125 Miles In One Day

 It is Wednesday morning as I write this and we are 50 miles and one ferry ride from pavement. I have no illusions that the pavement will be smooth and pot hole free but it will be better than this. And we are not escaping unscathed. 

Coming off one of these infernal bridges there was a deep hole at the end and with our tires sited down we have less clearance than usual and the drip pronounced a loud bang  we checked and the second alternator was still charging the hose batteries so we pressed on. Backing off the highway for the night there was a god awful fending and banging  sound like we’d blown a piston. I crawled around and found the bent skid plate had twisted the plastic protector under the radiator and it had sliced a piece off the alternator belt. There’s enough left it still charges but clearly we need to get the skid plate straightened and a new belt installed. Could be worse  and we can press on.we have been meeting small sections of pavement weirdly enough but they just work to exacerbate the sense of loneliness one feels on this road.  Highway 50 through Nevada “ the loneliest road in America” is a metropolitan area compared to Brazil Highway 319. 

As I stood naked outside the van taking a faucet shower to get the dust off, I thought about the craziness of this drive. It has been nothing like I expected, a romantic winding dried dirt road meandering through the jungle, with us slowing to pass an oncoming truck, stopping to listen to jungle sounds and so forth. Instead it has been a long straight highway, three lanes wide with some sections recently paved with mud compressed into place, and other sections all rocky and bouncy and slow. And all of it dusty and dreary and lined with electric power poles and trucks rushing by raising dust storms. At some point I realized, a little late I know that anywhere there is a road you aren’t really alone. Indeed Tuesday night we parked in desperation on the paved access road to one of the many communication (not cellphone) towers along the highway. It was getting dark and the last three iOverlander recommended restaurant stops looked dirty and sketchy certainly not enticing  us to stop.

Wouldn’t you know it at 2:50 in the morning flashlights shining through the open back doors, open to allow air flow, woke us up.  I had to move the van to one side to let a pick up with workers get by. They were totally cheerful about it, no rage or snarky comments on Facebook (as far as I know) and later when I poured our jugs of fuel in the tank I left a gallon in one and gave them the jugs for their trouble. They grinned cheerfully once they understood I was giving them gas not asking for diesel (vans don’t run on gas in Brazil). Communication is very difficult; I can read Portuguese but I can’t understand it and they have no facility with miming or lateral thinking. They just look puzzled and talk at me. With d lies always but then they give up. 

Lunch break for road workers. They are doing their best to keep the road smooth in dry season and they seem to live at construction sites along the way and we saw buses picking them up at the end of the day. 

We got to see how they repair the road in dry season and I will say I think it’s past time they paved it. People rely on it and in rainy season starting in November it’s not really usable.  Half the road is lined with ranches and if Brazil wants to preserve the rain forest they need to figure that out as a matter of course, but subjecting its own citizens to this nightmare of a road seems cruel to me  even as it benefits the barge owners monopoly on river cargo. The rivers incidentally are shrinking so barges are having a harder time in dry season as well. Amazonia is a mess socially and politically and so are we, covered in fine red dust.

In the photo above you can see recently compacted dirt dug out of the jungle by the side of the road. The divots are caused as we shall see rollers with spikes on them. 

They make the van vibrate horribly at speed. So until we reach a stretch of older compressed mud flatted by truck tire tracks it’s not a great surface to drive. The bridges slow everyone down as the approaches aren’t maintained and are filled with of holes and dips. The bridges themselves are sturdy and safe and even have rails to make the psychologically comfortable. 

First they dump dirt for a quarter of a mile. Just hope you don’t meet anyone coming head on. 

Then they disc harrow it to break it down.

The pick up coming at us pulled aside thank god as I wasn’t going to. 

You drive the compressed stuff where trucks have driven already  and hope the hump in the middle isn’t too high.

And then they grade it…

…and compress using the divot making rollers. 

And then you drive on the flattened side. There are no flaggers involved. Some guy in orange may wave you on if he sees you hesitate but just plunging in is the way.  

Meanwhile you have bridges being rebuilt and this one had me freaked out. I don’t know how freaky it looks in the photo but we had to follow the perpendicular planks as the horizontal ones were being replaced, very slowly.

I was finding god as we drove into the void and I know the guy in the sedan behind me was impatient until he saw us bounce and lurch as the wheels fell onto the perpendicular planks and struggled to climb out onto the horizontal ones. My eyes were glued to the wood beneath us. 

The sedan driver saw the horror and got out walked it and looked around seeking inspiration and finally took the plunge. Then he roared past us like he knew what he was doing all along. This road is I admit pretty tiresome. And then you get held up by double trailers backing up, no easy task and dumping gravel and dirt. 

And if you need gas there are a few places where it’s for sake. Even in lonely roads you anrent entirely  alone. Diesel vehicles have less luck as motorcycles don’t run on diesel but Promasters run on gas like motorcycles. 

And then there was the incident of the broken down truck which we found when we came across a long line of parked trucks. We’ve been in Latin America long enough to know cars often get to jump to the head of the line where trucks are concerned at borders and roadworks and protest blockades. So I gave it a try.

The eighteen wheeler had broken down blocking the road just past a bridge. The truck drivers waved me forward but they wanted me to drive around the right side of the truck (above). I was uncertain but Layne was a veto immediately as she feared falling sideways into the ditch. No argument and I went into reverse; we would wait. 

The truck drivers were really friendly but the usual language barrier competed communication. I hope they get a paved road before long.

Bridges, endless bridges.  

Old pavement from possibly the 70s or 80s. The military built a cc paved road to open up the city of Manaus but they did a half assed job and it washed away. Environmentalists argue that every paved road leads to cutting the rainforest and the barge owners don’t want competition but this road has created its own demand and I don’t mean for curiousity seekers like us but for local people living their already difficult lives.

Roadwork storage camp. 

Breakdowns are part of life and we’ve had ours, our one and only I hope, and I got us rolling again so we are part of the every in our own way.

Did I mention there are a few bridges? 

355 kilometers to Manaus. 

Occasional intriguing creeks. 

The jungle covered in dust.  

The wildest animal we’ve seen so far: 

A bit more dirt, a couple of ferries and donors of a beach and pink river dolphins. Always something to see on the road.  Now you’ve seen a road few people drive in their hurry to get to Ushuaia.