Prata, Brasil

 I’m well into the tropics, four hundred miles or so. Pineapple and orange orchards are now mixed in with the pastures of cattle and fields of corn and soy beans. The temperatures have yet to turn cruel, partially helped with patches of clouds. I express great relief and gratitude for each day I don’t feel as if I’m melting on the bike or have to worry about running low on water in my tent or get up before dawn to beat the heat.

I’m still on the road usually by seven, over an hour after the sun has risen.  From the very first pedal stroke it’s hard not to start anticipating the next extravagant luncheon buffet and what different food it might offer.  Along with the food I know there will be WiFi and electricity, sometimes with a shelf for people to place their phones and a row of sockets.  The service stations with their adjoining restaurants provide me with three of my essentials along with a great feed—water, WiFi and electricity.  They make these travels much easier than I anticipated.  

The only challenge, besides the unrelenting hills and finding a place to camp, is finding a grocery store.  The highway just touches the fringe of most towns.  Supermarkets are rarely out along the road, but placed more centrally located for the locals, so I have to leave the road in search of one.  With the food available at the service stations, I can go a day or two without replenishing my basics—bread, bananas, ramen, yogurt, peas, sardines.

The buffets can provide me with food for the day.  I’m always happy to heap my plate with potato salad and whatever egg dish and pasta there might be. One of the greatest buffet items was a bin full of hard-boiled eggs cut in half smothered in a sauce.  I couldn’t get enough of those calorie-rich morsels.  The greatest taste bud dazzler so far has been a rich fruity sweet sauce.  After my first taste I was sorry I hadn’t covered my plate with it.  

Nothing has satisfied me as much though as the thick freshly squeezed mango juice at my last hotel breakfast.  If ever something deserved to be called “to die for,” this  was it. I drank several glass fulls and then filled my water bottle for the road.  I savored ever sip. Not only was it beyond delicious, it provided an amazing amount of energy.  I haven’t minded in the least that the juice has left a lingering taste in all the water I’ve put in the bottle since.  I can thank the ants for driving me from my campsite to the motel that had it as part of its breakfast spread.

The worst lingering effect of my two ant attacks is that I’m now leery about camping, which is one of the great joys of bike touring. I was prepared to stay in a motel the next night until I had a flat tire an hour before dark, ten miles to the motel.  I was lucky I was that there was a rare dirt road nearby so I didn’t have to make my repair along the busy highway with an 18-wheeler roaring past every minute.  And lucky too that there was a patch of woods right there as a place to retreat to if I didn’t make a hasty repair.  

My slow leak of the day before, my first flat of these travels, was thanks to a fragment of wire such as I suffered all too often in Senegal.  This one was more serious. The wire bead had worn through, partially due to my prying the tire off the day before.  Fortunately I had a few dollar bills in reserved, a thickly threaded slip of paper that can insulate a tube from exposed wires.  I folded it several times and inserted it beaten the rupture and the tube, knowing that can last a long time, hopefully until I reach Brasilia, 400 miles away.  This extra effort put me closer to dark than I wanted to be. 

I was tempted to ride to the motel in the waning light since the road had a nice wide shoulder, but rain was imminent and riding in the dark in the rain wasn’t overly appealing.  I somewhat welcomed the rain, as I hoped it would keep the ants in their burrows, if there were any of the voracious types in these woods.  I had to pass my gear through a fence and lift my bike over it to reach the forest, but I’m getting used to that.  At least this one wasn’t barbed wire.  There were no ants and I could thank my flat tire for allowing me a nice night in my tent as the rain came time for three hours just after I had set it up.

The next night there was no chance of reaching a motel as I would have had to ride 95 miles.  The terrain continues to be merciful.  It is far from flat, but the climbs are more gentle and not as frequent, much less demanding on the legs.  If I absolutely had to do 95 miles I could now do it as my legs aren’t being drained by having to climb 45 out of every 60 minutes.  I could simply severely limit my breaks and slightly slacken my effort, but a 95-mile day would leave me drained the next day.  So I took my chances on the ants again.

I was happy to come to an orange plantation at quitting time that went on for miles and miles.  I hypothesized that pesticides would have sent the ants elsewhere.  The orchard was fenced.  I was looking for a section with trees along it so I would be shielded from the road as I made my trespass.  Before I spotted one I came to a dirt road that bisected the orchard.  I went down a quarter of a mile.  The fence here had a high thick hedge all along it.  There was enough of a gap between the fence and the hedge for my tent, so I didn’t have to hoist my bike over the hedge.  

Before I could slip my bike into the hedge a truck passed me on the road heading further into the orchard. I pretended I was looking for something in my handlebar bag.  He didn’t stop to ask if I needed help.  But a few minutes later as I was setting up my tent, a security officer on a motorcycle came riding along the fence inside the orchard looking for me.  I was glad I hadn’t slipped into the orchard, as I thought I might, knowing there was a better chance of there being no ants there.  He was an amiable fellow and could tell I was no threat to the orchard.  He gave me a thumbs up.  It was another Great Night in the Tent.