BRAZIL 2009 - Matinhos & The Farm

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We returned to Matinhos on a Monday and on Tuesday ... ... drove Elice to Curitiba to catch her flight back to Vancouver. Afterwards we went to a <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churrascaria' target='_blank'>churascaria</a> for lunch. This is a restaurant that keeps with Brazilian tradition in that it serves meat, meat and more meat. All cooked differently and very tastily. This is sushi from the all-you-can-eat table and was an appetizer before we started to gourge on the beef. A couple of average sized avacados in the Curitiba Wal-Mart store. Back in Matinhos in a hammock in 'our' backyard with two of Elice's dogs, Sorte (black one) and Aurora. Ah yes, gotta keep the werewolves away! Remember the fishermen and the dolphins, well there weren't any dolphins in Matinhos but he's trying his luck anyway. The net is on its way ... ... good classic follow through ... And now to just haul all those fish in. Well, I guess even more important than having the dolphins to help you it would be good if there were some fish there. Even the folks with the old-fashioned fishing poles weren't having any luck. Form isn't quite as good but the effort is definitely there! Here, fishy fishy ... After a tough day fishing it's time to relax with a shisha and a beer. This is Junefest where E insisted that we had to play BEEEEN-GO! so we could win a car! Didn't happen. The Junefest Queen. Flowers somewhere. Driveway entrance to Chris & Karen's. It's funny how flat that hill looks from this angle. It is so steep in front of the car that you can't drive up there. One of the neighbours. This place is right across the road from C&K with two yappy dogs. It was really frustrating trying to get a picture of this little guy. He insisted on landing on the top of the tall dead tree. Even though it was a gray day the backlight was too much to be able to get a picture of it other than that long tailfeather. Once again, no dolphins but ... ... at least there were fish. These are tilapia and Chris is trying to stock the other pond on their property by catching the fish in this one and relocating. I didn't see him check to see if there were an appropriate number of males and females. One of the tangerine producing trees on the property. Here come a few more bird pictures starting with this little hummer. The feeder is attached to the side of the house and we're sitting about 3 feet away watching the action. Lots of colour ... ... even though they aren't hummers they still seem to like the sweet stuff. Sushi the Masseuse and Solus the Client. <a href='../all_image_files/brazil_2009/br09_images-06/masseusse.wmv' target='_blank'> Check it out the results of this here.</a> We encountered this visitor as we were leaving C&K's. As E was walking around the rear of the car to put something in the trunk we heard a peculiar sound similar to a rattle. We immediately envisioned a rattle snake even though we've never met one in the wild. There, about 3-4 feet away was this guy who was 'rattling' his tail which happened to be on a dried leaf, hence the sound. It is a <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_jararaca' target='_blank'>Jararaca</a>, one of the most common venomous snakes in southern Brazil. Peculiar part was that it was stretched out and making no effort to escape. Chris, with help from his trusty assistant Karen, (she had to run all the way up to the house to get the machete) managed to slay the beast. Two of C&K's cats had disappeared recently and there was a suspicion that this could have been the reason. This was really amazing, after Chris had chopped off the snake's head it was still active afterwards. This photo was taken about 3 minutes afterwards when Chris reached down with the machete and touched the head, it immediately opened it's mouth and managed to deposit some venom on the machete! Fully five minutes later when disposing of the body you could still see & feel the muscles rippling. Weird! Oh yeah, one of the two missing cats did return. Back to a more entertaining function - a Brazilian rodeo. The first event was the calf or steer roping. Calves for the younger kids and steers for the adults. There isn't any wrestling or anything like that. The calf or steer is released from a chute and the horse & rider have to catch up and lassoo it before it gets to the other end of the arena ... ... once it is lassooed the animal is just 'led' to the gate to get out. Very humane and good exercise for the rider, the horse and the bovine. The next event was the bareback riding - an opportunity for the horse to "get even"! Often it comes to a draw between the horse and rider. Sometimes with interesting views. Always with great determination on both parties. Occasionally the horse appeared to be the winner. And other times there was absolutely no doubt as to who the winner was much to the interest of the onlookers!!!