another longish day of driving (from foz do iguacu to campo grande) — tomorrow, we will hopefully embark on a 3 night tour in the pantanal (ushi will stay behind in campo grande). a couple things:

earth, water, air and fire: on monday, ushi almost got swallowed up by the sandy road leaving parque ibera (a ton of red dust entered the car too). on wednesday, ushi almost drowned in a pool of water at foz do iguacu. today, on the drive to campo grande, ushi got air when i misjudged one of the speed bumps (all wheels were off the ground). i’m a bit worried about what will come next.

traffic lights: so far, i’ve seen 4 different traffic light styles in brasil. foz do iguacu had a strange signal that had about 11 lights. 5 vertical red, 5 vertical green and one yellow in the middle. the red/green lights then counted down so you knew how much time was left. on the drive up, i saw another one that was similar, but had a green light in the middle. in campo grande, they have the traditional 3 vertical lights, plus the same arrangement horizontally, plus just red/green lights. this place must be really confusing for colorblind people.

the sentra still smells a bit….we tried to air it out and get rid of the water….but i’m afraid it’s going to stink when we return from the pantanal.