Exciting ride

3Thursday April 16. Today starts out really nice. Quick picture of breakfast. The pictures above are out of order you will see where they should have gone.

We went to the Curitiba temple. It is the prettiest temple in my opinion I have yet to see. They built it keeping all the old pineiro trees in place probably no small fete. Like many designs the temple goes up rather than having a huge footprint. I have lots of pictures but it was nice to just take it in. Realizing this is probably a one and done we stayed for a while.

Next stop was the train station. We needed to verify our tickets for tomorrow and even though they could not help us the number they gave me worked out and we should be good to go. Great pictures in the lobby of the station and an amazing model train of the old station. 

 

Next was lunch. My concern here is that while traveling we eat too much and too often. After lunch we wanted to go to a couple of attractions. One is an opera park. It cost $12 to enter and was mostly closed for renovations. It was such a waste but because of it we were in the right place for the adventure. The next park was supposed to be in walking distance but since grandma was already limping we called an uber. The app just gave us a name and that they would arrive in 3 minutes. It didn’t work out. The app would not let us change I think due to poor internet connection. After half an hour another car was listed and 10 minutes later it showed up. We got in and I was worried we might be headed to the wrong destination but he answered correctly but his accent and speech made him the most difficult person I have talked to so far. Before going farther I try to tell it as it happened and grandma thought it was even worse. I asked how long it was going to take thinking maybe 3 to 5 minutes would be plenty. He kept pointing to the map display and saying 10 more minutes. We headed way out of town and he finally made a return which allowed us to cross over to the opposite direction. Now we picked up speed. We were on the equivalent of an interstate headed for São Paulo. He kept saying it is just 2 more minutes. At distance marker 13 (13 kilometers or 8 miles) I pointed out again that it should have been closer and we needed to change our destination plan. He pulled over and realized he had no internet connection. He did a u turn this time as we were out in the country. All this time I wondered if he was taking us out in the woods to ‘rob us but I convinced grandma we would be okay. Not much later he had internet access again and just “10” more minutes. Due to our location now we were driving on small country roads. They have these fairly impressive speed bumps all over in Brazil. We hit one going a little fast and caught some serious air. I figured we flew 20 to 30 feet before crashing down. Grandma let a major squeal and I smiled. This was cool. We hit really hard. Big thud and lots of tires rubbing on the fenders and things flying around in the car. Sort of like a bad road in the jeep. The driver was really apologizing but we were just getting a good start. We came around a corner and there was an oncoming car so he moved over and must not have seen the hole in the side of the road. What a hit. The whole car slammed down and grandma squealed again. I have too much experience with this. I said friend you just lost a tire. He said nooo. But seconds later whop whop. And I said that’s a tire with no air. He pulled over and walks around and thinks he is good when he realizes the passenger front tire is dead. He busted out the jack and not to much later we are ready to go. Notice I didn’t say good to go. I told him friend that should have been more than just a tire without air. No we will be fine he says. Whop whop whop. He pulled over and the back tire is on the rim. Now what? Luckily we are in front of a car body and paint shop out here on a back road. He backed in and I got out to look at the damage. It doesn’t look good to me. They put air in and after the tire is filled it has a major leak. Now we are truly only a mile from our destination so the nice man continues putting air in I jump back in and we tear out of there like we are on fire. We have an exciting ride and arrive at the park. The driver apologizes more I tell him it’s okay and we leave him with the car sitting with the little pizza sized tire on the front and the back sitting on the rim. I didn’t have the heart to tell him his park brake had been on since he changed the tire. We go to see the park and even though grandma keeps telling me how I need to really tell all in the blog and everyone will think I am embellishing the whole story and how afraid she was I just remind her I’ve been there before. The scenery in the park was amazing but I have few pictures maybe Sunday I can get more on here.

 When we went out to wait for a ride back our poor driver was still there, no one had come to help him yet. We finished up bought food to take back to the hotel and packed it in. Fun and exciting day. Love to all.

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This is grandma, this is all true.