Day 3 -- Another Mill, Another Great Day

We had to get up early this morning to check out of the hotel in Campinas and drive 2 hours to Jacarei...home of a large market pulp mill run by Fibria.  This mill makes about 1.2 millions tons per year of eucalyptus market pulp, using 100 % plantation-grown trees cloned and planted by Fibria.

The students were a bit frowzy from their samba outing the night before, but they had a chance to catch up on sleep on the bus.   We started the mill visit by taking the bus up a rugged dirt road to a mountain top, to visit their tree nursery.  Again, the students were struck by technology and steps involved in producing uniform eucalyptus seedlings.  They were very amused by having to put on snake-protective leg garments (see below).

We then took the bus to the mill, which is enormous and modern.  Our hosts introduced us to the mill, stressing the environmental focus of the company.  This is one of the few mills using ozone for bleaching.

We took a driving tour of most of the mill, but we stopped to take a tour of the pulp drying machines.  The scale of the process was impressive.

After lunch, we boarded the bus again and drove 1.5 hours to Sao Paulo.  This is a huge and exciting city!  After dinner, the group split up in an attempt to take in the many things this city has to offer.  Some people went to the Mueseum of Sao Paolo, which had an impressive offering of old and modern masters,  Others went to chow down in Little Italy.

We have another early morning tomorrow....we get on a local airplane to travel to the city of Salvador.  Off the plane, we take a bus to visit another mill.  After that, however...it's 1.5 days of free time in the beach city of Salvador!