Thursday 19th April

Thursday 19 th April No 13
Well what can I say about today.It was to be the most breathtaking views of Serra dos Orgaos.
But it went pear shape in the morning, we left Buzios at 9am it is to be a 300klm ride to Petropolis, after we left Buzios Renato took us to look at some faveles on some back street somewhere,there were many speed bumps some very large, we bottomed out which in turn bounced open our pannier, so we stopped to close the pannier and check if there was any damage to the exhaust box.As we were checking, the rest turned but Erica did not corner mark, so we continues to the end of the road about 4klms and waited and waited for 20minutes, we rang Renato's number but no answer so we rang Cindy (his girl friend in Australia) to let him know we were ok,a car drove up to us and explained in Portuguese that they were way back at a service station.
We are getting real good at this language.
When we were all back together we rode along the waterfront and were pulled over by the police they were checking licenses and rego  one was carrying AK 47 rifle so no cheek from us ,every thing was in order but it took 1/2hour from our riding time we rode into the Serra Dos Orgaos which is an enormous national park which has bizarre shapes of its mountains, we were told that this all happened about 60million years ago during earthquakes. It is a rock climbers paradise We get half way up and we are stopped by road works which hold us up again for another 30minutes, time is running against us as the sun is now setting as we climb higher and higher with many many twists and turns,Vic's shoulders are aching ,and Bruno states he is over corners, but we soldier on.
The sun is now right in our face as we try to see the corners, cars and motorcycles are whizzing past us even a little old lady on a50cc scooter passes.we come to an intersection where we have to merge a motorcyclist is zigging and zagging thru this mess but he clips Bruno with the indicator light and gives Bruno a bit of a bump (he is not impressed)the traffic is at a stand still as people are trying to push in.
Finding our hotel at 6pm which is very nice just made it in before dark. It was a long hard ride, the roads are very good but we are still riding many cobblestone areas.The country side has very high mountains and is very green ,jungle all around with banana trees growing every where.
We had a quick shower and went to a little pizza joint around he corner
Again we are stuffed to morrow is a rest day