From Presidente Prudente we rode south towards the great state of Parana.
One of Brazil’s 26 states, Parana borders Paraguay and Argentina, is home to the largest dam in the world – Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam – and Iguazu Falls. Needless to say I was super excited to arrive.
“Iguazu Falls makes Niagara look like a joke,” I told Mark as I showed him photos of the falls.
“Wow that’s insane,” he responded with wide eyes.

After two long days on the road we arrived at the bridge that crosses the Parapanema River to enter the state of Parana. The bridge stretching out at half a kilometre offered a gorgeous view of the wide, brown river beneath, but the giant trucks blowing by the mares and I, kept us moving as quick as possible. In just under 10 minutes we crossed yet another bridge and entered yet another state. It felt great!
I rode up to the MAPA (Ministry of Agriculture) office and handed them the mares exams. In order to enter a different state in Brazil with horses you must provide all of the exams and papers asked. It took a few minutes for the MAPA employee to check everything over, but in a soon enough we were moving south again.
That night with no farms, ranches or towns in site, we were forced to camp at a dirty gas station.

Not my favourite place to set up the tent, that’s for sure.
“This place is filthy,” Mark said after we noticed we had put up the tent right next to the gas station bathroom.
It was no 5 Star Hotel, but it was this or nothing so we took it. I tied up the mare’s to a fence line and gave them both an abundance of hay. After eating some noodles for dinner, Mark and I hit the hay.