It’s a good thing that I deceived to wait out the rain in Iguaçu since many of the roads in Santa Catarina and Parana states were temporarily closed due to landslides. I got stuck in one area for about 4 hours waiting for the work crew to clear the road ahead.

I must have passed nearly 2 dozen landslides that spilled out onto the road but this was the only significant stoppage. The crews work pretty fast here as I’m sure this must be a regular occurrence in the rainy season.

My destination was Curitiba; straight east. Rodolfo from the biker hostel in Iguaçu had hooked me up with another rider in Curitiba who offered to host me for a few days. Awesome!

Juliano rides a BMW R1200GS and he rode from Brazil up to the United States back in 2012. He welcomed me into his home for a few days to check out the city and see what Brazilian life is all about.

I spent a few days walking around the city checking out a few of the local parks and also working on the blog a bit. Curitiba has a bunch of natural parks spread throughout the city in order to help mitigate the heavy rain water. This leads to it being ranked as one of the “greenest” cities in the world.

The time I spent in Curitiba also coincided with the start of the World Cup (which if you didn’t know is being hosted here in Brazil). To say it’s a big deal would be a massive understatement. Brazil is absolutely Cup crazy! I have never met a collective group of people in my entire life who were excited about anything as much as Brazilians are excited about Football and the World Cup. I can’t say I’ve ever been a big Football fan but here in Brazil I can’t help from wanting to join in on the excitement. I’ve never seen anything else like it. It’s simply exciting.

For the first World Cup game, Brazil vs Croatia, we went over to Juliano’s friends house for a Churassco (like a BBQ but better) and to watch the game. Great food, great friends, cold beer and Brazil won the game.. ya can’t ask for much more than that 😉

I had a couple of fantastic days in Curitiba. Thanks Juliano for bring a great host and friend. I hope to see you again someday.