Bouncing Out of Passos (4 August, 2014, 22:14, Passos, Brazil)

4 August, 2014, 22:14, Passos, Brazil

Today was a long, but stunningly beautiful day. It started at 7:30 am, when our tour guide came to pick us up at the apartment.  He came bouncing up the road in a white jeep and he had the look of someone who is curious about the world, but in an outdoorsy kind of way. He wore a worn baseball cap, had well-trimmed facial hair, a nubby green sweater and his eyes wore a look of adventure behind his gold, wire framed glasses. After helping us load our stuff into the jeep – our towels, snacks and water bottles – we climbed into the jeep that we would spend the better part of 12 hours in. We bounced through, Passos, out of Passos and into the countryside that was yawning awake with the already white light of morning. 

Morning haze over the countryside outside of Passos

We bounced over the river, past fields of sunflowers (which were used for bio-diesel), through patches of eucalyptus trees that were brought here by the Australians and soon found ourselves gaping in awe at the impressive mountains and plateaus that stretched before us. Our guide explained how the government owned the land and shared it with the farmers, or maybe they split it (I don’t remember 100%), but there was tension to who exactly owns what.  As our jeep bounced higher and higher, he explained how one side of the mountain is good, fairly fertile soil and on the other side is a type of rock that is only found in Brazil and India. (I have to look this up when I get home, they kept saying something with “quartz” in the name, but it isn’t quartz – didn’t look like it and quartz is found everywhere.)

Sunflowers used for bio-diesel

Various trees are throughout the park

As we rode through the park, it was different in some areas, but it was hard to keep track of what was what area to the untrained eye ( at least in terms of the soil he was talking about). 

Well, I fell asleep last night writing this and am now about to head out for a boat tour of a hydroelectric dam and geology here in Passos…write more later….