etc.
The south of Brazil has been populated in particular by people coming from different parts of Europe, and that had a significant influence on the region. For me, it was one of the lesser known parts of the country, so I decided to take a 10 day trip to get more familiar with “Brazil Down Under”
Day 1: Campinas
Maryel and me left Volta Redonda around 2pm and made our way to Campinas, one of the biggest cities in the state of Sao Paulo and more of an industrial city than touristic.
The ride itself wasn’t all that exiting since we stayed on the main roads (the BR116 and the SP065) Only a strong head wind, that tried to blow us off the road, made things a little more interesting.
The weather gradually changed for the worse and by the time we were almost in Campinas, we saw the first rain. Things also started to get really chilly…
We arrived after about 400km at the house of our good friend Alexandre, where we spent the first night. Before going to bed however, we went out for something to eat in Ponto1 BAR, the oldest bar in the Barao Geraldo neighborhood of Campinas, famous for its great food and live music. We even enjoyed a Belgian beer with our food, so our first night was perfect .
Day 2: “Pisteiros” headquartes – Campinas.
After a good nights sleep and tasty breakfast at Alex’ house, it was time to move on to our next stop: the headquarters of the PISTEIROS, where our friend Evandro was expecting us.
Evandro created a place where all passers-by on motorcycles, touring South America and looking for a place to crash for a couple of days, are always welcome. The reception is fabulous (like in most places in Brazil) and Evandro has everything you need to get your batteries recharged…a bed, wifi… the works.
Evandro also showed us his brand new site. The English version of the Pisteiros site, which was in Portuguese (Duh). I would call it “Pisteiros for Gringos”. Anybody interested in Adventure riding with a focus on Brazil is more than welcome to sign up on the new site.
Day 3: Morretes
After a chilly night (August is winter time here in Brazil, and in spite of being a “tropical” country, it can get really cold in some places), we loaded up our bikes and took off.
Evandro was joining (and guiding) usthat day, since he was going to meet up with a few riders and do a tour around the south as well.
The weather channel was not really promising a good day… rain and cold, but to our enjoyment it was “only” cold. The sky was blue most of the day and we were able to make good progress on the close-to-perfect roads of São Paulo State. Interesting detail: it seems that on many of São Paulo’s “secondary” highways, motorcycles don’t have to pay at toll booths.
Other than that, I have to say that I found most of the roads and scenery in that part of the state of São Paulo kind of “bleak”, compared to what I’m used to in other parts of Brazil, but hey, it cannot be spectacular all the time, right?
Once in the State of Parana, the roads became more twisty and views turned a little more interesting. At one point we drove through an area that was hit by a flash flood two days earlier, due to 72 hours of torrential rain, and the signs of devastation were still very much visible in the landscape around the river.
Near Curitiba, the capital of the state of Parana, we headed east to Morretes, where we arrived around 6.30pm that day.A little earlier would have been better, because then we wouldn’t have had to ride down the beautiful Estrada da Graciosa in the dark to get to Morretes. It wouldn’t be our last unpleasant descent…
Our place for the night was Pousada Dona Laura, A very nice place in the historical center of Morretes, recently resored and for about 60R$ per person…
We left Morretes right after breakfast and rode up the Estrada da Graciosa again, because the previous day we did it in the dark…I decided to take the camera and film Mariel riding up the serra, but on the cobblestones I wasn’t able to keep the camera still, so that footage was pretty much useless.
We wanted to get to Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina State. On the way there, we would als pay a visit to our friend Mike in Piçarras, who is moving back to the States in a few months..
We basically stayed on the main road south and between Curitiba and Joinville, going down to sea level again, we ran into a couple of traffic jams, several kms long… Traffic was not moving at all and many people were having a pick-nick on the spot, indicating that they hadn’t been moving for some time.
Of course, being on motorcycles, we didn’t wait in line, but zig-zagged our way through the rows of vehicles, expecting to see some big accident in front of the line, but there was only ONE truck that had broken down and caused this whole mess…
On the way down the serra, we did see a few seriously mangled remains of trucks that obviously never made it to their destinations…
We arrived in Piçarras and had lunch together with Mike and his wife, but instead of continuing our trip to Floripa right after lunch, as planned, we ended up going back to his place for a last coffee (no beer since we still had some riding to do).
Well… the coffee was great, and the chat even more, so we ended up talking for a few hours and then, we had to do the final 130 km to Floripa in the dark… which wasn’t too bad. I did notice however, that people in this part of Brazil seem to drive a lot faster than what I’m used to… kinda like in Germany?
Evandro had told us about this cool hostel in Floripa (Sunset Backpackers Hostel), and it was about 7.30pm when we arrived there. We checked in, had some dinner and called it a night…
Evandro was right about the hostel… It IS a very nice place. Clean, rooms with view on the lagoa, pool, free internet, Wifi… and close to a very popular surfing beach (praia mole). Price is 30BRL per person – incl. breakfast.
We stayed in Floripa for the next three days. On the first day we checked out the north side of the island and on the second day we went to the south part.
Florianópolis, apart from being the state capital (did I mention that earlier?) is a place where a lot of rich and famous Brazilians live. On the north side of the island there’s a neighborhood called “jurere internacional” - known as “the Beverly Hills of Brazil” – and yeah, the houses are HUGE there, compared to what I’ve seen so far in Brazil.
FLoripa, sometimes referred to as “the magic island”, is a popular vacation destination for people from Curitiba but also Argentinians like to spend their vacation here… There are many great beaches all around the island and the roads are in good to very good condition. There is even an airport on the island…
The only downside is the traffic… it looks to me like the island is getting “over capacity” (expression often seen on Twitter ). When driving around, you hardly get to go faster than 40-50 km/h and especially in the north, around the lagoa da conceição the traffic jam never stops…
We visited the island in the off-season, and the locals told me that during the summer months it’s faster to walk than to take your car to get somewhere… Looks like it is time for the local authorities to take some action to improve this situation…
Otherwise Florianópolis is a great place for people who want to spend their vacation in a place with beautiful nature but everything else (airport, shopping, big city…) close by. It looks like a perfect place for surfers too, although I am far from an expert in that area
After two days of exploring the Magical Island in the south of Brazil, we were planning to continue our tour of Santa Catarina, but bad weather made us decide to stay put for one more day. Always amazing how much a place changes when it starts to rain.
Despite not only rain, but also pretty heavy winds, we rode out of Florianopolis and our rain gear was tested to the limit. The hardest part about it, is getting started, but once you’re on the road, you pretty much -have to- accept the fact that you’re going to end up soaked and cold.
From Floripa, we took the BR282 direction Lages… This is a pretty decent road, but the thing about rain is: visibility drops considerably, as so does the speed and one’s sense of humour. Well, we could only hope that the internet weather provisions were correct and that it would stop raining sometime during the day…
Almost halfway Lages we took the SC302 north, direction Rio do Sul… great twisty ride, and it stopped raining hard… Now it was just raining… When we were almost in Rio do Sul, the rain had stopped completely, so all in all we only had 3 hours of intense rain, which was enough to get our feet soaked. I managed to keep the rest of me dry, but Mariel’s rain gear didn’t seem to be completely watertight (made in Brazil ) so he got wet in more places than just his feet …
At one point we noticed a road block. Coming closer, we saw that the rising river had flooded the road… According to one guy there, the water was still on the rise (about 3 cm per minute)… Yay
As we were not really looking forward to spending the night there, I asked the MP’s (Military Police) if we were allowed to continue… he looked at us, said something like “looks like these bikes are high enough” and let us pass… I took the middle of the road and Mariel went to the side… The problem is, that any holes in the road are invisible, so it’s always kind of a gamble riding through mirky water like this without crossing it on foot first. turned out that Mariel had the shallow side and was laughing at me because the water almost got into my airfilter
A little further down the road, the same situation… Road block… Cars and trucks stopped… This time, one of the trucks on the other side of the flood made the crossing and that’s how we could see how deep it was. It looked ok, so we went for it again. This time, it was me who could laugh, because in the middle of the water Mariel’s engine died… Ok, I wasn’t really laughing, because, well… if the water got in the engine, it would mean being stuck there for some time.
We wanted to get to Fraiburgo by the end of the day, and the route I had chosen (on Google maps) the day before, would mean we only had to do a measly 370km that day. Of course, the rain had to ruin those plans… We would take the shortcut via Taió and Santa Cecilia, but in Taió we came across a sign saying that the dirt road to Santa Cecilia was closed… The rain of the past days had triggered a lot of landslides and according to local authorities, nothing could get through before the cleaning crew passed.
This meant that we had to backtrack 50km and then follow the BR470 for almost 200km (a major road with lots of trucks, and the wind was almost blowing us off the road, making things even more fun ). Getting to Fraiburgo was suddenly going to take us an extra 2 hours. Yay…
By the time we got to Fraiburgo, it was pitch dark and we were pretty tired after almost 12 hours on the road and so we headed straight to the RENAR hotel… A pretty chique (and pricy) place, that looks like it has been snatched off of a mountain somewhere in Switzerland and dropped in Brazil… Our friend Evandro had organized a motorcycle event there earlier this year and mentioning his name got us a serious discount on the room…:).
The hotel had sauna and (hot) swimming pool, which were a welcome treat after a day of rain, cold and wind…
After a good nights sleep in Fraiburgo’s most chique hotel, we were planning to get to the Serra do Rio do Rastro, the famous 8 km climb / descent linking the cities of Lauro Muller and Bom Jardim da Serra… The total distance between these two cities is actually about 35 km but the most interesting section, is the spectacular climb (or descent) with a collection of really tight switchbacks…
We rode out of Fraiburgo and took the road to Treze tillias, a small city that is also known as “the Brazilian Tirol”. The city was founded in the 1930′s by the former minister of agriculture of Austria.
They try to keep the Austrian culture alive with typical folklore festivities and wood sculpting. Treze +Tillias (Thirteen Lime trees) is home to various music, dance and singing groups, all typically Austrian or German. It was kind of weird to see so many german names on the shop signs… Apart from German and Austrian Immigrants, the region was also inhabited by Italian people. The route we took was a part of the “Rota da Amizade“.
The weather continued to be against us: cold, misty and some rain once in a while. The good thing was, that it didn’t rain hard enough to get us wet, but it sure reduces the chances of taking nice pictures…
By the time we arrived in Bom Jardim da Serra, it was around 5 pm so I thought that we could just as well descent the Serra to Lauro Muller and find a place for the night there, but about 2 km before the start of the descent, we found the road blocked by the firefighters, who were removing mud from the road… indicating that it had been raining really hard here not too long ago
After the firefighters cleared the road, we continued towards the descent, not knowing that from one second to the other, we would be engulfed in a white hell of mist, rain and cold, which made our descent not only very wet and unpleasant, but also kind of dangerous, as we literally couldn’t see 10m in front of us.
In a few places, where the water would usually drip down from the steep walls, we literally had to ride through waterfalls that changed the road into a raging river.
Another danger were falling rocks. We noticed several pretty big ones on the road… When water comes down from a mountain wall like that, it can take loose rocks with it, that can hit you on the head or cause serious damage to your vehicle. Maybe it had been a better idea not to ride down in these conditions, but we made it in one piece.
Once down in Lauro Muller, the rain was a lot less, and we were very frustrated that we had especially changed our route to arrive at the Serra with good weather, only to find our descent ruined by the poorest conditions ever. We continued on to the next city (Orleans – which sounds kinda French ), where we found a hotel to get warm and try to dry out for the next day.
the next greeted us with open, blue skies and a brilliant sun, so instead of going straight north, we decided to backtrack, ride up the Serra again and make our way to Blumenau via Urubici. This would mean we would have to ride 100km more than when we would take the direct route, but we just couldn’t pass up on the chance to see the serra do Rio do Rastro with open weather.
We headed back to the city of Lauro Muller, the city at the foot of the Serra do Rio do Rastro, and from there, continued on toward the twisty road that would take us back up to Bom Jardim da serra, 1200m higher.
I had seen some pictures of this Serra before and it really looked spectacular, but nothing compares to riding up there yourself. The great thing about being on a motorcycle, is that you can virtually stop everywhere to soak up the view.
After an awesome ride up the serra, we continued on to Urubici, and.it didn’t take long before we could put on our rain gear again. Of course, when we left the hotel that morning, we were at an altitude of 200m and after climbing the Serra it was back to 1400m, which translated in a totally different weather situation.
In Urubici, we had some lunch and decided to check out the “Pedra Furada”, a rock with a huge hole in it, which is one of the major natural attractions of the region, so we took the road leading east and up to the Serra do Corvo Branco… Of course we missed the sign leading to the Morro da Igreja, from where you can see the Pedra Furada, and ended up on top of the serra do Corvo Branco, from where the view wasn’t bad at all either.
About halfway back to Urubici, we found the correct road to the morro da Igreja (alt. 1800m) that we missed on the way up, only to find out that there was no way to see the Pedra Furada due to the (again) heavy mist… Well, the only thing we gained was more kms to our route that day… An easy 250 km ride to Blumenau became 430 km.
On our way to Blumenau, we took an inside road, leading north from the BR282 passing via “Angelina” and “major Gercino”. This was a dirt road, and to make things interesting, a little after leaving Urubici, it had started raining again... Swell. As expected, the section of dirt road was pretty slippery, and made us slow down significantly. Luckily, the last 20 km that were also marked as dirt road in my GPS had been asphalted.
However, to get to Blumenau we had to go through the city of Brusque at dusk and rush hour, which was probably the worst time to pass through there because of the traffic jams, and this resulted in us arriving in Blumenau only around 7.30pm… pitch dark of course… This was another city that we weren’t going to be able to explore a little more…
We passed via Joinville to Curitiba and took the BR116 from there. This section of the BR116 (between Curitiba and São Paulo) is known as the “Rodovia da Morte” (highway of death), which is kind of a scary name, but I have to say that apart from the road not being in top shape, I didn’t really feel like this road was any more dangerous than any other road in Brazil. In fact, I found the first 150 km from Curitiba to Jacupiranga to be very scenic, especially where the road passes the Environmental Protection Area of Guaraqueçaba…
On Wikipedia, I read that the reason for the name “highway of death” is that it is the road with the highest indice of mortal accidents in Brazil (Duh ). Also, there’s a +/- 40 km section between Miracatu e Juquitiba, known as “Serra do Cafezal”, that is still not duplicated. I suppose that’s where most of the accidents happen..
The BR116 is one of the most important connections between the South east and the South, and a lot of the traffic are heavy trucks… We also passed a few sections with road works and those are always more dangerous and subject to traffic jams and accidents.
The worst part of the day, however, was passing the city of São Paulo. Although a little more disciplined than in Rio de Janeiro, the friday evening traffic was still pretty horrible, and the fact that it was getting dark, wasn’t helping a lot…
Anyways, around 10pm we reached Volta Redonda after about 4000km in 10 days (7 real riding days)
Here is an image of our (approximate) route in Googlemaps… Unfortunately, the real link was too long and wouldn’t process.
I hope you enjoyed this ride report.Unfavorable weather conditions and lack of more time prevented us from going further south into Rio Grande do sul, but that is a trip we can do on another occasion.
Thanks for reading. (I know this is kind of a long one )
The south of Brazil has been populated in particular by people coming from different parts of Europe, and that had a significant influence on the region. For me, it was one of the lesser known parts of the country, so I decided to take a 10 day trip to get more familiar with “Brazil Down Under”
Day 1: Campinas
Our first Gas stop on the BR116 on our way to campinas - there would be about 20 of these stops on this trip
The ride itself wasn’t all that exiting since we stayed on the main roads (the BR116 and the SP065) Only a strong head wind, that tried to blow us off the road, made things a little more interesting.
The weather gradually changed for the worse and by the time we were almost in Campinas, we saw the first rain. Things also started to get really chilly…
We arrived after about 400km at the house of our good friend Alexandre, where we spent the first night. Before going to bed however, we went out for something to eat in Ponto1 BAR, the oldest bar in the Barao Geraldo neighborhood of Campinas, famous for its great food and live music. We even enjoyed a Belgian beer with our food, so our first night was perfect .
Day 2: “Pisteiros” headquartes – Campinas.
Pisteiros - Brazil's motorcyclists community (www.pisteiros.com.br)
Evandro created a place where all passers-by on motorcycles, touring South America and looking for a place to crash for a couple of days, are always welcome. The reception is fabulous (like in most places in Brazil) and Evandro has everything you need to get your batteries recharged…a bed, wifi… the works.
Evandro also showed us his brand new site. The English version of the Pisteiros site, which was in Portuguese (Duh). I would call it “Pisteiros for Gringos”. Anybody interested in Adventure riding with a focus on Brazil is more than welcome to sign up on the new site.
Day 3: Morretes
Somewhere on the Perfect São Paulo roads on our way south
Evandro was joining (and guiding) usthat day, since he was going to meet up with a few riders and do a tour around the south as well.
The weather channel was not really promising a good day… rain and cold, but to our enjoyment it was “only” cold. The sky was blue most of the day and we were able to make good progress on the close-to-perfect roads of São Paulo State. Interesting detail: it seems that on many of São Paulo’s “secondary” highways, motorcycles don’t have to pay at toll booths.
Other than that, I have to say that I found most of the roads and scenery in that part of the state of São Paulo kind of “bleak”, compared to what I’m used to in other parts of Brazil, but hey, it cannot be spectacular all the time, right?
Once in the State of Parana, the roads became more twisty and views turned a little more interesting. At one point we drove through an area that was hit by a flash flood two days earlier, due to 72 hours of torrential rain, and the signs of devastation were still very much visible in the landscape around the river.
The Ribeira river rose 13m two days earlier, destroying several houses on its banks... Notice the debris on the lightposts, left by the flood .
Our place for the night was Pousada Dona Laura, A very nice place in the historical center of Morretes, recently resored and for about 60R$ per person…
Day 4 ( 5, 6 and 7): Florianópolis
Floripa's "Golden Gate Bridge": No longer in use and very beautiful at night, when it is all illuminated. Due to weather conditions, I couldn't get a good picture of the bridge at night.
We wanted to get to Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina State. On the way there, we would als pay a visit to our friend Mike in Piçarras, who is moving back to the States in a few months..
We basically stayed on the main road south and between Curitiba and Joinville, going down to sea level again, we ran into a couple of traffic jams, several kms long… Traffic was not moving at all and many people were having a pick-nick on the spot, indicating that they hadn’t been moving for some time.
Of course, being on motorcycles, we didn’t wait in line, but zig-zagged our way through the rows of vehicles, expecting to see some big accident in front of the line, but there was only ONE truck that had broken down and caused this whole mess…
On the way down the serra, we did see a few seriously mangled remains of trucks that obviously never made it to their destinations…
A street artist at work in Floripa. He told me he was restoring his work and it would take him about three months to finish the whole wall.
Well… the coffee was great, and the chat even more, so we ended up talking for a few hours and then, we had to do the final 130 km to Floripa in the dark… which wasn’t too bad. I did notice however, that people in this part of Brazil seem to drive a lot faster than what I’m used to… kinda like in Germany?
Evandro had told us about this cool hostel in Floripa (Sunset Backpackers Hostel), and it was about 7.30pm when we arrived there. We checked in, had some dinner and called it a night…
Evandro was right about the hostel… It IS a very nice place. Clean, rooms with view on the lagoa, pool, free internet, Wifi… and close to a very popular surfing beach (praia mole). Price is 30BRL per person – incl. breakfast.
The big villas in "Jureré Internacional", Brazil's equivalent of Beverly Hills and one of the attractions on Florianópolis.
Florianópolis, apart from being the state capital (did I mention that earlier?) is a place where a lot of rich and famous Brazilians live. On the north side of the island there’s a neighborhood called “jurere internacional” - known as “the Beverly Hills of Brazil” – and yeah, the houses are HUGE there, compared to what I’ve seen so far in Brazil.
FLoripa, sometimes referred to as “the magic island”, is a popular vacation destination for people from Curitiba but also Argentinians like to spend their vacation here… There are many great beaches all around the island and the roads are in good to very good condition. There is even an airport on the island…
Sunset over the Lagoa de Conceição - our view from the Sunset Backpackers Hostel
). When driving around, you hardly get to go faster than 40-50 km/h and especially in the north, around the lagoa da conceição the traffic jam never stops…We visited the island in the off-season, and the locals told me that during the summer months it’s faster to walk than to take your car to get somewhere… Looks like it is time for the local authorities to take some action to improve this situation…
Otherwise Florianópolis is a great place for people who want to spend their vacation in a place with beautiful nature but everything else (airport, shopping, big city…) close by. It looks like a perfect place for surfers too, although I am far from an expert in that area
After two days of exploring the Magical Island in the south of Brazil, we were planning to continue our tour of Santa Catarina, but bad weather made us decide to stay put for one more day. Always amazing how much a place changes when it starts to rain.
Day 7: Fraiburgo.
Our original plan to ride south from Floripa and up the Serra do Rio do Rastro (THE highlight of our trip) got changed by the weather provisions. According to the BR-weather forecast, it would keep raining for two days, but after that, it would turn for the better… We figured that we could ride west first, and aim to arrive at the Serra do Rio do Rastro when the weather would be good. How does that sound for a plan?Despite not only rain, but also pretty heavy winds, we rode out of Florianopolis and our rain gear was tested to the limit. The hardest part about it, is getting started, but once you’re on the road, you pretty much -have to- accept the fact that you’re going to end up soaked and cold.
A common sight that day... flooded areas due to the heavy rains of the past couple of days
Almost halfway Lages we took the SC302 north, direction Rio do Sul… great twisty ride, and it stopped raining hard… Now it was just raining… When we were almost in Rio do Sul, the rain had stopped completely, so all in all we only had 3 hours of intense rain, which was enough to get our feet soaked. I managed to keep the rest of me dry, but Mariel’s rain gear didn’t seem to be completely watertight (made in Brazil ) so he got wet in more places than just his feet …
At one point we noticed a road block. Coming closer, we saw that the rising river had flooded the road… According to one guy there, the water was still on the rise (about 3 cm per minute)… Yay
As we were not really looking forward to spending the night there, I asked the MP’s (Military Police) if we were allowed to continue… he looked at us, said something like “looks like these bikes are high enough” and let us pass… I took the middle of the road and Mariel went to the side… The problem is, that any holes in the road are invisible, so it’s always kind of a gamble riding through mirky water like this without crossing it on foot first. turned out that Mariel had the shallow side and was laughing at me because the water almost got into my airfilter
The Landscape on the road to Rio do Sul - Santa Catarina. The sky started to open up a bit, but not for long...
We wanted to get to Fraiburgo by the end of the day, and the route I had chosen (on Google maps) the day before, would mean we only had to do a measly 370km that day. Of course, the rain had to ruin those plans… We would take the shortcut via Taió and Santa Cecilia, but in Taió we came across a sign saying that the dirt road to Santa Cecilia was closed… The rain of the past days had triggered a lot of landslides and according to local authorities, nothing could get through before the cleaning crew passed.
The yellow sign telling us that the road was closed... no choice than to turn back and add 200km to our trajectory to get to Fraiburgo.
By the time we got to Fraiburgo, it was pitch dark and we were pretty tired after almost 12 hours on the road and so we headed straight to the RENAR hotel… A pretty chique (and pricy) place, that looks like it has been snatched off of a mountain somewhere in Switzerland and dropped in Brazil… Our friend Evandro had organized a motorcycle event there earlier this year and mentioning his name got us a serious discount on the room…:).
The hotel had sauna and (hot) swimming pool, which were a welcome treat after a day of rain, cold and wind…
Day 8: The Serra do Rio do Rastro
After a good nights sleep in Fraiburgo’s most chique hotel, we were planning to get to the Serra do Rio do Rastro, the famous 8 km climb / descent linking the cities of Lauro Muller and Bom Jardim da Serra… The total distance between these two cities is actually about 35 km but the most interesting section, is the spectacular climb (or descent) with a collection of really tight switchbacks…We rode out of Fraiburgo and took the road to Treze tillias, a small city that is also known as “the Brazilian Tirol”. The city was founded in the 1930′s by the former minister of agriculture of Austria.
They try to keep the Austrian culture alive with typical folklore festivities and wood sculpting. Treze +Tillias (Thirteen Lime trees) is home to various music, dance and singing groups, all typically Austrian or German. It was kind of weird to see so many german names on the shop signs… Apart from German and Austrian Immigrants, the region was also inhabited by Italian people. The route we took was a part of the “Rota da Amizade“.
The weather continued to be against us: cold, misty and some rain once in a while. The good thing was, that it didn’t rain hard enough to get us wet, but it sure reduces the chances of taking nice pictures…
By the time we arrived in Bom Jardim da Serra, it was around 5 pm so I thought that we could just as well descent the Serra to Lauro Muller and find a place for the night there, but about 2 km before the start of the descent, we found the road blocked by the firefighters, who were removing mud from the road… indicating that it had been raining really hard here not too long ago
Bombeiros cleaning up the mud after the rain...
In a few places, where the water would usually drip down from the steep walls, we literally had to ride through waterfalls that changed the road into a raging river.
Another danger were falling rocks. We noticed several pretty big ones on the road… When water comes down from a mountain wall like that, it can take loose rocks with it, that can hit you on the head or cause serious damage to your vehicle. Maybe it had been a better idea not to ride down in these conditions, but we made it in one piece.
Once down in Lauro Muller, the rain was a lot less, and we were very frustrated that we had especially changed our route to arrive at the Serra with good weather, only to find our descent ruined by the poorest conditions ever. We continued on to the next city (Orleans – which sounds kinda French ), where we found a hotel to get warm and try to dry out for the next day.
Day 9: Blumenau
Lauro Muller the next morning. The Serra do Rio do Rastro in the background.
We headed back to the city of Lauro Muller, the city at the foot of the Serra do Rio do Rastro, and from there, continued on toward the twisty road that would take us back up to Bom Jardim da serra, 1200m higher.
I had seen some pictures of this Serra before and it really looked spectacular, but nothing compares to riding up there yourself. The great thing about being on a motorcycle, is that you can virtually stop everywhere to soak up the view.
Serra do Rio do Rastro - Around 1000m (cloud level). Some curves are so tight that trucks have to maneuver back and forth several times to pass them. Getting stuck behind one of them obviously doesn't make a ride up or down the serra very pleasant.
At the summit of the Serra (alt. 1.450m). The clouds only make it look more real.
In Urubici, we had some lunch and decided to check out the “Pedra Furada”, a rock with a huge hole in it, which is one of the major natural attractions of the region, so we took the road leading east and up to the Serra do Corvo Branco… Of course we missed the sign leading to the Morro da Igreja, from where you can see the Pedra Furada, and ended up on top of the serra do Corvo Branco, from where the view wasn’t bad at all either.
About halfway back to Urubici, we found the correct road to the morro da Igreja (alt. 1800m) that we missed on the way up, only to find out that there was no way to see the Pedra Furada due to the (again) heavy mist… Well, the only thing we gained was more kms to our route that day… An easy 250 km ride to Blumenau became 430 km.
Serra do Corvo Branco near Urubici... We were actually looking for the Pedra Furada, but due to heavy mist, this landmark was invisible...
However, to get to Blumenau we had to go through the city of Brusque at dusk and rush hour, which was probably the worst time to pass through there because of the traffic jams, and this resulted in us arriving in Blumenau only around 7.30pm… pitch dark of course… This was another city that we weren’t going to be able to explore a little more…
Day 10: Back home
Normally we would have taken the road along the coast to get back home, spending one more night near Santos, but In the morning, Mariel noticed that his front shocks were leaking some oil. We decided to head home and do the remaining +/- 950 km to Volta Redonda in one go.We passed via Joinville to Curitiba and took the BR116 from there. This section of the BR116 (between Curitiba and São Paulo) is known as the “Rodovia da Morte” (highway of death), which is kind of a scary name, but I have to say that apart from the road not being in top shape, I didn’t really feel like this road was any more dangerous than any other road in Brazil. In fact, I found the first 150 km from Curitiba to Jacupiranga to be very scenic, especially where the road passes the Environmental Protection Area of Guaraqueçaba…
On Wikipedia, I read that the reason for the name “highway of death” is that it is the road with the highest indice of mortal accidents in Brazil (Duh ). Also, there’s a +/- 40 km section between Miracatu e Juquitiba, known as “Serra do Cafezal”, that is still not duplicated. I suppose that’s where most of the accidents happen..
The BR116 is one of the most important connections between the South east and the South, and a lot of the traffic are heavy trucks… We also passed a few sections with road works and those are always more dangerous and subject to traffic jams and accidents.
The worst part of the day, however, was passing the city of São Paulo. Although a little more disciplined than in Rio de Janeiro, the friday evening traffic was still pretty horrible, and the fact that it was getting dark, wasn’t helping a lot…
Anyways, around 10pm we reached Volta Redonda after about 4000km in 10 days (7 real riding days)
Here is an image of our (approximate) route in Googlemaps… Unfortunately, the real link was too long and wouldn’t process.
I hope you enjoyed this ride report.Unfavorable weather conditions and lack of more time prevented us from going further south into Rio Grande do sul, but that is a trip we can do on another occasion.
Thanks for reading. (I know this is kind of a long one
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