Sao Bento du Sol and a Reunion with Sven…

It rained like hell the night before we left Florianapolis… The entire city lost power during the storm, and we had to get by with a generator located in the basement… The building around our hotel were not so lucky, and candle power seemed to be the norm…!!

This morning, Roger and I tore up the coastal highway from Florianopolis, and after stopping to refuel, he pushed on northwards, while I headed inland towards Jaragua do Sol, and from there up into the mountains towards Sao Bento…

We headed north to Joinville, where Roger and I would part ways for a few days...

On the way, two special events occured…

The Big Fella has another birthday, his tenth since we left home...!!

The first was another birthday for the Big Fella…!!  140 000 km on the clock, his tenth birthday since we left South Africa in March 2010…

The second occured just 75 km later… When the clock read 140 075 km… This marked my 100 000th kilometre on the road since I started out on my ride around the world…

With the throttle locked, I reached down with both arms and hugged the tank, my helmet momentarily resting on the tank bag… It seemed only right to recognise the fact that without this great bike under me, I would probably not come this far…!!

Then it was up and over the mountains, and warning about sharp corners...!!

The last hour of my ride was a very good one, on a brand new road that swerved and climbed up over a steep mountain rain, and on to the plateau where the hometown of my friend is located…

I managed to make an almost flawless climb up through the mountains, relying on the brand new set of tyres that had been “scrubbed in” on the ride around the island and the section of highway up to Joinville…

The Big Fella’s grip on the tar gave us all the confidence to get the bike leaned over as far as I dared, even scraping foot-pegs occasionally, something which I do not do very often…!!

The usual torque that the motor had after a service was missing though, and I regretted not making sure that the valves were reset at Box Motocicletas… I assumed that this is what they would have done, but discovered afterwards that they had only changed the oil, and nothing more…!!

The bike had a little less grunt that I expected, but still soared effortlessly up the mountain pass…

I was delighted to see that some of my "lost' family members had established businesses in Sao Bento...!!

I last saw Sven Fischer in Johannesburg in March 2008… I had just returned from my first long distance ride up to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania…

Sven and his father Uwe, were long time business associates of mine, and we had exported many containers of furniture to their clients in Germany over the years…

We met at the Building Products offices in town, where Sven showed me around the warehouse that they owned and described the various ranges of furniture they were currently marketing…

Over 30 % of Brazil’s furniture factories are located within a 50 km radius of Sao Bento, so it was easy to see why Sven had based himself here…

He also proudly showed me his rally car, a Mitsubishi Pajero, with which he had entered the Dakar Rally in 2010… He has one a number of local and national championships in his class with this car, and spoke about this experiences with passion…

Then he led me back to their beautiful home which he and his wife Katia had designed, and took over a year to build… I met their two children, Lisa and Timo, and their three dogs, who took a shine to me and always came to be tickled and patted whenever I steeped outside…

Waiting for pizza with long time freind Sven Fischer...

I spent the following day at Sven’s office, downloading music, and trying to work on my website, but without much success… There was just too much news to catch up on and other things to talk about…!!

Later that evening Sven invited a bunch of his friends around for a BBQ, and we sat up until the early hours of the following morning, enjoying the company of a great bunch of guys…

Strange how the boys always gravitate towards the bar...!! From left to right: Junior, Sven, Ferrugen, Fabiano, Rodrigo and Daniel...

The main course...!! Great chunks of meat... Oh, and there was some salads too...!! And beer... Lots of it...!!

It turns out that all of them, bar one, rode BMM 1200 GS’s…!! They had at one time or another undertaken long rides up to Venezuela through central Brazil, so knew all about touring and the stories that go with it…!!

Junior was put in charge of BBQ’ing as it was agreed that he was the best candidate for the job… The rest of settled down to do what others think we do best… Drink and tell stories…!!

At this point I should mention that very little English is spoken by the guys…!! So it was up to Katia and Sven, with some help from Daniel, to translate the “epic tales” we told…

This in part can be blamed for the fact that we sat up until after midnight…!!

With the help of a lamp-lit globe of the world, I traced my rides through the four continents I had completed, stopping often to wet my throat to alleviate the dryness… Maybe it was the air-conditioning…!!

Ferrugem and I share a laugh... This would be one fun guy to ride with... We both have a naughty streak a mile wide...!!

My hosts, Sven and the long suffering Katia...!! Tough being the only woman when the boys get out of hand...!! There were some things that she was too embarrassed to translate...!!

I was amazed that the more I drank, the more Portuguese I remembered, and every time I used a word that I recalled, and in the right context I might add, there were roars of laughter from the men seated around the table… Most of the words I am unable to repeat here, of course…!!

Katia’s brother Rodrigo, and his wife and children left, early, leaving Katia to deal with “the boys” on her own… She took to this is good humour, but often shaking her head when the conversation became a little “rough”…!!

The GS Riders of Sao Bento... All five of us are proud owners of big and beefy 1200's...

While sipping at a very strong, dark liqueur, the boys begged me to come back to Brazil, saying I should skip New York and the date I had set up to be there on, and “finish Brazil properly”… They wanted to plan a ride up through the Amazon to show me the jungles of Brazil…

This was after telling me the story of how Fabiano had fallen and broken his arm in Venezuela on their last trip, and had to ride pillion for over 3 000 km behind Ferrugem to get back home…

After they had all struggled into their cars and negotiated the narrow driveway out onto the street, Sven, Katia and I cleared away the debris, before heading off to bed…

It had been a wonderful evening, one that I will remember for a long time to come… Many thanks again to Sven and Katia for putting this evening together, and introducing me to a great bunch of guys…!!

©GBWT 2012