Cascavel

We have been in Cascavel now for 4 days  now ... the last stop on our 8 city tour. Like the other cities, we have been warmly welcomed into the homes and lives of our Rotary families. We spent time at Cascavel's city hall learning about this city and the ambitious project underway to grow the population. We spent a day in the neighbouring town of Ubirata learning about how the town is working towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, seeing the local Rotary projects, and celebrating the opening of a new agricultural cooperative. We participated in the District 4640 annual conference and gave our presentation one last time. And finally we shared in a good-bye lunch with friends from across this district. 

 With the President of the Cascavel City Council

 Mari-Anne planting her tree at Creche Das Arvores in Ubirata

 After a successful presentation at the district conference with the Brazilian GSE team

Enjoying Shereen's presentation at our farewell lunch

     

Foz Do Iguacu Highlights

We had a fantastic time in Foz Do Iguacu! We did so many things there I can't post about them all, see below for some of the highlights. Thanks so much to all the families and great people that we met there, we had so much fun!

Dinner and a show at a very nice restaurant.

A 1.5 hour show showcasing 3 different countries, music, dancing and various other things. Very fun!

Iguassa Falls, pictures do not do it justice, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen!

Trying to stay dry, lol

Coati, very cute raccoon type animals, they were all over Iguassu Falls

Itaipu Dam, magnificent engineering marvel that produces almost 20% of Brazil's energy.

Inside Itaipu, this place is huge! We got to see all the levels, even went down to the bottom floor. Very impressive!

Half of Itaipu Dam is in Brazil and the other half is in Paraguay, this is the dividing country line. lol, we are such tourists. 

View from the top of the Dam. 

Bio Reserve of Itaipu, learned a lot about the environmental efforts and also got a lot of bug bites.

Visiting the mosque, or as they say here Mosquita

Three frontiers, from this point you can see Argentina and Paraguay, very beautiful.

Foz do Iguacu

Our first full day couldn't have been better. We went straight to Iguacu National Park to see the famous Falls Iguacu. It's very different from Niagara Falls. After paying to enter the park, we took a 10 minute bus ride then hiked about 1.5 kilometers to the falls.  Being able to get so close was incredible. 

After the falls we enjoyed an amazing buffet lunch looking out on to the water.

We visited the National Bird park with many exotic and colouful birds.

In the evening we had time with our host families.  Some of us went to a family dinner, some went to Paraguay and some attempted to go to Argentina but got turned away.

Last day in Marechel

Today we visited lake Itaipu and had an amazing boat ride. On the way we stopped at a historical museum of Itaipu lake. We were so close to Paraguay.

After a delicious lunch on the lake we came back into town to walk around the city. We stopped at many small shops owns by Rotarians or families of Rotarians. 

We had the pleasure of getting a tour of the family owned lingerie company Fidelity. We were surprised to see the manual work that goes into making womens undergarments. So much detail and so many pieces that are part of the process.

Busy in Marechal

We have been in Marechal Candido Rondon for a couple of days now and it has been non-stop ... and great! We were greeted by a large crowd of welcoming Rotarians on Tuesday afternoon at the gates of this European-founded city and whisked off to some tours of local whey processing facilities. A yummy German style dinner with our hosts at a local brewery ended our first day in this new city.

Our second day in Marechal began with a visit to the Mayor's office, followed by a tour of the city. In the afternoon we visited a property out in the country that makes ice using power from the river. It was really cool. Pun intended. We also had the opportunity to check out the construction site of a new hydroelectric dam, and had coffee and wonderful cakes and goodies at an orchid farm. A successful presentation at the Rotary club meeting ended our night. 

Today we were taken to the nearby town of Palotina to spend the day with some new Rotarian friends. Palotina is an agricultural town and so we spent the day touring various operations - leite, frango, peixe and porco. Lot's of farms! 

Rotary Meeting Francisco Beltrao Snapshots

A birthday gift for our good friend Nevio.

Some Toledo Highlights

Exploring the nice parks of Toledo!

Taking a moment to think.......

Meeting with the Mayor of Toledo, was a very good conversation.

Very nice vineyard, do you think I could bring this bottle home?

So much beer! It was very interesting to see the process, something like 10,000 cans/hour.

Colonia Brewery, you can't get much fresher beer than this!

Presenting at the Toledo Rotary Club

Relaxing by the pool, was such a nice day!

A Relaxing Sunday in Toledo

We enjoyed a relaxing Sunday fishing, chatting and soaking up the sun. The meal was delicious with freshly caught tilapia.

Rotary Club Meetings

One of our roles throughout this experience is to be ambassadors for Rotary - to build relationships across cultures and across clubs. In each city visited so far we have taken part in a meeting of one of the local Rotary Clubs where we have presented about ourselves, our vocations, Canada, and a little about Canadian culture - all in Portuguese. The Rotarians here in Brasil are very kind people ... and are patient with our attempts! 

                                          Iga speaking at the Guarapuava meeting

                                          Our group with Rotarians in Guarapuava

Francisco Beltrao

It's been a couple of days now that we have been in the beautiful city of Francisco Beltrao. As in the other cities, our host families have been very welcoming. We have been able to spend some quiet time with them which has been much appreciated. So far we have also toured the Flessak and Morel factories, had some vocational time, drank great wine at the beautiful Urio Park (where we had a tree planted in honour of the last GSE experience), sat in (and in some cases, took part in) a capoeira demonstration, and climbed up to see the Cristo. A great experience so far!