Brasil 2022-23 Diary/Photo Journal

Week 005 of August 28 - September 03, 2022

We left Pontal and headed over to a friend's home near a smallish town called Morretes (Mo-het-ches).  Marco and Akemi live on a beautiful property, complete with fruit trees, coconuts, fish (tilapia) ponds and numerous birds along with a couple of dogs.  As always with Marco, Gerson's childhood friend, our visit was all about laughter and food, or in other words, a great visit.

 A throwback photo from 2009 when we visited Marco and Akemi in their London home.  We always end up in the kitchen!  https://www.solsearch.us/uk-diary-page-6.htm

Marco and Gerson - Cheers! Fantastic food with Marco and Akemi (fish, lasagna, kibbe, tempura, shrimp) Gerson and Marco overlooking the property

Walking the property Beautiful view through the papayas Like a Monet painting

We spent the day wandering the property, talking, laughing and enjoying good food into the evening.  There is something so lovely about Marco and Akemi as they always make us feel like we are very special people.  We did not hesitate to stay the night and only after a slow breakfast and more warm conversation, did we make our way back to Curitiba. 

Beautiful views of the ponds Marco, Gerson and Winnie

Nina and Winnie 'dogging' around Tilapia leaping out of the water for food

With a day to prepare for Cindy's return, we took the time to go through many of the items we had stored with Cindy for the 17 years she had been left in Curitiba.  At that time, we thought we would return in a year or so and continue our adventure but alas, life had other "adventures" in store for us.  One may ask what could have kept us away for 17 years and well: 2005 (leave Cindy in Curitiba), 2006 (Step-father died), 2007 (Father was killed), 2008-2009 (Father's murder hearings/trial - https://www.solsearch.us/Trial-page-1.htm), 2010-2013 (short visit to Brasil, settled Father's estate and needed work), 2014 (Brasil - World Cup and work), 2015-2017 (work), 2018 (somewhat last minute adventure in Australia with Cinderoo), 2019 (new knees!), 2020-2021 (do I even need to say), and here we are in 2022.

Lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Jacobina. A delicious dried beef 'stew' (carne seca)

Bringing Cindy back from the mechanic So far, so good

Lots to do with Cindy so most of the week was spent taking everything out of Cindy (drawers, contents, etc.) and cleaning her from bottom to top.  Of course, while you clean, you find some problems to fix and we made our list.  But overall, she was in decent shape and would be road-worthy in no time - we are just not sure how much time is "in no time" when translated into Brazilian time ;-).

We ended the week having dinner with Gerson's Agronomy University friends at Alvaro's lovely home.  One of the friends, Gilberto, is an attorney by day and a 'chef' by night and prepared us two huge, mouthwatering calzones for dinner.  I have been trying to not eat late dinners like the Brazilians regularly do, however, I had to make an exception for this meal.  I mean, when one of the calzones is "quatro quesos", you don't pay attention to the time of day, let alone at night.

Gilberto and his carne seca/frango masterpiece And then there was the quesos! Amauri keeping an eye on me keeping an eye on Gilberto

Just a memorable, lovely evening with: Amauri, Sonia (Gilberto's wife), Alvaro, Jaqueline (Alvaro's wife), Gabriel (Alvaro's son), Gilberto and Alexandra (Gabriel's fiance). The Agronomy Crew (their University study): Gerson, Alvaro, Amauri and Gilberto Alexandra and the newest edition, Ruger, a Belgian Malinois

The dinner was a great way to tie off the week because we knew the next week was to be focused on Cindy and will bring about a bit of stress.  As we have renovated multiple older, just-need-some-TLC vehicles before, we knew we could get Cindy into fighting shape soon enough; however, we were still a little saddened by some of her unavoidable deterioration. 

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