Tocantin State

Thursday for us was an excessively long travel day and I forgot it was Thanksgiving so thank you for the good wishes for yesterday.  

For the first time in 31 years of marriage we did not celebrate our favorite holiday and we both felt like crap. Instead we drive too far all day and wore all three of us out, including Rusty. 

We regrouped for the night in a hotel attached to a truck stop at the Ipanema Plaza  in the city of Araguaina  founded in 1958 and with 200,000 residents is the second largest city in the state. Tocantins was founded in 1988 by slicing off a chunk of Goias State and making the city of Palmas the capital. Hey presto a new state was founded, Brazil’s 26th. 

Apparently hydro electricity is the states fortune as two rivers drain here, the Araguaína and Tocantin and the state is a massive producer of hydroelectricity. 

I’m not quite sure why but apparently people want to live here in a state that produces electricity and agricultural products but apparently that is the case. 

For us Tocantins represents a step south away from the Amazon, out of the jungle into extensive ranching and farm lands. 

Tire shop:

It also represents our escape from the area of northern Brazil where malaria is endemic so next Tuesday will be the last day we have to take our act malaria pills. 

And finally in the good news department the temperatures seem to be dropping a bit. We saw 74 degrees yesterday evening and it was possible to walk around outside without sweating. Amazing and very welcome. 

The less good news departments that we drive nine hours yesterday arriving at our hotel just after dark. We only covered 350 miles owing to the dreadful state of the highway and heavy slow truck traffic. It was too much and we were all fed up with being in the hustle especially when Thanksgiving came up and we were miles away from celebrating. Last year we were in Puerto Montt with traveling friends. This year we were alone.

They are building toll booths along this execrable highway. The road is badly patched rough and full of potholes and the state of Pará is planning to charge for the privilege. One booth was operating and she charged our credit card $2. 

I’d like to think the money will go to relaxing but somehow I doubt it. Im glad we don’t have to come back this way to pay the absurd tolls.

Another new toll booth not yet open for business. We also got waved through two police checkpoints. Still waiting to meet our first corrupt cop…

The landscape wasn’t that interesting though later in the day we got a few hundred feet of elevation and saw a few hills scattered as a backdrop to the pastures. 

And we drove over a massive road and rail bridge with another similar one being built alongside. But the highway remained a bumpy patchwork quilt unfit to be driven on. 

And we ended up driving on the left of the bridge. 

Maintenance and upkeep is never factored into grandiose white elephant projects. 

Speaking of which, who knows what happened here: 

We saw several broken down trucks on this wreck of a highway. 

This school bus was grinding away at walking speed like it was on its last legs: 

Rusty got fed up with hours aboard and tried to jump ship. 

He was right too as usual and we are going to drive a bit less and take longer breaks and rest during the day.  Enough with marathons, we are retired. Smart dog. 

It starts to get dark around six and it is dark twenty minutes later. 

We arrived at 6:25 pm last night. 

We got dinner at the truck stop and a perky young woman who talked Portuguese like we understood her led us to our room. Down an exceedingly long corridor. 

Friday will be better. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. What a day.