Pantanal
Trip Start
Oct 23, 2006
1
183
228
Trip End
Apr 15, 2009
Cuiaba,
State of Mato Grosso,
Brazil
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thankfully, the truckstops are frequent, and very accomodating for travellers of all types. But for the noise of so many trucks, these would be first class campgrounds in any other country, with free showers, good food, and sometimes even electricity and wifi. Every stop has cooking facilities, sinks, running water, and spotless bathrooms. But these are huge places, perhaps taking in hundreds of rigs at a time. With no railroad here on the road north, everything goes by road, and the road is full of trucks all day long. We follow them for 3 days to the bustling hub city of Cuiaba.
Along the way we see many picturesque vistas that are so gorgeous that it seems improbable that this is not a Disney set
Hey, look at the pink humans.
. Fields of green, rolling dales, valleys of loveliness unmatched, perhaps since Ecuador.Each town has it's Police stop where they slow down the traffic enough to have a good look at you. These places also are the final resting spots for all the wrecks of cars that have failed to yield appropriately. Unlike Mexico, where the cars are left forever at the scene of whatever horrible accident as a grim reminder of what can happen if you misjudge that blind curve overtaking, here in Brazil they collect all the carcasses at the police station where you can view the various stages of destroyed vehicles while you wait for the once-over. It's quite an eye opener.
The road can suddenly turn into a formula one racetrack just as quickly as not, as this is SUVland again, and everyone feels the need to demonstrate their ability to push down the rightmost pedal. Lots of VWs here, and Fiats (Mille?) Occasionally a completely out-of-place sighting of a full sized American pickup, but mostly Mitsubishi/Toyota 4x4x4 travelling at 150km/h+.
This is Soya scenery as well, and often we see the huge silos and processing plants. It's colourful, but this is the lifeblood of Brazil now. Sugarcane for the rum abounds of course, as does Maize for the fuel, and sometimes even food crops.
Now, don't you kids look at 'em.
All this rushes past us at our breakneck 80km/h and we make long days (for us) of 500km.Speaking of rum, Brazil is not good at making wine, so we are forced to partake of the cachaca, cane rum, of course. It's strong. The beer is OK, coco milk is good, Guarana is the country's answer to Coca-cola, and is pretty good, with the rum. Coffee is GREAT, the best we've had since our supply ran out from home. The cafezinho (tiny cups of strong super-sweet coffee) is ok, but the basic coffee is as good as any we've ever had anywhere. Here also, they share the tradition of Mate with other south american countries, but they have HUGE mate cups, instead of the petite Argy versions. Does size really matter???
Along the way we start to see a string of towns named after presidents, each with their own prison. What does this mean for the retired presidents? Everyone gets his own town/jail when they are deposed?I guess it beats execution!
Soon we arrive at our first major river crossing, 12km later we're over the Rio Parana bridge.
Emu and ostrich farms abound now, alongside brahman cows and we can't forget the scenery in the sky as a flash of yellow orange caught our eye and we saw a couple of toucans improbably clumsily following their dazzling beaks across the sky in front of us. Later on a couple of macaws caused us to contort our necks in an effort to gaze upon them for as long as possible. We've seen these birds before in cages but never in the wild except in Mexico and Guatemala. Trying to take photos necessitates more twisted body maneuvers which so far falls short of a successful shot. Every day we see brightly colored flying things which is a welcoming balance to the beaten track we are following these days.
