Hortitec 2009

As I was pretty much done with all organizational things in the office, I did not go to Bayer on Wednesday but joined Franziska (whom I know from Bayer CropScience in Germany and who is here since 2007) to go to Hortitec, an agricultural fare, in Holambra.

We left at 6:15h in the morning to avoid the heavy Sao Paulo traffic and got to Holambra around 08:30h. Holambra is supposed to be a little Holland Colony with windmills, hollad style houses and, get this: they have "drempels" and the funny signs for them too but they forgot the one and only famous holland holiday sentence "let op drempels!" :D Okay, I know you wont understand this if you are neither called Elli nor Toni or Lucky but whatever ;)

The fare was a little outside the town so we started to take a look at the fare. Bayer had a very nice stand there and one could look at many many nice flowers and vegetables from seed breeders and at big agricultural machinery too.
It was actually very interesting and I learned a lot, especially about the cotton and tomato markets.

After the fare we checked out the little town, but really, the whole Holland thing is a bit of a marketing joke. They basically built normal flat bungalows and placed a holland look alike front before them. It looks like they forgot the movie set there when filming was over :D
Still, it was really fun! And of course, they have wonderful flower shops.

On the way back it started to rain very very heavily and we stood a little in the traffic jam, but it was still okay. At least comparing it to Sandras first driving experience that same day: It took her over 2 hours to go from Bayer to the hotel, in the rain and when everyone leaves for the long holiday weekend...

Here you can find some pictures: