On our last day in Rio some of us decided to get up (or should I say stay up) to watch the sun rise over the Copacabana Beach. Most of the group woke up early enough to enjoy some time at the beach before our 12 o'clock check out time. Some of us even braved the ocean waves. After checkout we ate lunch and did some last minute souvenir shopping before leaving for the airport.

We woke up early this morning in Rio de Janeiro, to experience our last full day in Brazil, to visit one of the most famous places in Rio - the "Christ the Redeemer" statue atop the famous Corcovado mountain which overlooks all of Rio.  Upon arrival at the bottom of the mountain we took a 20 minute train ride to the top filled with scenic views along the way of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. From the bottom of the mountain the statue looked small, but we all had a change of mind as soon as we stood at the top of the mountain and were right next to it. 

We kicked off our Thursday morning with a meeting at Anheuser-Busch’s (AMBEV) Direct Distribution Center in Rio de Janeiro. Right away we were welcomed with open arms by a highly energetic and boisterous chant from the AMBEV employees, which occurs daily at this plant in order to show how committed the employees are in the company.  It’s called a “morning meeting.”  

Our morning started bright and early with a standard Brazilian breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Cuiaba, Mato Grosso. We checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus by 8 AM, ready for our busy day. Over the course of the day, we attended a presentation from members of APROSOJA (Association of Producers of Corn and Soybeans in Mato Grosso) and IMEA (Economic Institute of Agribusiness), ate lunch at Cuiaba's Shopping Center, and flew from Cuiaba to Rio de Janiero.

On Tuesday, May 21st, the IBIP group checked out of the hotel and started the day with a bus tour of the city of Lucas do Rio Verde by our friend and tour guide, Ricardo Arioli Silva. He explained how the town had grown tremendously, especially over the past 5 years (12% per year!), since its founding about 3 decades ago. New industries, neighborhoods, and markets have emerged all over Lucas, where previously only cornfields had existed.

For our first day in Lucas do Rio Verde, we had an early start and visited the Maggi Soybean Crushing Plant.  This company has 40,000 hectares of cropland and 41 warehouses. Between all of their facilities, they have a capacity of 2.6 million tons of storage. We learned all about their conversion process of soybeans to oil and how they extract and use all of the byproducts of this production.  Anything that does not turn into oil gets converted into feed for livestock because of the high protein content.

We had a free morning before our 11 am check out at SESC Pantanal. Some utilized this time to get some sun, some decided to catch up on sleep, and some chose to further explore the amenities of the hotel. One such amenity was the butterfly house. The house was very pretty with many different types of flowers and species of butterflies. There were butterflies all over the place and a lot of them would land on us (which some of us loved and some didn't love so much). One of our favorite butterflies was one with bright blue wings, but we couldn't figure out what type of butterfly it was.

On Saturday we woke up in a new place for all of us, the Pantanal wetlands in the state of Mato Grosso.  This place is located in the beautiful countryside of central-western Brazil. The name of the resort we are staying at is the SESC Pantanal, which is a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote and protect the Pantanal region after years of exploitation. After waking up, we went exploring throughout the resort to discover what amenities it offers.

This morning we departed from the Hotel Antonio's Palace Hotel in Piracicaba and went to the Viracopos Airport for a flight to Cuiaba Airport. At the Viracopos airport we said our goodbyes to Felipe and Brenda, as they were returning to Sao Paulo.  However, we will see both Brenda and Felipe during our last adventure in Rio de Janeiro.

Thursday was our last full day in Piracicaba, São Paulo.  We woke up bright and early to take a tour of Raízen Group Sugar Mill, a Brazilian subsidiary of Shell and Cozan.  Our hostess, Fatima, gave us a warm welcome and was happy to answer any of our questions about Raízen and the sugarcane industry as a whole. We began our tour by watching a video that briefly explained the history of Raízen and also the scale of the sugarcane industry, including the processes sugarcane must undergo to become sugar, ethanol, or biodiesel.