Ourilandia Do Norte - Day III

Roadside Beauty

Travel is about what you left behind as much as what it is in front of you.  How can I not look at my one plug-in in my room and not appreciate the dozens that I have at home? How can I not look at the selection of withered and mouldy fruit/vegetables here and not appreciate the produce section at Safeway back home? Life is good, but it's even better when you know how good you have it.

I had my first breakfast buffet at the Gramado this morning. It was a reasonably good selection including good strong black coffee and a variety of melons, kiwis, buns and sandwhiches.

Our "Technical School" where we will take our orientation and training for the next several days...

After breakfast, our group of demolition experts was transported to a tehnical school where we were to take 12 hours of confined space training. After an hour or so of waiting around, it turned out there was no instructor available so we were sent back to our hotels till after the siesta at 2 pm, at which time we are to go until midnight.  As you might expect, this is not going over very well with the guys who are already losing their humour over nightly power outages, difficulties contacting loved ones, and an obviously shortage of Tim Hortons.

I, on the other hand, see the humour in it all, and am only too happy to walk the streets in my daily quest for green leafy vegetables and a matching sandal.

I am off to find a coffee...

Update 1:30 pm
I took a walk for a couple of hours and found myself perched at a corner table sucking on a can of coconut milk.

 

Military Police - They arbitrarily pull people over at machine gun gunpoint, search their vehicles and back packs and confiscate unlicensed motorcycles.

 

This is my amigo Manuel who sat down with me to watch the world go by... Notice his left little toe sticking out of his boot...

I think I want to try this too!

 

 

After a bit, I walked the length of town and bought some vegetables for lunch, taking a few more pics for my scrapbook:

 

 

 

Meat for sale!

 

 

 

 

6 pm update

We returned to the Technical School at 2 pm and sat through 4 of the longest hours of our lives listening to Raphael discuss the general principles of safety, 98% of which was in Portugese and 2% by an english interpreter. Half of our class were Portugese locals. The class was suddenly cancelled until 2 pm tomorrow but the word is we will be training half of Sunday and 8 am - 10 pm Monday/Tuesday and then hopefully starting work Wednesday...