Home again, Are we done?

Arrived back to my beloved Colorado yesterday morning. Both flight segments departed early and arrived early - and let me tell you, I was very ready to be back home!

We celebrated a team dinner together on Thursday evening (05 March) at the Unique Hotel outdoor restaurant with a splendid via of the city.



If you look at early photos in the album, you will see the exterior of this very cool, "U" shaped building. The view from the top (about 12 stories up) is stunning. There is an outdoor lap pool up here and nice umbrellas and lounging areas. This is a "high ticket" place, for sure.

I kept asking our tour guide about local BMW motorcycle dealers - I wanted to see one. I wasn't getting very far with this guy, so I ventured onto the web and started looking around. Blessed me, one of the bigger ones turned out to be withing walking distance of my hotel!! So last Thursday, before dinner, a traveling partner and I hot-footed it over to check it out. I was stoked, like a kid in a candy store - here were MY toys! I scored a couple of caps and other goodies from the store. One happy camper, for sure!

This is possibly my last trip down for a while - need to await business decisions in the coming days. I wouldn't trade much for the experience and adventure. If you ever get the chance, Brazil is a great spot to visit and explore. I would love to return to the Amazon area and other parts of the country I missed. The Brazilian people are very friendly, very helpful, and just all-around awesome people.

I made many new friends for life in my visits and would trade nothing for those friendships.

Once again, thanks to the folks that encouraged me to write about my adventures, but a huge thanks to those who have kept up. I would very much like to hear from you ("Comment" section below) about "how did I do" in keeping you in the loop. This has been a fun experience.

Unless we return to Brazil, next up will be "the summer of moto adventures" for yours truly!

Heading to the Arts & Crafts area - Embu, SP, Brasil

Last night during dinner, we were trying to figure out where today's adventure would take us. We wanted something new and refreshing, but not a long journey away either. One work partner had a list of "200 things to do in Sao Paulo". We used our trusty web site language translation software and looked at what it had to offer. It was amazing to see how many of the hot spots we have covered in the past couple of months.

We decided to head to this town of Embu, about 28K west of Sao Paulo.



We did our Google research, talked to the locals at the hotel desk, and decided it was a go. This is one of the largest displays of art and craft works from the Brazilian artisans anywhere in Brazil. We were not disappointed with what we discovered. We checked at the hotel desk about transportation. The front desk guy ran out the door and talked to a cabbie parked out front. He offered to drive us there, sit and wait for 3 hours, and drive us back for a simple fixed fee - which we thought was a steel of a deal. He spoke English and was a delightful driver. We were set.

It was a pleasant drive, not too long to get out there. He found a place to park and off we went. There were a lot of people, but not the staggering crowds we had seen in the other markets we have been through. And the quality of the works we saw were amazing.



There were tents and store fronts everywhere that had some very nice, local things. Some of the wooden items are off the charts. We saw almost life-sized wooden, carved tigers. The Brazilian forests grow this very dark red wood that is stunning to see. The forest grown many, many exotic hardwoods. And then there was the stone work! Oh my, the items we saw made of stone were also incredible.

We ended our journey in another local pub - winging our way through a menu that had not a single word of English. But we had some ice cold Antarctica Brewing Company beer (badly needed to quench 95F temps) and great food. Time to head back to our faithful cab driver, who sat on a curb for 3 hours. The Brazilians like their brew very cold and it was very refreshing on such a hot day.

Today's brief picture addition starts right here: CLICK spot