Iowa In Brazil

 It could be Iowa couldn’t it?

Which is your cue to say how much you dislike driving across the Great Plains. Not me, I love seeing the vast uninterrupted farmland unfold as I drive, I enjoy the rolling hills as low as they may be, the silos…

…I like the rolling cornfields of the Midwest and if Brazilian highways were as smooth and easy as those in the States I’d be happy. Unfortunately BR 60 is variable, rarely smooth and mostly potholes and patched allowing us an average speed less than 40 mph. 

We spent the night at the truck stop relying on our fridge and pantry for supplies though there was a restaurant on site.

I doubt though that on I-80 in Iowa you might meek a bicycle crossing the travel lanes and walking the wrong way into the truck stop. In Brazil? No problem. 

The weather has been very mild making this fast paced drive to the Paraguayan border a bit easier. Almost 900 miles in three days with frequent stops to let Rusty rest otherwise he starts having the drive. 

The temperature has been in the low to mid 80s but not by any means humid or uncomfortable. Then we are reminded it’s rainy season.

It was a cloud burst, intense but mercifully brief with temperatures dropping to near 70.  

The bad news is the rain didn’t make the highway any smoother. 

The locals are indifferent to the road surface but I’m guessing most of them have company cars someone else pays to keep on the road.  

Or maybe they are just to crappy road surfaces. This makes me cringe. 

This is Brazil far off the tourist route, farm roads and truck routes with a solitary gringo getting grumpy because he expects better roads this close to the capital. The scenery is still rolling and lush and green. 

I expected crap roads in Amazonia  a region forgotten by the central government. But here? 

I was wondering why there were tires painted white and buried in the ground. It looked like an air strip and sure enough… “North by Northwest” came to mind. 

The fueling station: 

They have plenty of soybeans to spray:

The good news is our electrical system is holding up well. We settled in for dinner at 93% charged, went to bed at 86% after running the air conditioner and Starlink and ran that and the fridge and my CPAP and the inverter all night and woke up at 6:30 to 54% charged. By lunch time after four hours driving we were back up to 94%. 

Starlink on the roof has improved our drive, we can download audio books as we go, navigate and I can even start my posts before the end of the day when we stop for a break. These uninhabited plains are like so many areas of South America and are internet black holes.

Of course, were we on vacation we’d be happy to be off grid for a few days but this is like having internet access in your home, something you take for granted ( if you are reading these words). 

In the truck stop in the evening I don’t have to set up the dish then take it down before going to sleep else it might get stolen…

Never heard of any of these places. We were making for Campo Grande a city about three or four hours from Paraguay. These places? Farm towns on the way.

Even the highway police are taking time off as we have passed a few checkpoints and there was nobody checking papers, not that I’m complaining. 

The plan was to get to a gas station near the city of Campo Grande about 200 miles from Paraguay. The border is a strange one as it’s wide open. Hopefully I’ll have lots of photos tomorrow of one side of the street being Brazil and the other Paraguay in the city of Ponta Porã (“ponta poran”).

We didn’t notice at the time but we moved back an hour when we entered Mato Grosso Do Sul State and sunset suddenly came as 6:13 instead of 7:13. 

Before we started racing the sunset to get to our overnight stop we paused and rested Rusty so he doesn’t get fed up with the driving. 

Mato Grosso means thick forest and in 1977 a chunk of the state broke off, called themselves Mato Grosso do Sul and made Campo Grande (big field) its capital. Aside from the time change from Goias  State we found the countryside also changed a bit from agricultural cultivation to more ranching.   

This town is Camapuá, not particularly memorable unlike its neighbor Bloodsucker or its other neighboring town called Flag Wavers. 

Sunset always comes too fast when you have a destination in mind. We like to use gas stations for quick overnight stops. We get gas and if needed they have showers and eateries and parking overnight is free. It’s too easy. 

And so to bed. 205 miles to Paraguay. Happy Friday! 

Driving

 Allow me first to say how pleasant it is to have Starlink on the roof for Layne to use the Internet to travel and for me to be online when we stop to give Rusty a rest. 

We spent Wednesday morning packing the last few things in the apartment, the last few that always turn into an unconscionably large number of knick knacks and so forth, which take time to round up and transport to GANNET2 and take even longer to store once they are dumped in the van. We got it done and drove out of the apartment complex, after fulsome goodbyes at the front desk, at 11 am Atlantic time ( two hours ahead of Eastern).

We left behind a reasonably clean apartment  after eight weeks occupancy.

BybUS standards a thousand bucks a month with all the facilities seemed like an excellent deal. 

And the landlord sent us a bon voyage message encouraging us to check in if we ever want an apartment again. I wouldn’t mind a few weeks here later this year after we visit the wildlife in the Pantanal jungle in August. 

And so we got on the road.

We were very lucky to get into this place just when we needed it. 

We got on Brazil Highway (BR) 60 and soon found ourselves driving through green fields, forests looking like Tennessee or someplace similar. 

The road was not so great to start, lots of rough patches potholes and speed bumps. 

Gradually it got better and we were bowling along between 50 and 60 making good progress. 

We stopped a couple of times between rain storms to let Rusty rest and relax.

Mile after mile, fields of soybeans and sugar cane lined the highway. Brazil has taken over the foodstuffs needed by China which used to be exported from the US until tariffs blocked the trade. Brazilian farmers are filling the void.

We stopped for the night at dusk, filled up with gas and parked for the night. I fed the gas station dogs and Rusty went to bed after dinner and slept. We had pasta for dinner and enjoyed being back on the road. With electricity in our batteries

Away

 I trust that as you read this we will have made our final preparations and be on our way south from Brasilia toward Ponta Porã 860 miles south of here on the border with Paraguay. 

We plan to cross into Paraguay sometime Friday so this will be a few days of purposeful driving not meandering. GANNET2’s Temporary Import Permit expires Saturday so that’s the last day we can be in Brazil.

We took a break to go to lunch at a place recommended to us by Alessandro, the guy who upgraded our van.  We have found that high end Brazilian restaurants are pretty good, and for $90 for the two of us including our drinks this place was memorable. 

In addition to sushi and seafood and salads and pasta this was the classic Brazilian steakhouse with table service. 

You get a pair of tongs and with them you peel off the meat as the server slices it. It’s good stuff. And they served caipirinha with style, Brazil’s answer to the mojito made with sugar cane alcohol. 

From the buffet one gets tempted to taste all sorts of odd looking things, shrimp in cream sauce, tapioca cubes included. 

This guy even spoke some English which helped us know what we were getting…

It was a nice break from preparing our home but after lunch Layne went Carrrefour to get some last minute supplies…

…and I went home to pick up Rusty to keep me company as I cleaned and made the bed. 

We are looking forward to being on the road in our home. And Paraguay? I know nothing about this next country, number 19. Here goes nothing!

Almost Ready

Wasn’t I bummed when we took our first load of the day out to GANNET2 in the back parking lot and found a problem.

The solar panel display was dead. The app wasn’t connecting and I wrote Alessandro for help. An hour later he was there with his electrician. 

Security is intense and I got a message from security telling me ( translated to English) someone was at the gate pretending to be my friend.

It was loose cable and fixed in five minutes. I had a couple of questions about my new systems so we went over the app display,

It shows voltage (70.13) from the solar panel to the controller which then reduces the voltage to 14.4  for the lithium battery. Which is why the amperage into the battery goes up to 11.6. Watts divided by 12 equal amps. Oh and then I got a lesson on running the a/c and then they left. And we were alone again. 

And we packed and sorted and cleaned and packed and so on. That was our day Monday. Rusty slept nearby. 

That is all.