The beginning of a driving solo trip through the Brazilian Outback

Written in March '06, this is an account of a 8000 km (5 K miles) long trip I did in April'05 through the Brazilian Midwest. It all started in Rio de Janeiro and finished, well, in Rio de Janeiro.

I drove all the way from Rio, through Sao Paulo, to the Mato Grosso do Sul state, where I visited a place called Bonito; a few days later I drove north to the Mato Grosso state, where I spent some time in the northern area of Pantanal and in Chapada dos Guimaraes; I then drove East to the Goias state, where I visited Chapada dos Veadeiros and the Terra Ronca national park; finally, I drove south, crossed the Minais Gerais state, visited colonial city Ouro Preto and got back to Rio de Janeiro.
I took many pictures during this trip, and will share some of them with you.
I also took many notes regarding driving time and distance. That may bother some of you but could be useful to others. So bear with me on that.
I hope you enjoy this set of entries.

April 8th, Day One

I should've left earlier. Really. The original idea was to spend the night somewhere in the middle of Sao Paulo state, maybe in Bauru, so that tomorrow I could get to Campo Grande (capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state). But as the day passed I realized I was missing some useful things I was gonna need for the trip. Like a mid-sized thermo for coffee. Later I left my apartment in Leblon just to realize as I was driving through the Lagoa that I had forgotten my PADI card. I went back to get it. I don't plan to miss opportunities in this trip. A half hour delay is nothing compared to a missed, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I finally left home in Leblon at 4:58 PM. Being a Friday afternoon, there's plenty of traffic in Rio and it takes a while to leave the city. 33 km later, by 6:03, I finally got into the Dutra (the main highway between Rio and Sao Paulo). One hour later, I was done with the ascent through the Serra dos Araras and by 7:40 PM I arrived into Resende, a small city in the Rio state, which is the base for a VW plant and has many stations and convenience stores to do a pit stop. Nearby is Aman, a town with a military base. I always enjoyed passing through these cities. There is a small river that goes parallel to Dutra here, and there is something very soothing and nice about it. Resende was 139 Km from the end of Rio, and I spent 30 min there, having some coffee and snacks.

At 8:41, 21 minutes and 31 km after leaving Resende, I crossed the Rio-SP border.
At 9:20 (71 km from the border), I passed through Aparecida, a town well-known within Brazil for the "Church of Aparecida". It is a revered place by Catholics. The more devotees make a pilgrimage each year.

At 9:43 (41 km from Aparecida), I arrived to Taubate. During my 7 years in Brazil, whenever I drove between Sao Paulo and Rio (dozens of times), I always stopped in Taubate. It has a nice little gas station with convenience store in which I always refueled and bought some coffee. Many times I found people hanging out in the bus station, having a beer or some coffee. Seems to be one of the places in the city to hang out in a hot sunday afternoon (Its name is "Auto Posto Petroval" and is on the Ave. JK de Oliveira 701, right in front of Dutra highway, nearby the intersection that takes you south to Ubatuba). Anyway, I spent 11 minutes there, doing the usual: refuelling plus getting some coffee, and kept going. At 9:54 PM I left.

If you drive from Rio to Sao Paulo, you have to watch out after you pass through Taubate. Just a few miles (7 km from my pit stop) from Taubate the Carvalho Pinto highway intersects with Dutra. If you want to arrive faster in Sao Paulo, jump into the Carvalho Pinto (also known as the Senna highway - dont know if it has 2 names or why...) and keep going.

So, at 10:00 I got into the Carvalho Pinto and after one hour (by 11:04, 120 km later) I got into the Marginal Tiete (one of the heavily congested highways that somehow surround the metropolis of Sao Paulo). Being a Friday night, the Marginal had its share of traffic. It took me 20 min to drive the 23 km to the intersection with Rodovia Castelo Branco, a highway that takes you to the western area of the state. It being almost mid-night, I seriously thought of stopping by in the city. Heck! it was a Friday night. I could easily find something fun to do in this sleepless city. But I soon realized that if I did that, I would end up waking up at 11 am on Saturday and that would really delay my trip. So I kept going and left the city at 11:24.

At mid-night I stopped in a McDonalds and had a 30 min dinner. I was only 58 km away from the city but was already feeling tired. I decided to call it quits for the day, took my map and choose Itu to sleep through the night.

It took me 45 min to drive to Itu, call a hotel (I stayed at the Confort Plaza Itú, a nice hotel in the suburbs of Itu) and find it. At 1:16 AM, a little more than 8 hours and 550 km from home in Rio, I turned off the engined and stopped.

I am tired already. Its been a long day. I spent all the morning preparing my luggage and trying to make sure I was not forgetting anything. And even though I only drove 500 km (not too much compared to what will come in the following days), I was on the road for more than 8 hours. I feel like I'm going to hike a tall mountain, I'm just in the base, and already tired.

April 9th, Day Two

Today I woke up around 10 AM. Left the hotel at 11:11 AM and visited downtown. It was a very hot day. I wish I had a thermometer to know how hot it was. My guess is that I was in between 35 and 40 Celsius.

Itu is known in the Sao Paulo state for two things: its golf course (or courses - I'm not sure), and its huge handicrafts and street signs. You can buy large guitars and hats in some stores, and there is a very large public phone booth and semaphore in downtown.

Noticing how hot the day was, I chose to look/build/buy a metallic stick to help me in case a tire exploded on the road. Anything can happen, and if by chance you have a tire problem in a hot day, it can be very tricky to take it out. A metallic stick that you can use as lever (so you can use your body weight...) has proven useful other times.

By 12:10 I left the city. At 1:36 PM (145 km later) I left the Rodovia Castelo Branco (turned right) to get to the Rodovia Marechal Rondon (the one that would take me all the way North-West to Campo Grande, capital of the Mato Grosso do Sul state - MS).

Driving through Marechal Rondon gave me a glimpse of the richness and vastness of Sao Paulo's soil. I saw huge areas covered of what seemed to be eucalyptus, sugar cane and pine trees. The road was almost a straight line, with occassional smooth hills and always surrounded by productive lands.

By 2:33 PM (114 km later) I got into Bauru. Originally, this is the place in which I wanted to spend the previous night. Only if I had left Rio a couple of hours later....

I was hungry and spent a 90 minutes having a good lunch in Bauru. I left the city around 4:07 PM. Oh, what a hot day.

I drove 195 km in a 100 minutes, and by 5:47 PM I stopped in Aracatuba to refuel. I was curious to find out why there were so many people in motorcycles in the city. They were everywhere. In the gas stations, in hotels, driving around town. I asked the cashier at the gas station and she told me there is a sort of club of bikers in the state, and people had just chosen to meet in the city for the weekend. There were hundreds. I then noticed that their license plates were not from all around the state, but mainly from cities in the west. Impressive. Just imagine what it is when people from the whole state meet...

In Aracatuba I took an important decision. Looking at the map, it was clear to me that this was probably the last relevant town before Campo Grande. I could either stay here or keep driving, for more than 450 km, all the way to Campo Grande. I wasn't really tired yet, and my original plan was to drive today to CG. Even though driving through the night into a less developed state was not the best idea, it was less interesting to stay in this city that was full of bikers. Probably there were not even many available rooms. So I left at 5:58 PM.

A few minutes from Aracatuba I enjoyed seeing a beautiful sunset. By 7:17 PM (141 km later) I was crossing the border with MS. I crossed the wide, Parana river and passed by Tres Lagoas in MS. Refueled, got some coffee and left town at 7:47 PM. It was a hot and humid night and I felt some of the adrenaline rush that comes from being in a place further away from anything you know. Yes, it was still Brazil, but I was getting into its wild areas. I saw a few other cars. Mostly all of the vehicles I saw were large trucks, probably carrying the agricultural goods that are making of Brazil an ag powerhouse.

By 9:08 (138 km later) I crossed through the village of Agua Clara and refueled. I kept driving through the empty road (BR-262), on this starry night. Sometimes I just stopped and listened to the crickets and bugs around the road. I wondered how would it look during the day.

Even though the road was basically empty, sometimes I would find other cars coming from the west, or I passed others that were going west, as I was. With one, faceless and nameless driver, I enjoyed (and learned) of camaraderie and kindness. He/she was driving a large pick-up in front of me. We were driving at basically the same speed, and this person was kind enough to sign ahead, to me, about what was coming. So if he/she passed a slower car, he/she would keep the signal to the left to tell me the road was clear. When someone was coming from the other side, he/she would quickly signal to the right. Some minutes into this routine, I thanked he/she by blinking my lights in those situations. We went about it for maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Eventually, he/she turned left into the darkness, probably to go to his/her farm. I did not even hunk (with the windows closed and at such a high speed, they would not have noticed). But I did thank him/her. And now, whenever I can, I do the same for others. I learned of the countryside kindness in Mato Grosso do Sul.

At 11:20 (184 km from Agua Clara and 328 km from the SP-MS border) I arrived into Campo Grande. I was impressed by its size, by its buildings and infrastructure. It was more than what I expected. At 11:53 I stopped in my hotel.

So today, I drove more than 940 km for almost 12 hours. I am tired but somehow impressed and maybe even exhilarated by this feat.

April 10th, Day Three

After yesterday's long drive, I left the hotel in CG at 1:27 PM. I had a late breakfast, walked a block to an Internet cafe, and left. Again, today was very hot. Probably in the upper 30s.

I drove around for 15-20 min in the city and took off. After a quick refuel in the suburbs, I left the city at 2:17 PM, on my way to Bonito.

Bonito is southwest of Campo Grande. Instead of taking BR-262 (the main road that crosses through MS), experts suggest you take BR-060 through Sidrolandia and Nioaque. That's what I did.

By 3:53 PM (172 km from CG) I refueled in Nioaque. I was impressed here again, by the kindness and even persistance of the gas station attendants to wash my car.
At 5:07 (284 km from CG), I arrived into Bonito. I did not have a place to stay yet, so I visited one of the tour operators and asked for referrals. They did refer me to a nice pousada (Hotel Pira Miuna, R. Luis da Costa Leite 1792, tel (55) (67) 3255 1058, www.piramiunahotel.com.br) where I stayed the night.

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