Sao Carlos City - last city

Ola,
We are in Sao Carlos City at the moment. Our last city & only 2 more nights to go. Time has flown by! We will upload photos from Sao Carlos to the blog soon.
We had a great day today(sat 24th) - visited a boutique winery this morning -Vinicola Bonucci, then to another amazing place for Almoço (lunch) - Damha. It was just fantastic! You must see photos (coming soon) and then an Aeroplane museum this afternoon.
Tomorrow (Sunday) we are heading to a lake/activity park for most of the day with our families, and then Monday we drive to Ribeirao Preto to catch our plane to Sao Paulo. We are all sad to be leaving our wonderful families!
More updates & photos coming.....
Tchau,
Sara

Photos from Araxia - Conference Weekend

Hi everyone,

Here are a few photos from Araxia - conference weekend. A fun weekend it was!

Tchau, Sara.

Hi everyone. I have done the map below in an attempt to give you an idea of where we have been. I searched for quite some time to find a map with all the cities and this was the best I could find with two cities not on it. I have added them in to their closest proximately.

Tchau. James.

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

Rotary Conference at Araxa

We have just spent a fantastic 3days at the Araxa Spa Resort for the annual Rotary Conference here in Brazil. What a magnificent setting up in the state of Minas Gerais still within the 4540 Rotary district. I believe around 1500 people attended, with all sorts of presentations and activities to cater for all tastes. Most came with their families as activities for the kids were organised all day, everyday. And by the way this is the view from our room on the 6th floor.
The Spa Resort has a wee lake out the back, surrounded by a small park. The food was amazing and on a huge scale. So it was good to be able to go for walks, play tennis, kayak, swim, participate in aqua aerobics, sauna, massage and of course sunbathe by the pool. And for one of the team who loves to have her hair done a hair salon!



Oh yes we did earn our keep giving our presentation which was well received and at the opening ceremony Brenda led the flag parade with the NZ flag, closely followed behind by the flags and presidents from the other 82 clubs in the 4540 district.
This is the grand entrance where the district governer and his wife spent one day welcoming all the guests and another farewelling!

Now yes its fair to say our team leader has been pulling her weight and fully deserved a little R & R by the pool. However she asked me to ask you Dave if you could provide her ultimate home in Taupo, something similiar to this, forthcoming decisions could be very simple. . .

Anyway one thing we have all learnt about Brazil is they know how to party. We attended the Conference Ball on the Saturday night which was just a blast. There are plenty of pics which will be forthcoming in the next blog.

Tchau Petra

Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay inupdating the blog. Here are some pics from our trip to Araxa. Below is Sugar Cane fields which just when for miles and miles lining the highway.


And Coffee plantations which also often went as far as you could see.

On the way I got to stop at Franca and spend some time with a lovely lady called Luiza. She is a shareholder in the company Magazine Luiza (similar to Harvey Normans) and they have 14,000 employee's and 400 stores. Definately the best vocational so far.

Gotta go so will edit this blog but below is the Hotel we stayed at in Araxa. Mouto Bom.

Our first day at Jaboticabal

So today we met the Mayor Jose Carlos Hori in the lovely City of Jaboticabal. For me the most attractive City so far. Lots of old buildings and parks. The City has a population of 74,000 which 10,000 of these are students. Their main industry is peanuts and sugar cane. The Mayor's focus initially was creating structure within the council and motivating the employees to work more passionately for the city. His focus when elected was on the social issues and he is currently working on the storm-water network. He seems well liked by the people and is expected to be re-elected next term

Here we see the Mayor exchanging gifts with Brenda



And a group photo of the team with our hosts and the Mayor.

Tchau, James.