Day 18 - 23 Dec.2011 - Martinhos

This time we did not find the Pousada “Recanto do Sossego” in our guide Quatro Rodas but just followed a suggestion made by our TomTom. We should have consulted our guide as the pousada was so far the most expensive place we stayed with the worst breakfast we had. We are not sure if this because everything in and around São Paulo is just more expensive or if we were really just unlucky. On our way we stopped at a local train station in Louveira. It is a rare sight in Brazil as busses do most of the public transport. This was a very beautiful strain station from the beginning of the last century, even with Christmas decoration, however, nothing compares to the train station in Taormina ;-).
We took the São Paulo ring road with 4 lanes on each side, which they even call Autoban (without ‘h’) here. The Autoban was very busy this morning. It definitely gives you the impression that you are approaching the economic heart of Brazil. Here it is strongly visible that Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies among India and China.
We left the ring road and followed the Rodovia Régis Bittencourt direction Curitiba. Along the way we stopped for a pit stop to buy some coconut water. The local facilities were really only recommended for urgent desperate business needs, otherwise they are better to be avoided. From Curitiba we drove from the high plateau down to the sea level. It is quite a spectacular road down the mountains. We stopped in Martinhos for the night and found a lovely pousada called Castelinho – Little Castle. We had a room with a massive private veranda with sea view. The veranda definitely sold it to us and we immediately got the idea to order some take-away and have our own private dinner up there. Once again, we bitterly paid for it two days later when we realised that we were bitten by some small flies similar to the one we had seen in Bolivia. At first you don’t feel tat they were biting you, only some days later we were scratching all or bites like mad.