Our time in Cachoeiro

Our last few days have been spent in Cachoeiro, the name of the city comes from the Portuguese word for "waterfalls". The city is inland and surrounded by beautiful mountainous landscapes. A river runs through the center of the city and the temperatures are known to be very hot. Lucky for us, we are visiting during the winter so the temperature has been in the 80s. In the summertime it can get up into the 100's.

The morning of our first day was spent doing vocational visits. Hillary and Kristy visited the Gazeta affiliate station in Cachoeiro, Paul visited an insurance company and Luke and Marc were off to the firestation, which we discovered had a cobra as its mascot.

Then it was off ot the town of Mimosso do Sul to meet the local rotarians and tour the city. The tour included a visit to the old historic city where Mimoso was originally founded. It had beautiful architecture and the feel of a small European city. There we were treated to live traditional Brazilian music with accordian and guitar.

Later that night we had our first presentation at the Rotary Club of Cachoeiro - Oeste.

Our second day in Cachoeiro we toured a Rotary school in one of the poor neighborhoods of town, visited a marble factory and then took a drive out to a hydroelectric plant build in 1912, with a beautiful waterfall nearby called Cachoeiro Alta. That evening we had our second presentation of the visit at the Rotary Club of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim.

The third day, we visited Incaper Farm and Burarama Agriculture Research Center where the farmers use practices that decrease the amount of farmland used and help re-vitialized the forests for natural animal habitats. On the farm they also grow coffee, guava, bananas and produce milk.

Then we had lunch with the Roatry Club Cachoeiro de Itapemirim- Sudeste which is only one year old and one of the few lunch time rotary groups. Tomorrow we will say goodbye to Cachoeiro for a busy day of stops in Jeronimo Monteiro and Alegre before ending in Guacui.