Rain on the Open Road

The TV guy showed up just as we finished loading our gear. He led us down to the riverfront for a picturesque spot to do the interview. He spoke English and we answered his questions in English; obviously he would make a voice-over track back at the studio before broadcasting. As is typical, we talked about the why's and wherefore's of the trip, and we asked the people of Brasil to support their own charities for cancer and kids. Gil was there to help out, and he didn't seem disappointed when we weren't allowed to wear a Gil's Tours hat or mention the name in the interview.

Our favorite little buffet restaurant and favorite waiter served us our last meal in Corumba. We stopped in at the police station to see if Alex had called Rogerio, the cop we'd met, with any urgent messages for us. There were none, so we knew his drive had either gone really well or awfully bad. As planned, we called his mom's house, but only got the answering machine. The details of Alex's trip would have to wait until later.

Pretty as a picture

Asphalt blessed our tires all the way to Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso du Sul. It was a relatively uneventful ride through more of the Pantanal. The road was in good condition, except for a few places under repair, and we covered the distance quickly. Occasionally we'd see a scurrying something-or-other darting off the road. Dark clouds threatened to dump rain on us the whole day, and only made good on the threat once for a few minutes during a huge pot-hole encounter. We had to take a ferry across the Rio Paraguay, thus making Water Crossing #2 for the motorcycles.

Land Ho!

About these potholes, it seems that we had to either sail over them at around 70 MPH or creep at about 25 MPH and avoid them. There was no middle ground and guess which method we chose.

We passed through several police checkpoints before one finally decided to stop us. Whether it was our scruffy appearance or overly-happy faces, they went far beyond asking for our papers and instead took a look through Gary's belongings. Fortunately, they didn't find the pound of marijuana we'd bought in Corumba and cleverly stuffed into the flat tire (just kidding, of course, but the way they searched us made us feel like crooks). Except for the border crossing into Panama, no one had ever asked to open our cases and look through our stuff. Looked like we'd be towing the line in Brasil.

Lama wool seats and purple backpacks will catch their eye every time

We pulled off the road into a small city for lunch and to fill up on our supply of Reais, the Brasilian currency, with another credit card cash advance. The computers back at the Banco do Brasil in Corumba had been down, but this time everything went fine. The kind bank manager even took pity on Gary's first grade Portuguese and spoke very slowly and clearly.

So far on the trip, the non-Spanish speakers had picked up a lot of Spanish and were doing quite well on their own, if not in speaking at least in understanding. Portuguese, on the other hand, although similar to Spanish, has very different sounds. For example, Good Day or Hello in Spanish is Buenas Dias (or even Buen Dia) and sounds like it is written; in Portuguese it is Bom Dia - the 'm' in 'bom' being more or less silent and the 'di' in 'dia' being a soft 'gee' sound. And this example is only the beginning.

Campo Grande, a clean and modern city, welcomed us as the sun set behind the velveteen landscape. We turned to the guide book for accomodations, didn't like the first one we went to, then finally settled in at the Hotel Rio Negro. $14 for the usual box with two beds, bathroom down the hall. But they had very secure parking and free cafezinho, a tiny cup of pre-sweetened dark coffee.

Of all the things that are more expensive in Brasil, phone calls are not one of them. For only $3, Gary had bought a phone card with 75 units of credit on it and had used maybe a dozen on a long-distance call back in Corumba. Now if he could only find a phone that took the card, we could try Alex again. The third phone we found finally worked and Alex's voice came crystal clear through the receiver. Still, we weren't sure we heard him right when he said he drove straight through to Sao Paulo. Excuse me? Hello, Alex, speak up a bit? Did you say straight through?

Sure enough, we had heard correctly. The crazy Italian-American had gotten on his bike at 2:00 in the afternoon in Corumba and not gotten off until he'd reached Sao Paulo at 8:00 pm the next day. Stopping only for gasoline and free cafezinho at service stations, he'd ridden 900 miles in 18 hours. (Sorry, Jim, but we think this record will hold.) Gary and David felt his mother was lucky he arrived at all, but Alex assured us he'd been okay, fueled not only by the cafezinho but by a burning desire to see his family after so many years.

He told us the road was good all the way, very flat and straight, and we shouldn't have any problems. He wasn't surprised when we told him we'd be spending one more night on the road before getting there. 300 miles a day is more our (David and Gary's) speed.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a small café, sitting at a sidewalk table and watching the world go by in Portuguese. Gary made some long distance calls back home (so good to hear your voice, Saione) while his sandwich got even hotter in the night air. David waited up 'til 1am to call Yolanda for a bit-o-home-sickness relief and went back to the hotel, still anxious. It seems we had indeed become accustomed to sleeping in this furnace called Brasil for we quickly zonked out.

Miles - 270

We left Campo Grande pretty early after our morning shot of cafezinho, provided free by the hotel. The route was very urban for the first 30 kilometers but soon opened up into the Brasilian countryside. The road, as Alex had foretold, was flat and straight. Any hills were of the gently sloping variety, and the horizon was visible far away beyond the greener than green pastures and forests.

The advantage to being able to see so far was watching the dozen or so small rainshowers move across the landscape. By guessing at the road's course and factoring in our speed and the cloud's speed, we generally could tell which one was going to nail us. Sometimes the road took an unexpected turn and we would skirt the edge of the rain or miss it completely, but often we found ourselves smack dab in the middle.

For the most part, we passed quickly through each batch of rain. The shortest was maybe a mile, the longest about 15 miles. But the rain was pretty hard, and even the short rains managed to do a good job soaking us down. In between, the warm air did its best to dry us out before the next hit. All day went like that - rain, heat, rain, heat.

Gary's bike exhibited a strange problem in the rain. After a few minutes in each heavy shower, his bike wanted to stall out, and only by dropping a gear and keeping the revs high did he manage to keep the bike going. Once, despite all efforts, the bike did conk out. A few minutes on the side of the road and it started up again.

Perhaps water was getting up under the tank or radiator and causing a short. We remembered Jim had a similar problem one rainy day way back in Costa Rica. If this is a design flaw in the KLR, it doesn't seem to be in all the bikes. Or maybe this is just more evidence of Gary's bike being the Friday Afternoon Special.

Overall, the rain was not a bother. Our waterproof Aerostich suites and Cascade Designs drybags withstood the water like champs. The most annoying thing was being splashed by other vehicles where the dirty road-water gets up under the helmet collar...yum! But since the road was in good condition, we didn't even need to slow our pace by more than 5 mph, and we got used to drinking the scum.

For the first time since Mexico, we could actually consider what we were driving on a highway, at least in parts. Usually two lanes wide and sometimes even three, the road was smooth, painted and wide. (Funny the things we take for granted in the U.S.) Billboards, mileage signs, and plenty of roadside truckstops and gas stations lined the road.

In the late afternoon, we reached our chosen destination for the night. The small city of Ourinhos, situated a few miles off the highway on the agricultural plains of the state of Sao Paulo, sparkled like the Emerald City of Oz in the sunlight that poured through a hole in the clouds, and our arrival was heralded by two rainbows out by the highway. We found a hotel quickly in the center of town and plunked down $7 a piece for a small bare room with two beds, bathroom across the hall.

In the vanishing sunlight, we took a walk through town and talked about how amazing it was to be all the way in Brasil. For Gary, it was particularly meaningful. Many years ago, he had conceived of the whole trip with his good friend Alex Naufel from Brasil. In December of 1991, the two of them almost threw caution to the winds and spontaneously jumped on a couple bikes to ride to Brasil. Then in fall of 1992, they moved together from New York City to Los Angeles with plans to do the trip to Brasil soon after. Now many years later, Gary was there, and he was sad that Alex wasn't there as well, but circumstances while putting this trip together were such that Alex didn't go.

We sat down at the restaurant under the hotel for a light dinner. David tried to explain that he wanted "mate" (you should all know what this is by Jim's description...Jay talks of it too) to the bewildered waitress, who only understood when he drew a picture of the typical "mate" drinking vessel. Turns out in Brasil they call it "chamarrao". After watching a few shows on TV even though we didn't understand a word (a sure sign we'd been long deprived of the boob tube), we went upstairs to bed. The rain had cooled the temperature down a bit and we both got a good night's rest.

Miles - 405