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 drove 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, as romantic and warm as it sounds, perfect for a Thanksgiving dinner of Brazilian empanadas and a weird shredded beef and cheese open faced sandwich. Araguaina was 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. So about as architecturally inspiring as you might expect. Yesterday was not a great day. I spent the evening apologizing to Rusty for dragging him here. 

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. I can’t say I’m particularly attracted.   

For us Tocantin represents a step south away from the Amazon, out of the jungle into extensive ranching and farm lands. Boring to look at but much more healthful. 

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 malaria prevention 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 during the day. Amazing and very welcome after months of blistering heat in the Guyanas. 

In the less good news department we drove nine hours yesterday arriving at our hotel just after dark. We only covered 350 miles owing to the dreadful state of the highway and endless  slow truck traffic. It was too much and we were all fed up with being in the hustle especially when Thanksgiving came up in conversation 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 repaving but somehow I doubt it. Im glad we don’t have to come back this way to pay the absurd tolls to be bounced and jostled all day. 

Some days on the road are just one long gringo moment. I trust your Thanksgiving was better. 

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…thankful for that after 18 countries and all the negative stereotyping. 

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 side of the bridge which was easy but odd. Civil engineers have the capacity to baffle me all too easily. 

Maintenance and upkeep is never factored into grandiose white elephant projects in South America with predictable decrepitude creeping in. 

I cane across an article saying 75% of road bridges in Costa Rica are in desperate need of upkeep. And it’s not like road bridges don’t collapse at home either. But twenty billion goes to Argentina and war with Venezuela is imminent. When will we ever learn? 

Speaking of which, who knows what happened here: 

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

I caught a glimpse of this optimistic bus. 

Wanderlandia should have been our destination. 

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 we we stopped to buy some roasted ears of corn. I had to drag him back aboard and he protested. That was the last straw and added guilt to my general sense of misery  and self pity. Some days on the road are too much. 

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. 

South Of The Amazon

 We were very lucky with our Amazon ferry, the Lion of Marajó, as it arrived an hour early, unheard of, and we were back on dry land and driving out of the city at 1:30pm, half an hour before we were scheduled to dock.

We had heard horror stories that sometimes the arrival was delayed until four o'clock and we had a reservation at a hotel in town just in case. As it was we decided as soon as we got off the ship we would drive as far as we could toward Brasilia, 1200 miles south of Belém. We figure in the capital we will find what we need to get our second alternator fixed so we can get some beach time before the new year. 

Getting off the ferry was not as simple as it might seem…this is Brazil. 

First they got a fork lift to bring out a steel ramp which I prefer to wooden planks any day. 

And then the guy driving the black car was faffing around with his cat carrier, which struck me as decidedly rude. He could have put the cat and carrier in the car and sorted it  fifty feet away on land. And then the pick-up in front of us couldn’t make the ramp. This was Laurel and Hardy quality comedy.

We did manage to escape eventually bypassing the black car but we got stopped on shore by a man who gabbled something at me. Finally a slow speaker came up and asked about credit cards. I thought Layne might have used a card that hadn’t gone through even though they didn’t take cards on the boat. But no, he was the credit card man and had the idea we wanted to pay for our completed passage by card. He took our wits we had paid cash in Santana and off we went. Belém, a big city and back to real traffic. 

The weird thing was mountain one asked for any documents for us the van got the entire journey. Usually Latin America is so hung up on bureaucracy I figured we’d have to present passports and car papers but not a bit of it. They would have let us ride without paying had we wanted to pay by credit card in Belem, not that we knew that was an option. The recent eco conference wrapped up in Belem last week:

We are hoping to get some work started on our alternator next Monday at an RV shop in the capital city of Brasilia. We’re bothered of living out of suitcases and not sleeping aboard GANNET2 but we need electricity to get our camping life in order. 

Roadside attraction, Belém 

After the grand excitement of the Amazon ferry our drive south will be an anti climax. So far we have had crappy pavement…

Even the patches are tough and uneven and we spent a lot of time bouncing which was tiring. 

And to add to the joy the scenery is the usual ranch land with cows and some forest. 

None of which detracts from the fact that we are headed south to cooler temperatures and more interesting landscapes in southern Brazil. And we have finally escaped from the Guyanas and dirt roads and everything hot and sticky. 

We are still in the poor part of northern Brazil and we haven’t escaped from the malarial infection zone yet.

But we are driving south. 

And a breakdown in the middle of the road provided some interest. 

The mechanic had showed up and was working on it in the highway. 

While the state highway transportation guy was directing traffic onto the shoulder. Very organized.

Layne called ahead to a hotel 200 miles down the road and got permission for Rusty and after we stopped to pick up dinner outside the city of Tailândia…

The Bambu Hotel is pet friendly it turns out with cold air and secure parking and for once the entrance gate is high enough it easily accommodated GANNET2.

We had some heavy rain but we are pavement now for the foreseeable future so rainy season is not a worry. 

We are all snug for the night. 

Even the weird dog who sometimes eschews his bed. 

Good night.