I had so many incredible experiences in Brazil that have henceforth gone unblogged, and many will remain unblogged because I'm planning on having many more bloggable experiences yet this summer (hello New York!) and I can't keep blogging about Brazil all the time (although I foresee one or two more posts about Brazil, tops).
Last August I took a whirlwind week-long road trip around the Northeastern United States and Ontario, visiting for the first time the likes of Toronto, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. At the end of it all my car's trip odometer showed that I had been 1891.6 miles. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see approximately how many miles I had traveled on my Brazil trip.This trip included 12 plane trips (if you count layovers) and frequent bus rides of 2, 4, 8, or 10 hours. It was all pretty exhausting, but I'd like to give a shout-out to my new friend Mr. Sleeping Pill for helping me to get through the long trips and be able to hit the ground running. Worst of all was the fact that I had a really bad sinus infection for most of the trip and every time we'd catch another flight the infection would shoot straight into my ears and I then I couldn't hear very well for the next few days.
Feel free to skip past the following facts and figures, they're mostly for my own amusement:
Ann Arbor to Detroit Metro Airport: 26 milesWow, I'm really glad I didn't do all that math before I went, or I would have thought that this trip was completely crazy. Oh wait, I did think this trip was completely crazy before I set out on it, but not 18,000 miles crazy!
Detroit Metro to Atlanta: 596 miles
Atlanta to São Paulo: 4,658 miles
São Paulo to Campinas: 62 miles
Campinas to Piracicaba (round trip): 90 miles
Campinas to Valinhos (round trip): 14 miles
Campinas to Mogi Guaçú (round trip): 86 miles
Campinas to Rio de Janeiro: 305 miles
Rio de Janeiro to Petrópolis (round trip): 82 miles
Rio de Janeiro to Conselheiro Lafaiete: 239 miles
Conselheiro Lafaiete to Ouro Preto (round trip): 140 miles
Conselheiro Lafaiete to Belo Horizonte: 73 miles
Belo Horizonte to Salvador: 597 miles
Salvador to Praia do Forte (round trip): 100 miles
Salvador to Brasília: 659 miles
Brasília to Manaus: 1,199 miles
Manaus to Porto Velho: 471 miles
Porto Velho to Rio Branco: 279 miles
Rio Branco to Brasília: 1,398 miles
Brasília to Curitiba: 668 miles
Curitiba to Foz do Iguaçu (by plane): 333 miles
Foz do Iguaçu to Puerto Iguazú, Argentina (round trip): 28 miles
Foz do Iguaçu to Curitiba (by bus): 395 miles
Curitiba to São Paulo: 254 miles
São Paulo to New York: 4,758 miles
New York to Detroit Metro: 482 miles
Detroit Metro to Ann Arbor: 26 miles Grand total = 18,018 miles!
Some other fun trip facts:
Countries visited: 3 (United States, Brazil, Argentina)
States visited: 13 (Michigan, Georgia, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Distrito Federal, Amazônas, Rondônia, Acre, Paraná, Misiones {Argentina}, New York)
To get the idea of how exhausting it was to travel around, consider our voyage from ultra-remote Rio Branco in Northern to Iguaçu Falls in Southern Brazil. Our flight left Rio Branco at 1:30 a.m. and went to Brasília, where we had a 3 or 4 hour layover - I can't even remember. The picture on the left shows Maggie sleeping in the waiting room in the Brasília airport (I slept on the floor with my giant backpack as a pillow). We then flew to Curitiba, had a brief layover, and then finally flew to Foz do Iguaçu, and then we had to grab all of our bags, hop on a bus, get off downtown and walk about 6 blocks to our hostel. But it was all a great adventure and I'm glad I did it at an age when I have tremendous reserves of energy and incredible tolerance for sleeping on floors and uncomfortable bus seats.But it was definitely worth it because got to spend at least 3 or 4 days in every single region in Brazil. I had dozens of Brazilians tell me that I have now seen far more of their country than they have, which is kind of sad. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity, resources, and energy to pull this trip off and to have come back safely.
Just calculating all this stuff has made me pretty exhausted, so I'll wait until another day to post some more pictures 'n' stuff. Até mais.
7 comments:
Wow! 18,000 miles! That's a lot. I just checked my cache to cache status and it's only at 26,000 miles. Now, if I could work in a cache in Brazil, I think my cache to cache distance would go up significantly. ;) Or maybe Germany next year.
Yikes! All those miles make my head swim! You're right... this was the perfect time for you to have this grand adventure. And, it was good to hear you had some major "a ha's," as well. Welcome home!
Geez, Brian, I rode my bike 3 or 4 miles outside of town and back and felt exhausted...
Did you tote luggage all this way?
Yes Brian,
This trip was crazy. I'm so happy for you that you were brave enough to undertake it, and Maggie too. It's a rare woman that is willing and excited to traverse a large foreign country. I'm planning on someday making it to the falls, but I'm hoping my trip is a little more, "resort style."
Greetings! Thanks for linking me to your blog - what a trip! Oh, to be young and free again :-)! Sounds like a great time. All the mileage figuring you did, makes me wonder how many diapers I have changed.....I think that's math better left undone.
Amber
Ha! Thanks for putting that picture of me up, Bri. It was exhausting, but so worth every single step of those 18,000 miles!!
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