Coming 'Round The Mountain

We had a great trip down to Passo Fundo and on the way back we decided to go the long way home and visit Rastro River Mountain. Pretty spectacular place but better than the view was the road driving down it.

It is an 8km stretch (about 5 miles) and has 284 curves. Most of them are hairpin curves that trucks and buses have to stop, back up and maneuver in order to get around. There is no way to see how twisted the road actually is unless you were to photograph it from a helicopter or plane.

It is also extremely narrow without any shoulder. Trucks and buses passing each other would have to slow down to a crawl to make sure they didn't rub.

This is in the coldest region of Brazil and it snows pretty often. It was hard enough to navigate it on a sunny day much less with snow or ice.

What surprised us more than anything was the wildlife. There is a station on top of the mountain and immediately a group of guaxinim came running up to us.

They are from the raccoon family and they would eat right out of your hand. I started thinking about when I had to have rabies shots a few years ago and stayed away form them.

We rounded a curve when we saw this rascal sitting on the retaining wall. Thankfully there was an observation point about 500 ft after we passed him. Jânio and I ran up to him to take pictures. We were in the middle of a narrow two lane road with buses and trucks coming from both directions but we really weren't thinking at the moment.

People told us that this species is aggressive but as soon as I began to take his picture, he turned his back on us. I started yelling at him and he turned around and gave me this look. A truck was coming by then so we had to get out of there.

All in all it was a lot of fun and we had a great time seeing a part of Brazil I didn't even know existed.