A day in Araraquara

Wow! We have just been in Araraquara. Very hot place 28 degrees however the city is known for its many trees which provide the shade needed to survive these temperatures.



The population is around 200,000 with the main industies in citrus, cotton socks, lingerie and recently a move to more technology based businesses.



Our first visit was with the Mayor who was very impressed by us and we with him. Interesting to hear about their social programmes and incentives for IT companies to set up in this city.



One place we visited was a local government run type of community restaurant. Pictured above feeds about 1300 people a day including their employees. The only meal served is lunch as this is the main meal of the day here in Brazil. Its very nutritious food and costs around $1.50 or half that for the elderly or very poor.



Something for you farmers. Here we visited Cambury Farm owned by the bank, Uni Banco. 14000 hectares of orange, coffee and rubber trees. 7000 ha in orange trees from which they produce around 5 million cartons of juice a year. The farm has its own nursery producing 300,000 orange trees/yr employing around 1600 people. They also have 4300 ha in native forest. This is fenced, protected and monitored containing many species. One species we did get a glimspe of was the wild pig. Both James and myself were keen on running down one of these beasts, and you'd think we'd know better by now but four legs are faster than our two (including piglets)!!

Here is one of our many superb hosts imitating the cutting of the rubber tree. The end product being car tyres.

And fencing . . . Have a close look you perfectionists out there. Could be some openings for contractors, although i havent seen many fences!

And fishing . . . could this be you? I believe this is one of the biggest country clubs in Brazil. Membership $3000 and then around $500/yr. Awesome place to hang out with jet skiing, beach volleyball, walking tracks, swimming pools and of course FOOD.

If you were wondering how our diets were going . . . well James found his best dessert so far. He liked it so much that we all came back the next day for an encore.

We are now in Sao Carlos our last city. Temperature today 32 and they told us this was the coldest place!!

Tchau for now.

Petra