Curitiba

We arrived in Curitiba around one in the afternoon and were soon met by a casually but well-dressed man named Mr. Camillo. He told us that Paulo and Jose were stuck in traffic and would arrive in about 20 minutes, so we set our things down and I read over our itinerary again to solidify plans in my head. After a while, we were on our way in a Fiat rent-a-car that held all 6 of us rather comfortably. Our destination was a co-processing facility for recycling owned, at least partially, by Mr. Camillo. As we drove through Curitiba, I looked out the window ready to catch my first glimpses of this rather famed town, rated by Reader's Digest as the best place to live in Brazil. However, the jet-lag from our nearly 30 hours of travel caught up to me, and I passed out in the car. When I awoke, we were at the recycling facility, where we saw a brief presentation about their business by a well-spoken young environmental engineer named Carlos. He gave us a tour and my colleagues were excited about the crushers and the stacks of containers and used tires, snapping photos and asking lots of questions. I found it all interesting enough, and jotted down some notes, but was feeling in a daze and a bit chilly since the temperature had dropped to about 60. When we were finished at the recycling facility, we caught a ride to our hotel, the Hotéis Slaviero in central Curitiba. It was nice to put down my bags and throw myself on the bed, and after a good night's sleep, am ready to head out with our engineer Suzuki-san to see the town via double-decker bus.