What is there to say about this last week, let me see...how about... I MADE IT HOME!!!! It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, especially because of the intense and disrespectful traffic, in addition to my ever-increasing dehydration for going non-stop 11 days at an average of 160 km per day! But it was just as exhilarating as I had dreamed it to be, as many other moments in the trip, the last days were almost unreal, I just couldn't picture concretely what I was doing.

Traffic was quite bad going into Campo Grande alright, but not half as bad as leaving... Trucks and more trucks, loaded, driving fast and nearby. It was certainly the most dangerous cycling in the entire 6 months, but I as in a fix, I wasn't going to give up, not then, not this close. But it turned out not to be that bad, just about 90 km of riding through bushes and gravel (to stay as far away from the trucks as possible) until I reached the detour for the highway heading northeast, the BR060. 180 degrees change, I could then hear birds, cows, my breathing and nothing but. NO cars! Of course nature plays its tricks, heavy wind some days, a swarm of bees crashing into my helmet, gazillions of mosquitoes at dusk, and other similar events, but I couldn't help but to enjoy it all, I was going home.

   

And every little town or village I went through, people just wouldn't believe I had come from the United States on a bicycle. They thought I was lying or that San Francisco was a town in Brazil somewhere. Funny, one guy saw the sign I put up at the back of the bike saying San Francisco -> Brasilia, 14000km and looked puzzled. "Oh, you have to have one of those on the bike to be allowed to travel, eh?" He thought it was some kind of license plate or something! Hahaha.

Finding a place to sleep was a problem sometimes. The BR060 is deserted and that's wonderful for biking, but not so good if you don't have a tent... And to make the schedule I had planned and arrive in Brasilia on or before the independence day, I was kinda stuck with a minimum distance to ride for every day. With towns 50-60 km apart, my only option was to find out where the gas stations were in between and hope to be able to sleep there. Indeed that was almost always successful and I had to sleep on the floor in gas stations 4 times in this last week. (No, Jean Philippe, never in the oil pit! :)

In Rio Verde, already in the state of Goias, I had an interesting thing happen to me. Well, I was out of money and I had tried to reach this city before 4:00 pm, when banks close, but I didn't make it till 5:30. Up till 7:30 I rode around looking for an inexistent money exchange and trying other alternatives. When I as about to give up I rode by Banco do Brasil and by chance there was a guy standing in front of the closed doors. He turned out to be the manager and after explaining my problem, he made a call from his cell phone and a minute later I was in the bank, nearly 4 hours after closing time! The only money I was able to get was an informal loan from one of the bank executives, cuz they had some problems getting money off my card. So back I was the next day, this time 3 hours before opening time when, after a bunch of calls and a big confusion, they finally had the approval and managed to find the manual voucher machine for the credit card. And this is where it got ridiculous. They had FOUR people trying to figure out how to work the voucher and the card into the machine and in the right directions and they just couldn't do it! *I* actually had to go over and explain how to do it and run the clak-clak thing!

After Rio Verde, it was nice and easy to Goiania, the capital of the state. Back in traffic it was, but that wasn't my real problem. The true problem was trying to find an internet cafe, so I could mail everyone about my arrival. I arrived early in Goiania just to do that and it took me all afternoon. Finally by the end of the day I just decided to go to an ISP and cry for help. It worked. And better than I had imagined. Turns out the ISP I went to (Zaz) is tied to a local newspaper, so they had me come back the next morning, before leaving, to do an interview and take some pix. I felt famous!

Alexania to Brasilia was the last day. Easy day compared to the previous 10, and I had my parents meet me in the morning to follow me home. My mom filmed, took pictures, and of course told me what to be careful with, when to drink and eat, put on sunscreen, etc... And finally approaching the airport, we were tagged by news reporters taking pictures and everything. They followed me home and finished it up with a long interview which covered almost a full page of the newspaper the following day!