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The next morning we could see just how busy the restaurant gets as we were slowly being boxed in by trucks. We were using the computer because we had electricity and then a sprinkler started hitting our windows. The large car park is very dusty so they water it down to try and stop all the dust from the trucks driving in here.
The main traffic started turning up for lunch from 11am so we needed to pack up and leave. When we went for our buffet lunch yesterday we wondered why they needed 7 waiters. Now we know! A huge amount of truckers stop here.
We set off south on the BR101 again and realised that lunch time is a really good time to drive - far fewer heavy trucks because the drivers are having lunch!! We got off the highway and took an 8km long cobblestone road to get to a lovely little village called Guarda Do Embaú. I imagine this place would get absolutely packed in the summer months and there's not much parking.
The draw is the beach - two of them separated by an inlet that you can wade through to get to the other beach on the ocean or take a boat across Venice-style with a man using a pole to push the boat across. Another major draw are the waves for surfers and quite a few of them were out tackling the waves.
We walked along a path and uphill for great views over the bay and on the way back, in the village, met Valentina who was selling home-made bread and both savoury and sweet pasties out of a basket on her bicycle. We certainly needed to support her entrepreneurial skills. Everything tasted really good.
Praia Da Guarda Do Embaú
After stopping at a petrol station to use the internet and watch Bayern lose to Real Madrid in the semi finals of the Champions League, we drove to Garopaba but didn't make it in daylight. We stayed the night and then went for walks along the beach and into the small town the following day.
We had a quick stop at a beach in Ferrugem where numerous surfers were testing their skills in the surf. Then we went to Praia do Rosa, another really lovely beach. We also walked uphill to get to the headland and great views of the coast. Unfortunately the last 2km of the road to get there was very bad gravel - steep, with lots of potholes and too narrow for two cars to pass in places. We stayed overnight and the next morning a grader came along and flattened the whole road our for us! It was still steep but a lot easier for us to drive out!
Our next destination was a road called the Serra do Rio do Rastro. We had heard that it is a spectacular serpentine road and it certainly lived up to our expectations. The first part was along a valley heading inland but obviously no less dangerous as we passed an overturned lorry on the way!
But the real adventure is the last 8 miles. The road was built in 1903 and has a total of 284 bends and ascends 1,400m to the top where there is a large restaurant, parking area and viewpoint. Our GPS showed lots of "squiggly bits" and even I had to be careful going around the bends as Winnietwo has quite a long wheelbase and I needed to swerve out slightly before taking the bends.
There was an unbelievable number of trucks on the road - they really slowed the traffic down but then there were lots of drivers trying to overtake them which makes driving this road very dangerous. The average gradient is 9.2% but the final part was so steep I could only go up in first gear. Some of the trucks had difficulty getting around the bends and there were several times when they came over onto our side of the road as we approached a corner.
We stopped at a viewpoint almost at the top and Kirsten got out for photos. I stayed with Winnietwo because we were parked on such a steep slope I needed to be around in case the brakes didn't hold!! I was concentrating so hard on the driving that it was only when we stopped at the top and checked out the viewpoint that I realised what a spectacular road it is.
That was quite a ride!! We got to the top at 4pm and our original plan had been to drive back down to the coast for one last night before going to the balloon festival. But once we'd checked out the awesome view we realised we'd have to leave straight away. We would need at least 90 minutes to get back down in 1st gear to save our brakes and we would be hard pushed to get down in daylight.
So we decided to stay on the car park for the night. I went out at about 7pm to take a look from the viewpoint - WOW!!! The road was lit up. It looked like a magical scar in the mountainside. I quickly went back and told Kirsten "You have to come and take a look at this!"
It was not only fascinating to watch the trucks and cars coming up but it also lead to our next adventure. We wanted to get back down to the highest viewpoint for a better look but there's nowhere for Winnietwo to turn around so we drove to a restaurant about 700m away from the viewpoint and set off on foot.
We weren't really prepared - we had bought a torch with us but had only our house shoes on. There wasn't a pedestrian path and only the two lanes for traffic driving in each direction. There wasn't much space at all and on top of that there were sections of the road that weren't lit. So we ended up running along the dark stretches when there was a break in the traffic and trying to get to the lighter spots!
On the internet this road is described as "a ludicrously zigzagged route." What was really ludicrous was the two of us running at full tilt down very dark stretches of narrow road in house shoes with only a torch and camera trying to avoid heavy trucks bearing down on us!! Somehow we managed to get to the viewpoint unscathed.
We spent almost an hour watching huge trucks having to do three and five point turns to get around the sharp bends! They are far too big to drive along this road - reversing on bends, backwards and forwards, to get around them??? That's ridiculous and dangerous! There were also places where two trucks barely had enough space to pass each other. All of that meant it was fascinating to watch. Then we had to run again, this time steeply uphill in the dark sections, to get back to Winnietwo. That was a real adventure!
The next morning we got woken up at 6-15am by lots of cars arriving, banging their doors shut and lots of people around. One look out of the window and we realised why - a great sunrise! We're so high up that it's a really good spot. No wonder everyone turned up. Good job otherwise we would have slept right through it!
After watching our football team win in a nail biting match we went back to the viewpoint for more photos. We'd seen a large poster with a great shot of all the zigzag bends on the road so we set off in search of the place where the photo must have been taken. We walked along the tops, over grassy and rocky areas, further down the road, past the viewpoint we'd been to last night and even further down the road. To no avail! The poster photo must have been taken by a drone!!
The whole thing took ages of course. We even met two cyclists who were almost at the top - three hours to cycle it. Obviously others are just as fascinated with this road as we are!
It was after 3pm by the time we finally took our leave and set off to negotiate the downhill route in first gear. We were stuck between two trucks who were as slow as we were so at least we didn't get any complaints from the car drivers behind.
Serra do Rio do Rastro
It took us 50 minutes to get back down and, after a quick photo stop at a church, headed to Laguna on the coast. We only just got there as it was getting dark even though we turned right too soon and ended up having to negotiate a really tight left hand bend! It was dark by the time we parked up at a promontory.
We got up early the next morning again to go out and see the bottle-nose dolphins in the bay and a long line of fishermen waiting to throw out their nets. On our way out we went to see the church and other older buildings in the town centre.
Bottle-nose dolphins in Laguna
We queued up for a ferry for over 30 minutes and Kirsten went to take a look at other vehicles getting on and off. A number of cars were ditching as they got onto the ferry ramp and scraping the underside of their vehicles! We didn't want that so Kirsten started collecting some rocks and pieces of wood that we could use for when it was our turn to board.
One of the ferry employees directing traffic onto the ferry didn't want us to use any of our rocks and wood pieces but Kirsten laid them out anyway. We weren't going to damage our motor home thank you very much!!
Ferry in Laguna
The 10 minute ferry journey only cost 13 R$ ($4) but saved us an extremely long road journey to get around to the other side to see the Farol de Santa Marta, a lighthouse built in 1891. It was extremely popular because it was a Sunday and really nice weather. We got lucky and managed to find a parking space.
We only spent 20 minutes at the lighthouse because we were trying to get to Torres for the balloon festival. The festival started two days ago on the Friday but we'd taken longer than expected to see everything along the way. We could have spent a lot more time but had put ourselves under time pressure. Anyway, we had an unexpected stop on our way south - another old-timer show. We pulled over to take a look at mainly VW beetles but there were older cars indoors at a shopping mall.
Finally we headed into Torres but that comes in the next report.
