Saturday October 12th.
We gathered a bunch of conflicting information how to get to São Paulo on our bikes. James and I were clear that we are going to cycle ....we both had no interest of taking the bus! We were told by one source “Bus is the only way”. Let’s challenge that!
We left early in the morning from São Vicente (near Santos by the coast) on a Friday. We were planning to beat the traffic...especially the truck traffic through the 13 tunnels leading up the mountains. Another cycle source told us they would ride it in the middle of the night on a weekend. All the roads in that direction are closed to cyclists! (Hence the bus)
We didn’t want to miss breakfast in our sweet little, cheap hotel, so we didn’t leave until 6:30am. Friday morning...really? Two mistakes right off the bat!
Weather was good ..but I was definitely feeling a little anxious.....or maybe just FREAKED OUT!!!
The parts where you can see all those bridges were enticingly beautiful ....the rest are tunnels...
https://gopro.com/v/36wdXbb1DGvnn
Major trucks already had the road...Friday morning rush hour traffic in full swing...what the heck were we thinking???
A police station by the road - YES! A Police man outside watching the traffic not far from this sign.
I am secretly thinking: We are saved!!! - They are gonna chase us off this crazy road before it is too late! But no, he waved “Bom dia” to us...is what happened! Ok, we are going to do this thing! I hit the pedals!
The first tunnel scared the crap out of me and it wasn’t even that long....second one we were followed closely by a huge truck. He could have passed us (no shoulder!)...others did, but he stayed behind and I got the feeling he was shielding us (positive thinking!). And yes, we had ALL our lights and flashers going...in case you were wondering..
By the time the next tunnel came around (we only had 11 more to go...some of which were 2km long) I was as calm as a clam now....eyes forward ...steady .....keep the goal in mind and go...don’t look behind....GO!!
BUT there was a car from “IBAMA” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Institute_of_Environment_and_Renewable_Natural_Resources?wprov=sfti1) right by the tunnel entrance (I think he saw us and decided to do something about our suicidal actions)
And that friendly person pointed to a hidden road in the jungle - easily accessible from where we were standing “this is the old road and it is MUCH SAFER and SO MUCH MORE beautiful” is how he “sold” it to us. He winked an eye..and it leads back eventually to “our” highway on top of the Plato.
No need to tell us twice...
A dream road: back in time....jungle twisting, moss growing, flowers blooming
frogs hopping
and snakes snaking road. It was winding around upwards, surprise waterfalls waiting for us...
https://gopro.com/v/dMWm82wELbLdo
only those pillars and truck/car noises came around every once in a while to bring us back
“to reality”, but often we were further away listening to jungle noises only. Half way through a small car caught up with us - park ranchers? Security Police! Private road! No access allowed!
We told them about the IBAMA guy...Oh, well, he wanted you off the no -cycle- highway - he didn’t want to be responsible for you and we want you off this road, because we can’t be responsible for you either! You can’t be on this road! It’s closed to the public! It’s private park road!
Well.....? Now what...? We are already on it...what you gonna do with us?
And -as in typical Brazilian fashion -they looked at our bikes and became distractingly curious: What are you doing? Where are you coming from? Where are you going...? (Clearly impressed....jaws dropped....mouths wide open...)
We chit -chatted for a while and then: Ok, you can ride the 11km to the end, but promise us to never, ever ride this park road again!
Promised!
And so we had an escort - they waited at turns where it wasn’t clear which way the road was going. We helped them clear a big branch off the road with James’s machete (alway handy to have!!!) We looked together for frogs who had survived the fallen branch.
They showed us pictures of a snake we had missed (not venomous).
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3hJ08zF1pmle1H91ZgvMsf8-uKxsvKu2LMWWo0/?igshid=118hzijvv5yty
We exchanged names and learned that all four of our last names start with a P! We became friends on FB and Instagram. All this, until we had to part and the big highway had tamed...no more tunnels and bridges and a nice wide shoulder. Our little dream road came to an end....It had kicked us off with some brutally steep sections and a dusty, lumpy/bumpy full of muddy/puddle section by over 100 degrees F...but it was still dreamy.... a happy, dirty dream at the end.
Riding into São Paulo delivered us with another set of challenges, but after this introduction, we were blissfully ignorant and anyways: all is and went well.
