Fazenda Marco Polo had been recommended to us by another teacher at EAB who'd seen their advertisement in a magazine. Originally we had plans ot visit another fazenda but then found out our original reservation location had decided to remodel so our plans changed and honestly, it couldn't have been better.
The fazenda's owned by an American and Brazilian couple. The place definitely reminded us a lot of being in the U.S. From the furniture (American antiques) to the Kleenex (the size of the boxes gave that away) to the bookshelves (lots of English titles) but it was mixed with Brazilian charm. It was a lot farther from Brasilia that I originally thought, (almost 4 hours from Brasilia and past Goiania which I visited for a couple of hours on the return with Kathy) but each time I drive out of the city, I'm reminded that I live in Brazil. The countryside reminds me of that.
The Casa Grande. This is the 4-bedroom house where we stayed. There are 2 other houses on the property and luckily we had the entire house to ourselves.
The beautiful staircase in Casa Grande. It was closed but I did try to sneak up it to see where it led. The wooden slats spiral staircase surround this beautiful tree trunk but about halfway up, the trunk seemed a little too hollow for me so I came back down.
This is our room. Andrea, Kathy and I shared it.
HUGE! It even fit all of us.
On one of the porches where these comfy chairs and a hot tub. Spent a lot of time reading here.
The gazebo near the pool housed fooseball, chairs, an lcd projector and a stereo with loads of American music.
The pool. The pool had beautiful tile mosaics on the bottom which the girls loved diving toward. The chairs were beautifully comfortable, swim-up bar, volleyball net, lsauna, bathrooms with American posters and newspaper clippings and lots of shaded seating. 
One of my favorite parts of the property were the adorable garbage cans. I wonder if there were fun garbage cans everywhere if more people would throw things away. Here are just a few of them.
A mango tree with a tree swing. Yes, those are mangoes!
The property's owner must love flowers as not only all of the light fixtures inside the house are in a flower design, from sconces to chandeliers but also outside along the walking paths, as seen above.
It truly was the perfect getaway. The grounds were gorgeous. Beautiful flowers, cute lizards and even cows right outside our door (when we sat reading or swinging in the hammock they were right there)!
Enjoying the pool.
Fish #1 - Ellie
Fish #2 - Savanna
Cheers!
Cozing up near the fireplace in the library.
Brazilian breakfast. Yum! It usually consists of lots of bread with things like cheese, coldcuts, butter, jam and honey to put on your bread. Coffee, freshly squeezed juice, sometimes eggs, lots of delicious pasteries including pao de quiejo (cheese bread).
Playing games.
Milking cows. This was the first time I've done this but I did a pretty decent job. Must have been channelling Gram. What was so cool is that we actually drank the milk we helped to get for breakfast. In our coffee, with chocolate added. There's nothing quite like fresh milk.
Playing games.Milking cows. This was the first time I've done this but I did a pretty decent job. Must have been channelling Gram. What was so cool is that we actually drank the milk we helped to get for breakfast. In our coffee, with chocolate added. There's nothing quite like fresh milk.We definitely will be shouting "Polo!" the next time we are need a relaxing weekend away from when we hear "Marco!" being shouted in the rainy wind of Brasilia.
This looks like no other farm I've ever seen! Certainly not like our family's farm in Iowa. What an icredible beautiful place, there's so much to see I don't know how your didn't get whiplash looking all around you. Perfect weekend!
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