This is the way to Sao Paulo....

and on to Foz do Iguacu

Hi….my name is Merryl and I’m a mother and grandmother who wants everyone to know the energetic wonder of eating living foods.

Fresh fruit breakfasts at hotels were going to be my saving grace. I filled myself on fruit and juice and my bottles with water, ignoring admonitions to fuel up on ham and cheese buns.

I was proud that I had cycled 61 kilometres from Copacabana to Nova Iguacu and not a muscle in my body ached the following morning.

This day we were to cycle 62 kilometres to Pirai. Great start again on beautiful cycle paths that disappeared as we entered market towns crowded with people and vehicles on busy shop-lined streets. We stopped to eat and all I could find in the restaurant, that was vegetarian, were some sort of peanut butter squares. Patrick ate his ham and cheese pastries and drank his 2 litre coke.

Shortly after that break Patrick had to figure out a route because cyclists were not allowed on the motorway. Some gentlemen saw us and came out to help with advice. Being unable to communicate the convoluted route to us, one of the gents hopped onto his motorcycle and led us through the village.

He then stopped and pointed towards the motorway and banged on his shoulder. I assumed he was telling us that the motorway had a good shoulder.

Patrick however, had something on his map app telling him that there was no way cyclists could do that section of the motorway. Thus we went in the opposite direction much to the consternation of our self-appointed director.

To my delight that was the best section of cycling I had encountered so far. The route took us into the countryside on a dirt track. The track was hard and fairly smooth. Glad that it was dry — mud would have been slippery. How I loved cycling in the quiet with only the sound of beetles. Green hills on either side with grazing cattle. It was idyllic. I felt at home and so happy. It reminded me of my childhood in Africa. This was what I imagined cycling through Brazil would be like.

The track came out onto a road and that led to the motorway that we could now use. The shoulder was good and the kilometres passed rapidly beneath our wheels. The trucks were relentless with their hot exhaust emissions and roaring engines. When the motorway crossed a bridge the shoulder would fall away and we would just slip in front of a truck and hope not to become roadkill.

A filling station with a vast expanse of concrete was our lunch stop and we sat in a strip of shade outside an Acai-berry Expresso that sells 42 different flavours of Acai berry sorbet…. all natural, all fruit and water. Patrick went across to the other place to buy more pies and coke rather. While he was away I had a wonderful conversation with a local lad who explained all about Acai berry Expresso and the journey he was on and asked what we were doing. Patrick returned with a chicken pie for me which I discarded surreptitiously while he snoozed. I ate the clementines I had saved from breakfast.

We had covered 40 kilometres and I was well pleased until I saw that the next 20 kilometres were to take us to an elevation of 690m (as high as Christ the Redeemer). Not only that, but there was no shoulder shortly after the steep incline started. I was hot and tired and had no energy to tackle this mountain with these massive trucks rolling right beside me. Sometimes two abreast with no place to give me more than a hairs breadth of space.

Patrick told me he’d go on to the garage ahead and see if the shoulder started after that. Waiting beside the barrier just after a slip road fed onto the motorway was putting me and the bike at huge risk so I hopped over the barrier and pushed the bike from that side, the 100 metres to the garage.

Nobody could tell us if there was a shoulder further along. I was desperate and walked around begging for a lift up the mountain to Pirai in vain. Eventually there was nothing for it but to get on the bike and stop wasting time. My angels were there for me! Not long after getting back on the road the trucks began to crawl at a very slow rate. There were roadworks ahead and the two lanes were feeding into one. We could actually ride abreast on the road between two trucks. And how welcome was their shadow in the afternoon heat!

Very late in the afternoon the two lanes were open again and the shoulder was gone. My nerve and my energy were totally depleted and there I stood rooted to the last piece of shoulder refusing to cycle with the HGVs bearing down on me. Poor Patrick was beyond frustrated and could think of no way to get me on the road.

As I stood there I noticed a concrete barrier on the other side of the road. Trucks that were involved in the roadworks were coming along that section in the opposite direction very occasionally. I pointed this out to Patrick and suggested we ride on that section. The challenge was to cross the two lanes of traffic. We did it to gain the prize! For the remainder of the afternoon we had a private cycle path to use, just pulling over now and then to let the odd roadworks truck pass by. By this time I was walking a lot and gave new meaning to the term pushbike.

As the day came to an end so we reached the end camp of the roadworks and no further barrier lane. I tried to get a ride on one of the three buses that were filling up with the labourers — no luck. I tried to beg a spot to camp there beside their works buildings — no luck. Once more we had to cross to the righthand side and cycle on the “shoulderless” motorway. I persevered until darkness fell as we reached a roadside market stall. I dallied there holding out a thumb hoping some trucker would take pity on me and pull off to toss my bike into the back and load me up. But the only vehicles that pulled off had boiling engines and needed to be loaded themselves onto a recovery vehicle.

I walked a grassy verge for a while until that disappeared and up ahead I saw an electric light beside the dark road. Opposite it, on my side of the road, was an arb rustic bench under a tree. I propped the bike against the tree and plonked myself on the bench. I was cheerful. I was wide awake. But I refused to go another meter of that motorway in the dark with the big lorries. Here I would sit till morning light … or until the truckers had all stopped for the night.

I’m not sure how long we sat watching the endless stream of vehicles in the dark. Patrick did eventually persuade me to push my bike the last 1500m to the top of the pass. After that he said it would be a 10k downhill into Pirai with a clean shower and white sheets.

Metres after starting out on the dark busy highway, there was a comfortable wide shoulder to the road and I had the confidence to place my derriere back on the saddle and push those pedals to the top. We were rewarded with a coffee shop and backpackers. Yes, I would be happy to get a bed there, I assured Patrick. And a kind strapping lad carried my bike up the flight of stairs to the dormitory room. I showered with bits of black gunk falling from the showerhead onto my body. Nothing available to eat — I was too tired to be hungry anyway. Patrick devoured a pile of chocolate bars.

And so ended my fourth day of cycling in Brazil. We had cycled 55 kilometres and done an elevation of 690m.

Live well and find the happy,

Merryl @ GreenSmoothie.com

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P.S. A young man carried my bike up to the backpackers dormitory.

The kindness of strangers is one of the blessings of travel.

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