Moving from Curitiba to Canela

Before we can set up on our land we have to move from our flat in Curitiba which was a slight problem since we're in a lease contract until March 2013. Our contract allows us to terminate early but would cost the remainder of the rent. Also we'd need to sell all our furniture and there's also an obligation to have the place fully painted, all this would total about R$3000 minus around R$700 we'd get for the furniture, oven and fridge. But luckily for us we saw some people looking at the place for rent next to us and we said to them that our place here is available if they wanted to sign over the contract - we said if they did this they could keep all the furniture, because if we can sign over the contract we don't need to pay the penalty or get the place painted!

We needed to get a lot of tools for building our new place and putting a fence around our vegetables.

Day one

We finally got the flat cleared out and cleaned up and got all our stuff into the trailer - which weighs around 1000Kg! (luckily we had some major help from our friend Jennifer and her partner André - thanks guys!) we had numerous problems with contract transfer delays, had to replace the tow-bar because our load was too heavy, and then when we went to pick up the car and trailer from the place that was fixing it, our battery was dead and needed replacing too!

It took over 4 hours to get 110Km because we couldn't get out of Curitiba due to road blocks for a soccer game, and then we were stuck in heavy traffic. Then the engine started over-heating and making bad noises, but we realised that using the low-range gears made things much easier on the engine since we were stopping and starting with a ton of load on very hilly roads.

Now we're at a hotel for the night and the car was sounding much better, so we'll hopefully make 300Km tomorrow.

Day two

Day two was off to an excellent start, we had a nice breakfast and got on the road early, crossing the border into Santa Catarina before 9am. The engine was getting a bit hot up the many steep and winding mountain roads so we had to stop every couple of hours to let the car cool off a bit, but there were many nice places to stop and take in the scenery and do a bit of stretching and meditation.

After we got about 250km into the journey disaster struck! the clutch stopped working and we had to roll into a gas station (luckily there was one nearby when this started!) after we stopped in the gas station we couldn't start again as there was no way to get it into gear. We looked under the car and saw that there was fluid leaking, and then we saw that the clutch fluid container was empty! There was a mechanic there, but he seemed really dodgy and was talking about there being many expensive things to take out and check so we thought it best to avoid him. The guys at the gas station said the only other option was to get the car towed to the next nearest mechanic about 10km away.

I decided to do some on-the-fly learning from our numerous Lada Niva manuals on the laptop, and soon found a potential solution which was to "bleed" the hydraulics of the clutch system by unscrewing the hose leading out of the master cylinder barrel and then pump the clutch pedal for a few minutes to clear all the air out of the system. Then when pushing the pedal responded with some pressure again, we put it all back together and topped up the fluid reservoir. We also needed to do a temporary solution on the leaking hose which was causing the problem, so we put some insulation tape around the leaky bit and fastened it in place with a twistie from a bag of seeds. This solution enabled us to get about 20km to a decent mechanic who's replacing the hose now (and also flushing out the system again because it turned out the guys at the gas station gave us the wrong fluid!). Here's a picture (taken from under the car looking upwards) of our first DIY repair job, called "gambiarra" in Portuguese - or in my "portenglaise" spelling, "gumbiaha" :-)

Day three

The mechanic had our clutch hose replaced by about 11am, and showed us the correct fluid to top up the clutch reservoir with. We then went to an auto-electrician he recommended as we'd noticed that the light was coming on that indicates the battery isn't charging. The auto-electrician told us that the alternator needed to be fixed or maybe even replaced and that it could take two or three days. We decided that since we weren't travelling at night and didn't need to have the lights on and we had a new battery that we'd get it fixed in Caxias which was still about 320km away.

This would have been no problem and we were making excellent progress, but then we entered a huge storm with practically zero visibility! we decided it was best to pull over and wait for slightly less heavy patches in the rain to carry on in since we couldn't use the lights.

We finally made it across the border into Rio Grande do Sul, the state of our final destination! but as we tried to start again after stopping at the road toll, the clutch failed to work again! we couldn't believe it, this problem was supposed to be completely fixed now and here it was happening again! luckily we'd read up the night before on how to get by without a clutch (as we couldn't understand how the mechanic had been able to start and change gears without it) so we were able to get it started with a little push from the team at the toll stop :-) but the problem happened a few more times and we had to start it ourselves in dangerously low visibility conditions with huge logging trucks speeding by!

Finally we got into Vacaria, the first city in Rio Grande do Sul, after checking out 3 hotels in the pouring rain we found a nice one called Hotel Ponto 1 that wasn't too expensive and had a good closed parking area spacious enough for our car and trailer, which is where we are now.

Overall we made good progress today with only about 120km left to go, but we'll need to find a mechanic and call the one who did the work yesterday to see what he thinks may be happening. We think it's probably air in the clutch hydraulic system and we'll buy some tools tomorrow so we can do the clutch system "bleeding" procedure ourselves on the road if we need to :-)

Day four

We had a really nice breakfast at Hotel Ponto 1, they had a huge range of fruit, cakes and biscuits, breads, jams and cheeses and even toasted sandwich makers ready to go! We then went and bought some more tools - a set of fixed spanners, an adjustable spanner, file, hacksaw, needle-nose pliers and side-cutters, and then called our Lada Niva mechanic, Bibe (pronounced "beebee"), in Curitiba to explain all the things that had happened and ask if he had any advice regarding the clutch. He said that it probably was just some air in the system after the repairs and that pumping the clutch pedal to build up the hydraulic pressure should do the trick, but if not there could be a problem with the cylinder. We did that and sure enough the pressure did build up a bit, so we're going to try for the remaining 120km and get these final issues looked at in Caxias :-)

We finally made it to Caxias (pronounced Carsheeas) at 15:22!

There were no major dramas today apart from the usual stressful clutch problems, but since we now knew how to pump the pressure back into the clutch hydraulic system and how to start and change gear without the clutch, and we now had tools in case we needed to do a clutch system bleed process as a last resort these dramas didn't seem quite so daunting as they had on previous days.

We checked a few mechanics and auto-electricians, but decided to call Candido (pronounced Carnjido) who we bought the land off to see if he had any good contacts. He was awesome and came straight out to the gas station we were calling from to meet us and take us to a good mechanic, and he also showed us numerous places where we could get free discarded pallets and other materials for building! The car and trailer are now at the mechanics place and we're staying with Candido and his family for the night before heading to the land tomorrow :-)

Day five

The car was fixed (again), the mechanic was really good so we're very happy to have access to someone reliable nearby. He had replaced the clutch cylinder barrel and the alternator brushes for R$340 which we thought was very reasonable. We left Caxias about 2pm following Candido in his little Fiat to the land. It was about an hour and a half with the last hour on very rough dirt road. Unfortunately my phone went flat so I couldn't take any pictures of our arrival. Candido had to stop before the last 20 minutes as it's not possible to traverse without a raised 4x4 with large wheels and low-range gears due to extremely uneven and steep places in the road. The Niva was really coming into its own on this terrain and we finally started to feel like we had got the right car! it pulled the 1 ton trailer up really steep rocky and gravelly road without even complaining, and it didn't heat up at all, it seems like it loves this terrain and hates highways :-)

We were not able to get onto our part of Candido's land that we want to build and grow on as there's a river that has a steep drop of about a meter that we can't drive over. A bridge has been started by someone at some point, so we'll finish it off soon and then do a bit of machete work to get the car and trailer the rest of the way. For now we've stopped and set up our tents just prior to the river.

Day six

We took the car to Canela where I did a full day at a net cafe to get some urgent work done and Beth went on the bus to pick up our friend Joe from Porto Alegre who'll be staying with us and helping us set up on the land. When they arrived we went to the car to head back to the land, and guess what! it wouldn't start - absolutely nothing! the only way we can start it is by pushing it, and we didn't want to risk going to the land at night with it in that condition. We managed to find a place that had a room that had just been painted and the women let all three of us stay in it for only R$50 so we're in there now with the windows open. Tomorrow we'll call Candido and ask if he knows any good mechanics here in Canela and take the car yet again to be fixed :-(

Week one

I'll start doing weekly updates from now on since we're only able to make it into Canela once or twice a week since its such a difficult trip. I've started at one again since it's our first week on the land. We moved the tent and most of our things to the proper final location because the wind was too strong in the temporary location and it snapped one of our tent poles. It's much more sheltered in the "island" (a clearing within the natural bush that we'll eventually build our dwellings and plant our fruit and vegetables).

The first thing to set up was the toilet - we're using a big bucket in the bush with the toilet seat from our last flat on it. To prevent odour and to assist with the composting process we put saw-dust on top of the content, the bucket is emptied every few days onto a compost pile in the bush - this compost is used for fruit trees not for the vegetable garden. Large bags of saw dust can be obtained from local saw mills, but we didn't have to look because there's about ten large sacks of it close to our previous camp site :-)

The land is really awesome, there's so many kinds of natural resource available such as sand, clay, really fertile soil, bamboo and many fallen trees, many with incredibly hard wood. There's humming birds, cranes, hawks, quales and there's a family of armadillos living a few meters away from our tent :-) we even have our own tiny beach where we can wash our clothes and ourselves!

At night there's amazing bugs called Vagalumes which are like fire flies but their light is brighter and white and fades on and off periodically while they fly about slowly. They give the land a really magical feeling as many of them come out as it starts getting dark and they surround our little island around the tent and vegetable garden!

Week two

The week started with our trip back from Canela to the land. When we got close we started to see a lot of fallen trees, and then a few houses with their roofs torn off, some completely destroyed! Some trees were torn out of the ground and snapped in half - some so thick you couldn't reach around them! When we were in the cafe the night before there had been very heavy rain and wind, but out in the land it seems it had been much more violent. We were very anxious on the way back expecting to see our tent completely ripped up and all our belongings scattered for hundreds of meters around the valley, but to our surprise everything was just how we'd left it apart from some minor damage to one tent - and everything inside was dry! it's very lucky that we'd decided to move from our temporary location though because there was a lot of damage there. It seems that our little island is well protected by the surrounding hills and bushland - whew!

The next day we started our first project on the land which was to build a fence so that we can start planting fruit and vegetables without the cattle eating it. There's a lot of fallen trees in our bush area so we got the axe and started cutting some lengths suitable for fence posts and support braces, and then stretched some wire around it that we had bought in Canela along with some tightening ratchets.

The next project was to try and get a temporary "office" for doing some internet work each day, but unfortunately the our rural Internet connection is not as good as expected and we'll need to keep coming in to Canela each week. I have to get more work done than I'm able to in the current situation, so we're looking in to renting a cheap place that we can stay so we can spend half the time here and half the time there until we can figure something better out for the land's connection.

The road that we travel to get to Canela is like a huge spiral going about four times more distance than displacement, but when we talked to some neighbours they told us there's a shorter road but that it's very difficult. We figured it couldn't be that much worse than some parts of the long one, so today (Saturday, November 3^rd) we decided to try the shorter road. Well, we made it, but the three of us unanimously voted never to do that again! we were lucky and if the road had been a little wetter we would certainly not have made it, there were many huge holes and chasms in the road that are a meter or more deep and lots of areas that are little more than enormous piles of rocks. Some of the neighbours in houses we passed towards the end looked shocked to see a vehicle coming from that direction!

Week three

We started this week in Canela to buy some more tools and try and sort out some Internet options for the land. Candido's mother has kindly let us stay in a house of hers that is being done up which is a great help. The bathroom's in a bit of a bad state, and the kitchen is non-existent - and we sometimes have some workmen turn up early in the morning dripping paint on our heads while we're in our sleeping bags, but apart from all that it's excellent being able to stay in Canela as long as we need to each week without having to worry about finding a cheap room that we can all stay in each time :-)

Apart from the garden project which is now fenced off and in the planting phase - Beth's marking off the planted areas with construction tape so we don't accidentally step on her seedlings :-) our next project is to get our first dwelling built which will be used for sleeping, storing tools and also as a workshop until we can eventually build some more smaller dwellings for private quarters and then make the first one into a shared area for working and socialising. The first step is to put some foundations down.

We're using a method similar to a pole house except that the poles are short and will only hold up the floor since we don't have logs long enough to also work for supporting walls and roof (we're avoiding chopping any trees down and trying to use only what's already available). We scorch the ends of the logs that will be buried so that they won't rot (a trick we learned from The Barefoot Architect). It doesn't matter if the lengths of the poles are a bit out because we'll be bolting and nailing 6x4 onto the sides, not the tops, that way we can ensure we have a perfectly horizontal floor regardless of the unevenness of our poles. During the process of boring holes for our poles, Joe accidentally chopped the tail off a scorpian! this is a bit of a worry because we thought the only dangerous creature in our area would be the Jararaca snake and that we were far too south and too high up to have scorpians here.

This week we were finally able to relax a bit and explore some of our land. The natural bush area is amazing with many secluded areas, interesting bugs and colourful birds, we're still finding it hard to believe that this amazing place is really ours! I haven't yet been able to get any good pictures of the birds or other exotic creatures yet such as snakes and armadillos (we know there's a snake around because we saw a freshly shed snake skin yesterday morning!) but we'll no doubt get some good pictures as the weeks go by.

Amongst all the hard work we had some time to enjoy the sun and little beach and do some meditation. We set up our small tent in the bush out of the sun for our temporary meditation temple :-) it as a nice view of the river and has crystals on the floor which we've found in the ground and in the river - the whole area seems to be filled with these crystals!

Week four

We started the week this with a change of plan - it's been too difficult getting work done having to come in to Canela every week and try to get things done in internet cafes and bakeries, so on our first day in Canela this week we rented a room in a pensao so that we have a permanent base here that we can work from.