Bon Dia (Good Morning) from beautiful Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil!  The group started their day with a traditional Brazilian breakfast served at Hotel Nadai.  A traditional Brazilian breakfast consists of a variety of sweet and savory options that range from fresh fruits like pineapple and watermelon to other exotic items like pigs in a blanket.  With all of the different hotels we have stayed at thus far we have all had the distinct opportunity to try unique South American breakfast staples. 

Day 8 brought a new adventure as our group traveled to the interior of Brazil from Campinas. Early Friday morning, we boarded Azul Airlines flight 4406 to Foz Do Iguacu, with the flight lasting for a little over an hour. The town of Foz Do Iguacu is located in the state of Parana and is a major center for tourism and energy production. Upon arriving in the town, we traveled to our hotel, Nadai Hotel in Foz Do Iguacu.

Today we went to the University of São Paulo Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ) to attend a lecture from Marcos Ferraz about precision agriculture in the Bio Systems Engineering Department. During the lecture, we learned about various precision agriculture techniques such as real time AI decision making, remote sensing, and high-resolution soil data collection.

On the fifth day of our journey in Brazil, we started off at CNH Industrial in Sorocaba, followed by three lectures at ESALQ (University of Sao Paulo) and ended at a dinner with the ALPA director in Piracicaba. At CNH we met with Miguel and Roberto, our lecturers were: Professor Heliane, Professor Jose and Professor Silvia, and at dinner we met with Flavio.

Bom Ano Novo (Happy New Year)! Many places in Brazil were closed today because it’s New Year’s Day. As a result, we had the morning to catch up on rest. We ate breakfast at the hotel, enjoyed the rooftop pool, and packed up our room in preparation for transferring to our next hotel in Sorocaba. We walked to a mall for lunch because it was one of the few places with open restaurants. There were many American options including Taco Bell, McDonalds, and Burger King.

On Monday December 31^st, 2018 the IBIP students hopped on the charter bus and headed for the countryside of Sao Paulo. Here, students had the opportunity to interact with an organic small holder farming cooperative operation. We met with two different organic farmers, Jaures Sales and Mauri, of the cooperative called Cooperapas. An administrative member of the cooperative, Arpad, guided us to each.

On our second day in Brazil, December 30th, we had a day full of tourism throughout areas of Sao Paulo. We started the day with breakfast at our hotel. The breakfast was unique as it was filled with fresh fruits, fresh squeezed fruit juices, sandwich meat, coffee, and cereal. After breakfast we all meet downstairs for a quick meeting on what today was going to be filled with. Today, we were to visit Batman Alley in the Vila Madelena District, then we were to grab lunch, after lunch we took a quick break at the hotel then headed to Paulista Avenue.

It is December, 29^th, 2018, at the end of the first day of our trip. It began on December, 28^th, 2018, when we boarded our flight with Copa Airlines. While on the plane, we expressed various expectations and goals that we had for our trip to Brazil. Upon arriving in Panama City, we sprinted to our connecting flight for Sao Paulo, Brazil. After six hours and forty-five minutes of flying, we had arrived at our destination.

Today was the third official day of meetings, continuing on ACE 292’s grand adventure in California! With the extra time and break from classes on Spring Break, it feels like our class has been in the great state for several weeks, rather than just a few days. Even though it’s bittersweet realizing that our time here is more than halfway over, we are truly appreciative of all the amazing opportunities we’ve experienced so far, and we are excited for the remainder of the trip.

Our trip to New Zealand ends with the long awaited (and dreaded) 13 hour plane ride and then another plane ride from San Fransisco to Chicago. While trying to simultaneously fight jet lag and coping with the fact that we actually have to leave the beautiful country of New Zealand; we are all eager to see our families and recharge our bank accounts. It is almost impossible to sum up our trip in one word or even 500, but we think we can all say it was truly incredible and unforgettable.