Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Babbling words, Blocked skies, & Birds in Brasil
Bom Dia Phreds,
Brasil, the largest country of the tour, in terms of area, and a place well known for its tropical heat, was a country that I had been looking forward to reaching for many months.
Too large and diverse to be described briefly, there are still some distinctions relevant to a long tour, especially when arriving after spending several months in the countries to the south. While it may be common to think of the country as one giant rainforest, the environment actually varies quite a bit with latitude and altitude, including temperate areas in the far south, and semi-arid regions in the interior. Culturally, this was first place I had been in South America with a significant African influence, which was nice to see. Together with the prominent European component, and the much smaller remnants of indigenous cultures, these aspects have blended more completely than perhaps anywhere else, creating a unique and appealing feel. Many cities, especially newer ones near the coast, have been built with the appearance of mini-Manhattans, with many similarly-designed high rise apartments and offices packed into a small area. Older and smaller towns are often more traditionally designed, with shops and homes surrounding a central plaza. Not as restricted in terms of business hours as Argentina, most shops are open all day, and, consequently, the streets become quieter much earlier in the evening.
However, the most notable distinction is the universal use of the Portuguese language, which is spoken by more Brasilians than by people in Portugal itself, by a factor of twenty. In a similar way to the United States, the country is large enough that most residents rarely encounter speakers of other languages, and so have little need to learn a second language. Only in the more modern sectors of the tourism industry is much English spoken. It had been a long time since I had to deal with my incompetence in languages, not having quite as much trouble with Spanish, and trying to communicate in Portuguese proved laughably difficult for me. At first I did not think that it would be so tough, as there are many words that are similar to those of other languages, though food words are notable exceptions. However, it’s the pronunciation that was the real hang-up. It often seemed to me as if a different alphabet was in use. As an example, a pair of English-speaking locals started chatting with me just as I entered the country. They tried to tell me where they lived, and said “We are from Rio Grande,” but what I heard was “We are from Heelgrange.” Though I had bought a little phrase book, since I would be in the country for a while, I quickly gave up on that and resorted to the time-honored technique of smiling and laughing a lot. Of course, that didn’t really seem like a big deal after being in similar situations in so many places. The difficulties are most apparent in the coastal regions, where the accent is severe. Later, when I reached the interior, I discovered that pronunciation there was more like what I would normally expect. I was told that people from the coast make fun of the way people in the interior speak, but if you ask me, that’s backwards and it’s the coastal folks who talk funny.
As to practical matters, expenses for most items were in line with the southern countries of the continent, being slightly more than moderate for the Tour as a whole. Though I planned to start camping more frequently again, for various reasons I stayed indoors much more than I expected. Mid-range accommodation was usually pretty easy to find, and the standard was fairly good, though it was sometimes hard to estimate the quality or value of a place based on how it looked from the outside. One quirky aspect was that most of the time, as you might expect in a tropical region, hot water was sometimes not available, or only available from electrical on-demand heaters in the shower. No problem for me, except that in the far south, where it was still rather chilly and a warm shower might have been nice, those units frequently seemed to be non-functional.
Food ranged from good to excellent, with beef and other meats remaining dominant on menus, though tropical staples such as rice and manioc were also increasingly abundant. The mainstay of dining in Brasil is the lunchtime buffet, available just about everywhere, which, while basic but tasty enough, allows one to fill up for a rather low cost. Though I did that often, the return of hot weather and my efforts to pick my pace back up, caused me to consume many more drinks and snacks, which brought costs back up in line with Argentina. Speaking of drinks, the indigenous soft drink is made from a native fruit called guarana. While I have often found such local products lacking, this one is quite good. In supermarkets, the selection was pretty good, and constant all along my route, with a few items available that I hadn’t seen in a while, such as decent potato chips. Except for perhaps one or two days, places to get food or drinks were spaced out just about perfectly, meaning I almost never had to carry extra supplies. In that regard, Brasil was probably the most ideal of the large countries visited on the Tour so far.
During earlier parts of the Tour, on more than one occasion, I met other tourists who had done long tours in South America, and was told that they did not enjoy Brasil. The reason given was that the traffic was too bad. This could have been because those folks only passed through the heavily populated southeastern part of the country, since Sao Paolo, located in that region, is the probably the most used port of entry on the continent for those arriving by air. Whatever the reason, I had decided that I would make every effort to avoid the worst of the bad sections. Sometimes I succeeded at that, sometimes I did not, and sometimes it was not an issue at all.
My route began in the extreme southeastern part of the country, and began with a long section northwards, more or less along the coast as far as Rio de Janeiro. My instincts would have been to avoid such a big city, but after the brief stop made there during a port call of the Repubblica Argentina, I decided that I would return there after all, as I thought it was rather nice. From Rio, I would turn inland through the surprisingly rugged eastern coastal mountains and the historic gold-rush area within, eventually reaching the capital, Brasilia. Continuing west, though the interior of the country, my goal was to visit the Pantanal, the famous wetlands. Assuming that I could work that out, I would then turn south towards Paraguay. This was longer than the original route I came up with before the Tour started, but with my change of starting time and place in South America, a longer route seemed more reasonable. I would have liked to have been able to visit the northeastern part of the country, and the area around the mouth of the Amazon, but that would have been far too much. As it was my route gave me a pretty fair experience in the country.
The first section, though the landscapes slowly appeared more tropical, was still fairly chilly, as what passes for winter in those areas had already arrived. After entering from Uruguay at Chui, the first day was one of the few in the country with only minimal services on the route, however, with generally nice riding conditions I covered a longer distance than I’d planned. A pleasant surprise that day came when the highway passed through the Lago Miriam wildlife refuge. The refuge consists of a huge coastal lagoon, and the road runs along one edge, essentially on a 25-km long causeway. From there I received a splendid introduction to the birdlife of Brasil, with many impressive species easily seen. Brasil is in a tight contest with Australia for the best birding country of the Tour, though that could be a tie. Also seen in the refuge were numerous Capybara, the world’s largest rodent. About the size of a large dog, they are an animal I have wanted to see for many years and are surprisingly majestic for a rodent. They seemed to like to hang out, often in large family groups, in the shrubby area between the road and the water. Apparently frightened by movement, if one approaches slowly and then stands still, they can be watched at close range. Ride up quickly, or surprise one that was hiding in the bushes, however, and the result is a panicked, but graceful, dive into the water, with the water-loving animals only surfacing again after considerable time and distance.
Having considerably exceeded the distance I planned that day, I arrived early the next morning in Rio Grande (also known as “Heelgrange”.) That was another port that the Repubblica Argentina called, though there was no shore leave at that time, so this was the first time I saw the place. A pleasant introduction to the country, I liked the small, unpretentious town enough that I took an unplanned break there for the rest of the day. Another reason to stop there was that there was some potential route confusion at that point. The main route to the north turned inland for a while, in order to circumvent a large bay, via some busy highways, and passed through the large city if Porto Allegre, a route that I really didn’t want to use. The only other option held some uncertainty. There is a long, sandy peninsula that encloses the bay, the tip of which lies just across a narrow channel from Rio Grande. Maps show a road running along the length of the peninsula, and continuing to the north, though all published information stated that it was unpaved and in horrible condition. However, I was told by locals that all but one section had now been paved. As it seemed like a much better route, I went that way, risking the difficulty of the bad section.
The short ferry across the channel leads to quaint little town at the tip of the peninsula, but north of that there was not much else for a long while. At midday I reached a construction site which marked the beginning of the unpaved section, and where my worst fears were realized. The old surface of the road was soft, damp sand, and riding was only possible, slowly, for short sections. The rest of the time I was required to walk, and dragging the bike along wasn’t easy. A number of the few large trucks going that way needed to be towed through by farm tractors, so at least I wasn’t the only one struggling. Unfortunately, in addition to slowing me down, the gritty surface considerably wore down my drivetrain, causing me to replace it later on, much earlier than I expected. Crossing the entire thirty-kilometer section took the rest of the day, and I arrived at the only town in the area, tiny Bojuru, just at sunset, where there was basic accommodation and, more importantly, food. From there the road improved for the next two days until my next break at the high-rise beach town of Torres.
After a day walking on the beach at Torres, the ride continued to the north, shortly rejoining the main coastal highway for a few days, the type of road that made Brasil unpopular with the other tourists I’d met. Indeed, this section made me feel the same way. At the time, most of the main highway was two lanes, and often carried as much traffic as was physically possible for such a road. There generally were smooth shoulders, but their usefulness was reduced by the area’s typical, and typically annoying, style of road design. During construction both lanes and both shoulders were covered with a continuous, smooth surface. However, an additional layer of asphalt was placed on only the two traffic lanes, and any subsequent resurfacing only covered those lanes as well. The result is a sharp edge of 5 to 15 cm in height between the shoulder and road. Additionally, whenever there was a bus stop, or a junction with another road, the higher surface of the traffic lane extended out to the edge of the shoulder, creating another sharp edge, running at an oblique angle to the direction of travel. Quite a hazardous construct, and one that monopolizes most of a rider’s attention. In a few long sections the road is being widened to 4 lanes, though when I was there most of the construction was still in the early stages, meaning the usual unpleasantness of riding through such areas was an additional drawback. This area of the route was lined with many towns and some rather large cities, many of which were rather grim light industrial-type places. Usually, at each of there towns there was a frontage road parallel to the highway. I found that it was often better to stay on the shoulder of the highway, however, as the side road was narrower, with lots of bus traffic, and sometimes with a poor surface. The sum of all these factors made the three days of this section rather stressful, causing me to forego camping again for quieter indoor accommodation once more, including one unplanned day of to avoid riding on the bad highway in the drizzling rain.
To the north, the main route turns inland again to skirt the large estuary of the Baia do Paranagua, and to serve the major city of Curitiba, located up in the coastal highlands. That city is well known for its progressive transit policies, and I might have liked to go there, however, avoiding more distance on the poor highway proved to be more appealing. With that in mind, I rode to the interesting little city of Paranagua, at the mouth of the bay, where rumors indicated that water transport across the bay, and around its many islands, to the nearest highway-connected, north-shore town, could be arranged. Though it wasn’t quite what I had in mind, I eventually worked that out. There is a twice-weekly ferry from Paranagua, halfway across the bay, to the tiny fishing hamlet of Superagui, on the island of the same name. Of course, the next one wasn’t for two more days, so I wasn’t able to use that affordable option. There are charter boats available in Paranagua for fishing or transport, but hiring one all the way to Cananeia, the northern town I needed to get to, was prohibitively expensive. However, after a protracted and linguistically challenged conversation with a boat captain, I discovered that it would be somewhat more affordable, though still very pricey, to split the journey into three segments, and hiring a different boat for each one. Since I didn’t have many other options, and found the idea rather appealing anyway, I went with that plan.
The first segment was from Paranagua to Superagui, and employed simply a small aluminum motorboat, somewhat less of a craft than I had been expecting. That was too bad, for while the bay was calm, the inlet where it met the sea definitely was not, and crossing it proved to be too much for the small boat. Instead the boatman told me, in Portuguese, “I’ll drop you off on the nearest island, and you can walk along the beach to the far side, where someone from Superagui will come and pick you up.” Well, ok. Though I suspected that the fellow underestimated the difficulty of walking a heavy bike along a beach, not to mention one that was strewn with driftwood and at high tide. Always happy to walk on a beach, I knew, however, that this would not be easy and it indeed was a struggle that took even longer than I had hoped.
Eventually, I did reach Superagui, which is a picturesque place reminiscent of little beach towns I’d seen on the other side of the world, where, after a short walk in the nearby national park, I spent the night. There I made arrangements for transport to Cananeia the next day, on similarly small motorboats, once again splitting the trip into two segments to bring the cost down. Leaving early in the morning, I quickly became glad that I chose this complicated detour. The weather was perfect, without wind, and the mountains of the nearby islands, covered with some of the last remnants of the original coastal Atlantic rainforests, were splendidly reflected in the glassy water of the channels. After catching the third boat later in the morning, I eventually reached Cananeia around midday, leaving just enough time in the day to have a meal and then ride to the beautiful little colonial town of Iguape. Though it cost a lot, and took a little longer than I’d wanted, this diversion was a welcome change of pace, and certainly much more beautiful than the highway would have been.
Iguape was a charming place, and there, the next morning, was the start of the Festival do Bom Jesus. Most of the action, mainly bands and fireworks, occurred in the hour just before sunrise and just outside my window, so I had no difficulty waking on time, for once, and getting back into the routine of riding. That involved two rather dreary days to Santos, with a little drizzle, some wind, and one grim section of heavy truck traffic on a narrow road. Santos is a fairly large, high-rise city and the port town for Sao Paolo. Once again, I had visited on a port call of the Repubblica Argentina, so I rode through without stopping this time. Another reason for that was my interest in the next section of the route. There are two ways to route from Santos to Rio, the main highway from Sao Paolo, which runs well inland and would assuredly have been a disaster, and a 500-km long secondary road that hugs the hilly, and mostly undeveloped, coast. Of course, I chose the latter, but I was not entirely sure of its suitability. After all, it was one of few roads connecting two of the world’s great cities, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been lees than ideal.
For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised, and enjoyed that section quite a bit. The nicest parts were towards either end of the route, with mountains on the west side of the road, and frequent impressive views of the Atlantic to the other side. Those mountains are protected over a considerable part of the route and are beautifully covered with forest. Though most of the primary forest on Brasil’s Atlantic coast was cleared long ago, areas without current human activity have recovered and the secondary forest is thick, verdant, and almost as attractive. All of these areas are filled with an incredible variety of birds, though many are difficult to observe. Some that are not are the tanagers, euphonias, and dacnises, small finch-like birds that come in at least a dozen varieties, brightly colored with intense blue, red, green, and yellow plumages. Watching them is easy, as they swoop down in flocks, containing many of the varieties, onto platforms where the local people leave bananas, and other fruits, for them to eat. The spectacle is so impressive that watching it slowed my progress on several occasions.
Nevertheless, after a long day I reached Ubatuba, where I had wanted to spend a day off, partly because as a tuba player in my younger days, I liked the name. Unfortunately, because I had an upcoming reservation in Rio, and was running a day behind, I had to skip that stop. The following day began with another beautiful stretch of coastal riding before I reached the historic town of Paraty. The old part of the town was so interesting that I changed my plan and stayed there the rest of the day. The town was one of the end points for a 17th century trade route during the gold rush far to the northwest, and today its old center is well preserved and outshines other similar towns in that motor vehicles are excluded from the historic zone. However, stopping there meant that it would be impossible to ride all the way to Rio the next day, as I had planned. Instead, I rode the distance I would have that afternoon, to the last big town before the city, Angra dos Reis, during the next morning, and then took a bus into the city. I had thought that the approach to Rio from the southwest might have been reasonably rideable, however, from the bus it seemed like that would have been a poor choice. The route that I was going to use looked busy, rather hilly, with more than one tunnel, and was probably longer than it appeared on the map. The route the bus took was even worse, passing through some of the least attractive urban zones I have seen. Brasil is often criticized for its rich/poor gap, but in most places I did not find that to be significantly different from many other countries. In Rio, however, it is much more apparent. In any case, by evening I was there, ready for a lengthy rest and repair break.
Rio de Janeiro lives up to all of its popular perceptions, and though big cities are not really my favorite places, it was a nice place to take several days off. Like most popular cities costs there were higher than the rest of the country, but I was fortunate to learn on the Web that it is possible to take a short-term apartment rental in some of the many high-rise buildings. So I took a basic studio in a building just a block from Copacabana beach, for maybe 30% of the cost of a decent hotel. One chore I had in town was obtaining a visa extension, which required trips across to the other side of the city on two separate days. I also needed to do some extensive bike repairs, including a new drivetrain, the old one having worn out much more quickly than on earlier stages presumably due to more distance over gravel this time. I also needed to replace my pedals, and, in case you ever wondered, 62 thousand kilometers is about all one can expect to get out of a pair of Crank Brothers Candy pedals. With little chance of locating the parts I needed in the area, I had ordered them from an online store in the States a couple weeks earlier, and for once the shipment arrived on time, albeit with an outrageously exorbitant import duty attached to the parcel. Of course, I managed to fit in some of the traditional tourist activities as well, the Corcovado and Cristo Redentor, Pao do Acucar mountain, and a little time lounging on the beach. With all of that I stayed for two extra days beyond the four I had originally planned. Despite that, I still felt a little worn out when it was time to move on.
Departing Rio figured to have all the makings of a quite unpleasant day, especially as the direction I was heading, to the northwest, led through a large area of sprawl. There was a commuter rail service that could potentially take me all the way clear of the worst of it, right to the base of the coastal mountains. I asked the tourist office when I first arrived if it was alright to bring the bike on during the reverse commute times, and was told that it was. After a slow, but reasonable urban ride right through the city to the train station, I soon learned that the information I had been given was incorrect (big surprise). As soon as I tried to get a ticket, a parade of train employees, repeatedly informed me that in was not possible for me to board. Actually, I think that the only real problem was getting through the turnstiles. After much discussion I convinced them to let me on after I partially disassembled the bike. Eventually, the mostly empty train got me out of the city, and I set off again. But as the quiet little backroad I was on, through the forested foothills involved an 800-m climb, the entire length of which was on a cobblestone road, I only reached Petropolis, a hill resort just 70 km from Rio center.
The next section began the long turn into the interior, starting with a enjoyable, winding course through the state of Minas Gerias, an historic region made rich by a colonial-era mining boom. The first couple of days were on the main highway from Rio towards the big city of Belo Horizonte. That road suffered from the same uneven lane/shoulder edge as others, but not quite as severely, and the traffic was a little lighter. Shortly, though, the conditions became much better. After reaching Congonhas, I left the highway for several days of travel on quiet secondary roads. Those rolled over the surprisingly rugged terrain of the coastal mountains, and trough a beautiful transition area between the humid forests of the coastal areas and the drier savanna region further west. Congonhas was the first of several, small, well-preserved historic towns from the gold rush era on the route, including Ouro Preto, Mariana, Serro, and Diamantina, three of which are listed as World Heritage Sites. Each of these contained an attractive old center with whitewahsed buildings lining twisting cobbled streets. All but the most modern Brasilian cities have a least some lengths of stone-paved streets, ranging from fairly smooth hexagonal paving bricks, to the roughest flagstone. The streets in these towns were the bumpiest of the latter type, which is not surprising, considering their 17th-century construction dates. This pretty much eliminated easy riding in the towns, but that was not much of a disadvantage as walking was rather enjoyable. The towns are also famous for their old churches, many of which are covered with ornate soapstone carvings and sculptures, created by a famous local artisan who was the child of a colonist and a slave. Ouro Preto was perhaps my favorite of these towns, thanks to its beautiful siteing, spilling over the tops of rolling mountains.
The next destination on the route was Brasilia, the national capital. Getting there involved five rather tiring days with mixed riding conditions. The terrain was still somewhat taxing, with several rather hilly sections, and traffic was light in some places, heavy in others, obviously increasing with proximity to the city. Brasilia is the type of place that I normally wouldn’t have much of a desire to see, but it is a World Heritage Site, and seemed like a reasonable place to relax for a couple of days, so I decided to go there anyway. Its claims to fame are its genesis as a planned city built from scratch in the late 01950s, said to be a “City of the Future,” the brainchild of the much-admired President Juscelino Kubitschek, and its collection of modernist government buildings designed by famed architect Oscar Niemeyer. My lack of admiration for such places probably stems from the fact that when I hear the terms “planned city” and “late 01950’s” spoken together, my mind envisions some sort of dysfunctional attempt to create a horrid Autotopia, without a bike to be seen.
The last day of the approach to the city was perhaps the hardest, and a phrase I’ve so commonly encountered on the Tour; “actual distance was longer than map indicated,” came into play. By the time darkness had arrived, I had already ridden 184 km, and was only at the very edge of the city limits. Given its planned nature, the city is segmented by function, and all of the (rather expensive) hotels are located in the Hotel Sectors, right in the center of town. By that time it was clear that my preconceptions of the place were probably correct, and perhaps that I had even underestimated the situation. Not knowing just how far it was to the center, and absolutely not wanting to try and find out in the dark this time, I gave up for the day and had a taxi take me there.
There is not much within walking distance of where all the hotels are, except for a shopping mall and the government complex, which, in layout only, bears a slight resemblance to The Mall in Washington, D.C. However, I was in town over a weekend, and on those days the place seemed practically abandoned. The shopping mall was open, but the Mall between the government buildings was completely deserted, in complete contrast to the crowds the Washington Mall would have had on a pleasant weekend day. I took a stroll around it anyway, feeling almost as lonely as I had been down in Patagonia. Some of the buildings, especially the famous legislature building, do have a certain appeal when seen from a distance. However, up close they don’t appear to have aged well at all. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if, after another 40 years, or so, the Brasilians decide to move their capital back to the coast again.
Without much else to do, I spent a fair amount of the rest of my stay sleeping, which was probably what I needed anyway, and ended up staying three days instead of two, though I would regret that later. When it came time to leave, the only route out of town to the west was a six-lane arterial highway. During the morning hours, when I started, traffic on the outbound lanes is reversed so that all six are used for the inbound commute traffic. There was still a shoulder that I could use, and the other six lanes were moving slowly enough that, as intimidating as it sounds, it wasn’t too bad. However, before too long I came upon a man driving a horse cart, also using the shoulder. He was moving slower than me, and because of the oncoming traffic I could not go around, and so had to crawl along behind him for a few kilometers. There must be some sort of deep symbolism behind the scene of a horse cart leading a loaded bike out of the City of the Future with six lanes of cars jammed up in the other direction.
Continuing west, reasonably good conditions returned once I broke out of the effects of the capital. Now in the state of Goias, there was a reasonably good network of secondary roads that I could use for several days. However, there was no direct route through this area so I had to change directions a lot. I also noticed, for what it’s worth, that the roads maintained by the state were usually better than those marked as federal roads, which were often somewhat bumpy. The stop in this area was another historic town, Cidade do Goias, similar in character to the towns in Minas Gerias, but with fewer tourists. A day or two later, however, I did meet another cyclist on a long tour, the first I had encountered in many weeks. He was a Brasilian from Curitiba and touring all the way up to the north of the country and eventually to Cuba, where he was going to work in a hospital for a year. Sounded like a nice route to me.
The environment in this region, known as the cerrado, is thoroughly savanna. However, unlike most of the areas of savanna I have crossed so far, which were usually flat, monotonous, and, honestly, a little boring, I found the cerrado to be quite attractive. This was probably because the terrain was still heavily rolling, and also because there were occasionally groves of palm trees growing there, which made a nice change form the continuous stands of scraggly hardwoods. It must be stunning in the wet season, when all the grasses are freshly green. Speaking of seasons, though it was not yet spring the daily maximums were consistently increasing, and though I had been dreaming of warmth when I was down south, and enjoying the pleasant temperatures in Brasil so far, I would shortly be living in a “be careful what you wish for” situation.
This was another good area for seeing large birds. Sightings of toucans were fairly frequent, and easily accomplished, as their huge, colorful beaks stand out starkly against the muted colors of the trees and grass. The real stars were the macaws, another family of parrots that I had dreamt of seeing for many years. The first I saw were the smaller green macaws, but later the big blue-and-yellow variety were more common. Seeing a pair of these big birds fly directly overhead is a thrilling experience. Just after rejoining the main highway, I stopped in the town of Minieros in order to visit the Emas Nacional Parque, an area of undisturbed cerrado. Emas is the Brasilian name for the greater rhea, the South American cousin of the ostrich, and there were plenty of those in the park. The park is 80 km from town and my map said the road was gravel, and since a guide is required to enter the park, I didn’t ride there, but instead rode out with the guide. Actually the road is now paved but there are no services, so if I had biked out, I still would have needed a guide, and it would not have been a very practical way to see the park.
Continuing west, the next section was rather tedious and not especially pleasant. For one thing, there were a large number of forest and brush fires all throughout the central part of the continent, some being wildfires, while many others were intentional fires set on agricultural land. The smoke from all of those turned what would have been pretty blue skies into continuous gray haze, a situation that would persist for the next month. At one point, I saw a NASA satellite image on the Web, and was shocked to see an area roughly equivalent to the entire eastern U.S. lying under a blanket of smoke. The source fires were usually far enough from where I was, that the smoke was at a high enough altitude that it didn’t effect my respiration noticeably, though my eyes did hurt a little, and photography was adversely affected.
The next big city on the way where I planned on stopping was the regional capital, Cuiaba. I needed to go there for two reasons, to get another visa extension, and to plan an upcoming excursion. Had I ridden straight through, it should have taken three and a half days to reach the city. However, in that case I would have arrived on a Saturday morning, and I would have had to wait around until Monday to go to the Policia Federal for the visa. This section also saw the return of heavy truck traffic, which surprised me a little since though Cuiaba is a big city, it didn’t seem big enough to cause that much traffic. That highway also only had a rideable shoulder for maybe fifty percent of the time. When it was there the road was tolerable, when it wasn’t it was very stressful. Because of these factors, I took an unplanned day off in Rondonoplis, a rather unpleasant urban concoction of the mid-20th century. It turned out to be a rather uneventful stay, as that day was the Brasilian Independence Day holiday, and the town was closed up tight, without any sort of celebrations as far as I could tell. However, the chance to get out of the ever-increasing heat for a while was a welcome opportunity
A couple more hot, smoky, truck-filled days brought me to the city on Sunday evening, though the smoke there was even worse and I really couldn’t see much of it. On Monday I was disappointed again, as I was told that it wasn’t possible to get a second visa extension. This seemed odd, as one can get a 90-day visa initially, but only one extension of a 30-day visa, for 60 days total. However, the overstay fee for the number of days I expected to run past added up to just a little more than the visa extension fee, so I wasn’t too worried. I had planned on staying two days, but once I started planning the next segment, which looked like it would involve boats, I learned that there wasn’t a need to hurry, and since the heat and smoke had worn me down, I stayed for four.
The reason that the forthcoming days would be complicated, indeed the reason that I had ventured so far into the interior in the first place, was that I hoped to visit the Pantanal, one of the world’s largest wetlands. The Pantanal covers an area equivalent to a moderately-sized country, and is a top-notch wildlife viewing area. However, it is completely undeveloped, except for scattered cattle ranches, with minimal transport options other than riverboats or airplanes. Therefore, visiting is not straightforward for just about everyone, let alone cyclists. The most common way to see anything of the swamp is to skirt around the edges and make a short trip inwards to one of the ranches which cater to visitors. I did not like that option at all as it would have meant a long, uninteresting route for very little time in the wilderness. However, there was one other possibility. Years ago, there was a plan to build a road, the Transpantaneria, directly through the swamp from north to south. However the project was abandoned with the basic dirt road only reaching just under halfway. It would be possible to ride in to its terminus at a tiny river port and then secure boat transport from there. Though complicated, possibly lengthy, and likely expensive, I decided to try that option.
After one short, but severely hot day, I was at the start of the Transpantaneria, at the little town of Pocone. The road into the swamp runs for 145 km and I had two days to cover that distance, which seemed reasonable. But I was not sure whether food would be available on the way, so I bought extra in Pocone just in case. Starting off the next day, I was worried at first, as the first 20 kilometers of the road were quite corrugated and rather slow going. Fortunately, the surface improved a lot after that, though it was still significantly dusty. This was the low-water season in the Pantanal, and the swamp was actually more like a huge network of rivers, creeks, marshes, and rapidly shrinking ponds. To traverse that, the Transpantaneria employs 126 wooden plank bridges during its 145-km run (no, I did not count them, however every piece of tourist literature in the area makes sure that that fact is apparent.) A few of those were in quite poor condition, but most could either be ridden across with care, or at least rolled over slowly with one foot unclipped.
Going across slowly was not a disadvantage, however, because the bridges were the ideal place to observe the wildlife. With the level of the water rapidly dropping, the rather unfortunate fish were often left to just flop around in the increasingly anoxic water. For the local predators, this gave new meaning to the phrase shooting fish in a barrel. The jacares, the local crocodilian, needed only to close their mouths to catch a meal. Consequently, their life was easy, and I often saw fifty or more just lounging about at the waters edge. The most impressive, however, was the bird life. Several varieties of storks, including the giant jabiru, and numerous species of heron, all fish-eaters, were present in incredible numbers. There were also many raptors, and some beautifully colored small birds. Capybara were also easily seen, but the other large mammals, such as jaguar and tapir, did not make appearances.
A little more than halfway along the road, I came upon a small resort which had a nice restaurant, and a lunch there put aside my concerns about going hungry. In the afternoon I rode to within 35 km of the roads end, which was better than I had expected, and stayed in an even smaller lodge. I had wanted to camp that night, but the number of jacares I saw that day sort of put me off that idea. In the morning it did not take long to reach Porto Joffre, which was not much more than a hotel that catered to fishing enthusiasts. I planned to stay there and rest for the remainder of the day, however, I was disappointed to learn that a large group had booked up the entire place, even closing the restaurant, a bigger disappointment. There was a little campground on the riverbank and that, and the extra food I brought, got me through the rest of the day.
The bigger concern was getting myself the rest of the way through the swamp. Had I arrived in Cuiaba two days earlier, I could have caught one of the infrequent cargo boats that stop at Porto Joffre and which will take a passenger or two along for a very reasonable price. Since I missed that, now regretting the extra days off I spent in Brasilia and Rondonopolis, I needed another option. As luck would have it, there was one of the floating hotels, which cruise the rivers of the swamp, moored at the dock that day. It had traveled up from Corumba, the town I wanted to reach, in order to service the group that had booked up the hotel, and was going to return, empty, the next day. That would serve my needs ideally, however, the cost was 12 times what the cargo boat would have been. Since the only other options would have been to ride back to Cuiaba, and then all the way around the swamp, or hire the hotel’s small plane, which was even more expensive, I went on the hotel boat, the Barco Peralta. It was a pleasant cruise of 24 hours, faster than I expected, and provided an altogether different view of the swamp, with thicker forest lining the river, but less wildlife easily visible. I think it was nice to have done both cycling and a cruise, as it gave me a more complete view of the magnificent Pantanal. In the end, I reached Corumba, a nice little town just a few kilometers from the Bolivian border, without too much difficulty or too much delay, though the expense was far greater than I might have liked. Nevertheless, I was happy to have had a chance to include this area during my stay in Brasil.
All that was left was the last section, from Corumba to the southeast, and the border with Paraguay. This was a fairly straightforward, though uneventful, five-day route, two-thirds of the way on secondary roads. The heat was still high, and that made things less enjoyable, but the traffic was reasonably light, compensating a bit. However, without too much trouble I reached the border town of Ponta Pora, another typically hectic Brasilian crossing. It was a Sunday, and after searching for a long time to find the Policia Federal to get stamped out, I was disappointed to find that it was closed. There was one officer there, looking after the place, and he must have been bored because he took my passport and gave me the exit stamp. Apparently, though I tried to mention it, in broken Portuguese, he either didn’t notice my 12 day overstay, or else didn’t feel like charging me the extra fee. That was the first time in a long while that something cost less than expected.
With that my long, longer than planned, route through Brasil was complete. I am glad that I was able to include a significant visit in that big and beautiful land, a tour of South America would not have been complete without it. Had I been able to avoid perhaps ten days with very bad traffic it would have been exceptional.
Obrigado,
Mike
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The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - ???
http://www.terminalia.org/tour