First Impressions, Campo Grande / Mato Grosso do Sul

Some brief notes:

Campo Grande is closer to Asunción, Paraguay, than it is to Brasilia or Rio de Janeiro, and it shows. (In fact, one of the recommended weekend outings is a trip to Ponta Porã, where one can walk freely into Paraguay to buy cheaper - read: black market - goods.) We're at the edge of the Pantanal and a few hundred miles south of the geographic center of the South American continent.

I came to Campo Grande late last night on a connection through Guarulhos airport in São Paulo. I had to make a domestic connection in São Paulo, but because my flight was continuing on to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, it became a domestic-to-international-terminal transfer and another trip through security. Quite a pain. On the second flight, by sheer luck, I sat next to the Director of Tariffs for the municipal transit agency here and his family. They were returning from a week's vacation in Natal, RN, a later stop on my trip. We chatted for a while, and shared a cab ride to the neighborhood. I'll call him later this week.

I woke up today with plans to buy water. (This is always a high priority when one can't drink the water out of the tap. The hunt for water never ends.) I located a supermarket and set off walking.

My first impression of the town is that it seemed more Latin American than Brazilian. I mean to say that Rio de Janeiro has a uniqueness and a profile that sets it apart from other cities on the continent. Rio is unique, and is uniquely gorgeous, violent, chaotic, extreme, delicious. As I mentioned before, the River Plate Delta cities - Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and by extension Porto Alegre - all have a common look. Campo Grande, on the other hand, belongs to the group of cities that could be in Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, or the interior of Argentina, and not seem out of place. (The Portuguese signs might look odd.) The low rise of the buildings, the intermingling of pavement and dirt, the use of varied color and the faded paint recall Arequipa, Peru, or other medium-sized cities across the continent.

So I reached the supermarket - which turned out to be the first Hipermercado Extra in the country - and bought lunch, water, and some crackers. It's a long walk, not to be repeated often. If I do return, however, I'll bring my camera. It's the first store in my experience that sells groceries on the ground floor and - via an angled moving sidewalk - clothes, sporting goods, and TVs on the second floor. I wondered if Wal-mart owns the chain, and only later confirmed that it does not. (Wal-mart owns Bompreço, which is mainly in the Northeast.) Also seen on the walk back - stores that correctly used the English noun implied in the previous post.

The town was closed today for Childrens' Day, a holiday in which kids receive presents and no one works. The nightly news had a segment about kids waiting on the highway between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais for presents dropped off by passing motorists, and how dangerous this practice is. This segment followed two reports on drunk driving arrests and state DMVs' inability to take away the drivers' licenses of offenders. In short, Jornal Nacional was in a mood for scolding tonight - the not-so-implicit message was "why don't the police/bureaucrats do their job in this country?" See here.

Overall, a curious town, with very friendly residents. I'm staying in a bargain hotel, but I get to use the wireless network, pool, and breakfast service of the twice-as-expensive up-market hotel next door. The major drawback: I have about as much personal space as a college freshman in the US does.

Calls to set up interviews start tomorrow.

UPDATE: While webjet offered sandwiches and a dessert for each leg of the flight to and from Porto Alegre, Gol only offered the following in-flight snack (and a mint):



It's exactly what it looks like: a Ritz-cracker sandwich with cream filling. And I'll translate - Presunto is Ham. It was not so tasty, but I was hungry.