Two days to Rancho Arcturus, the name for a mountain retreat dreamed up by my friend Verónica. The Arcturus part speaks to her belief in the fantastic. She dances in the constellations. Naming her mountain home after the nearest star—perfect.

Hours of riding in semi-arid landscapes conjuring American Southwest cowboys roaming scrubland bushes. In a slow-motion shift, now post-harvest farmland fills the landscape with a blur of brown stubs. Stretching out to the sky, tracks of dry stalks cut off at the ankle are everywhere; the harvest had been taken. Dodging the odd piece of farming equipment and an occasional overloaded trailer. Ten years ago, I had ridden through northern Brazil at the tail end of summer before the winter rains. The interior of northeastern Brazil can be unexpectedly parched and scrubby.

The countryside was nearly steamroller flat until it wasn't. Over a rise in the road, the landscape shifted, and suddenly, Toto and I weren’t in Kansas anymore. Blocky pyramid-shaped formations rose from the ground, and flat-top mesas replaced the uninterrupted horizon line. As the kilometers passed under me, Brazil revealed another rugged side. The sticky, sweet, humid Amazon was far behind me. This is not the Brazil most tourists envision—no exotic bird calls from jungle treetops or string bikinis dangling on tan beach bodies are found here.

There are many places in the world with provocative names. My teenage years were spent in the countryside west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not far from Lancaster Country, home of the Pennsylvania Dutch, Amish country. Famously, three rural Pennsylvanian towns with eye-popping names: Blue Ball, Intercourse, and, to round out the theme, Paradise. Trust me, the elders of the Amish community didn’t have sex in mind when arriving at these names. The Amish are religious and self-reliant farmers who shy away from modern technology. The innocent source of these sizzling names is thereby made even more hysterical. A Brazilian road sign appeared ahead, both humorous and almost fitting, Wanderlândia. Fitting only to a point. The Heart of the Beast Journey will take me into parts unknown, at least to me, and I’m open to deviation and exploration.  Today, I am on a schedule with a fixed next destination. 12294 km or 800 miles to Caeté-Açu, Palmeiras.  With a touch of regret, I did not turn off the highway to investigate. Stopping long enough for a photo of the sign, then back to consuming the expanse of Brazil, one stretch of macadam at a time.

I would have arrived closer to sunset had the rear wheel not become squishy. A summary check confirmed the rear tire was low. It's not flat, but getting there. The electric pump helped, but the pressure wasn’t holding. Probably a slow leak. The GPS whispered, Povoado Água Doce, a red clay dusty little side of the highway village, was a short distance away. Even better, it lay in the right direction! I hate going backward. With my usual luck, a little tire repair shop materialized. Not surprisingly, I found one quickly—tire shops are everywhere in South America. Finding the shop itself is universally easy. It’s the business with piles of tires in front. While the mechanic finished up a job, I unloaded the duffle bag slung across the seat and bought sodas for the restaurant next door. I usually buy something to drink for the mechanic. One, it’s a nice thought. Two, who would rip off a guy who just bought you a cool drink? Getting a flat is not good news, but finding a tire shop nearby is great news. Less than an hour later, I was motoring eastward again.

One day to Rancho Arcturus. By late afternoon, my destination remains hours away. Another night in a hotel or press on? I’m close enough to get there tonight, but it means riding into the night. The bulk of the road ahead is highway, admittedly with a generous portion of potholes and lines of lumbering long-haul trucks presenting a challenge to forward motion. The draw of reaching my destination was too strong; I pressed on.

Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

Jake: Hit it.

The Blues Brothers Movie, 1980

My faithful Garmin Zumo 550 was failing. The critical charging pin in the GPS cradle burnt down to a small nub. Ultimately, the bent remainder snapped off. The device didn’t stand a chance of charging in the cradle. Changing the GPS while I sleep had become the nightly routine. The internal battery provides a few hours of life to the navigation wizard. On this day, there was more road time than the battery life before the charge gave it up for the day. The practical solution is to turn on the GPS and navigate out of town, try to remember how far to the next major turn, and turn the device off. While riding, I periodically check the route to ensure I’m pointed in the right direction and estimate my time to arrival. The process will be repeated often throughout the day as I tend to be a nervous navigator. The latch that holds the GPS in the cable mounted on the handlebars broke. Every time I wanted to ride with the GPS, it took a couple of minutes to arrange a clumsy chain of zip ties looped in a figure 8 pattern. What a mess.

Turning off the BR-242 after sunset, I said goodbye to the trucks and hello to the home stretch, or so I thought. The 8-kilometer trip to Palmeiras was a piece of cake. No traffic and good roads, an excellent combination after riding all day. Verónica didn’t warn me about the 20-kilometer, it was all dirt road, with patches of gravel thrown in to keep me on my toes. After sunset, the headlight skims across the road surface, bringing out every bump and pothole of the uneven terrain. Each patch of washboard looked like a mountain range to my tired eyes. A nightmare. Slog on, bit by bit. I refused to drop the bike even if it meant slowing to a crawl. Truth be told, Verónica did advise me of the 20 kilometers of dirt road by text message while the flat tire was being patched. At the time, the information didn't sink into my semi-cranky mind, which was focused on getting back on the road. Lesson learned: when you hear the word "dirt" always double the estimated travel time.

As the village of Caeté-Açu got closer, the GPS battery was exhausted. Smartphone and Google Maps to the rescue! Fortunately, the Google Maps data for the area had been downloaded the day before, and navigation in the dark, unmarked roads was possible. Not having a smartphone holder attached to handlebars meant with every uncertainty, I had to stop, pull my iPhone out of a pocket, and check my next step, backtrack, realizing I had made a wrong turn or overshot Rancho Arcturus, but not by much. Deep into the evening, the entrance to Rancho Arcturus was finally in sight.