Week 2 Wednesday:

We boarded the bus at 5:45 am and were learning about the orange production industry in Brazil by 7:15 AM. We visited Santa Eliza which is a family owned business that produces oranges as well as buys oranges from other producers. The oranges are made into juice or packaged in boxes to be sold as a fruit. Santa Eliza recently purchased and set up the most modern equipment for evaluating, grading and sizing oranges. In this system a picture is taken of each fruit and it is also weighed. They are then sorted to be sold for fruit or juice. The left over oranges are boxed and shipped back to the grower for compost. It is a year round business and 300 million boxes of oranges move through this business a year. We were able to go to the orchard and pick and eat oranges from the tree and the owner was nice enough to offer us fresh juice at the end of the tour. We had an early lunch of beef or chicken parmesan with rice and French fries.

In the afternoon, we visited Sao Palo State Nature Preserve in San Claro where we learned about Eucalyptus production and bamboo. Eucalyptus is used for paper production and production of oils for soap, cosmetics, toothpaste, perfume etc. We learned that the first newspaper produced in Wisconsin in the 1930’s from Eucalyptus shipped from Brazil. Wisconsin had the technology that was not yet available in Brazil. A picture of the actual paper is included. Note the prices of items shown in the newspaper. We also saw sample pieces of wood from the various kinds of Eucalyptus. It was interesting to see the differences in color, weight, density etc. We toured the museum at the preserve and then hiked on some trails.

On the way home we stopped for Brazilian ice cream which does taste different and settled in at the hotel for a quiet evening. Cristina stopped by the hotel and spent some social time with the students.