"Brazilian coffee - It's more delicious!" I can't deny or confirm this; the coffee is pretty good, but I don't normally drink coffee and thus can't make a comparison. Sadly, the photo I took left out the exclamation point. Also note that this ad is on the outside wall of a public school. I don't know why.
So this is my final day in Campo Grande; I'm leaving tonight for an overnight bus ride to Cuiabá. I don't have profound thoughts about Campo Grande. I largely enjoyed my time here, and the people were wonderful, though it was harder than my time in Porto Alegre. I felt a bit more lonely, bored, and depressed at times than I was in the South. It's harder to go out and see things and experience a city when the sun is blazing hot and the city is so spread out. (Although the city is walkable and easy to navigate, it's at least a one-kilometer walk to the nearest decent restaurant. That trip - down the same streets, past the same stores, under the hot sun - gets tiresome after a while.) Oh, and my stomach was a little upset for a few stretches of time.
Would I recommend someone visit here? If you're en route to the Pantanal or to Bonito, or overland to Paraguay or Bolivia, yes, of course. (I find our proximity to Bolivia strangely fascinating, given that, in my mind and memories, La Paz and Lake Titicaca are in another world entirely. Trivia point for the next time you're on Jeopardy: the only two South American countries that do not border Brazil are Ecuador and Chile.)
The expected temperature in Cuiabá tomorrow is a high of 37 degrees. That's pretty hot, especially without an ocean breeze, at only 15 degrees, 35 minutes from the equator. I have to adapt by learning to wake up early, get my tasks accomplished, and be content with spending the afternoon inside in the air conditioning. I've learned that behavior in Campo Grande; now I just have to live by it.
This morning, I retraced a route I ran yesterday evening. The street photos below are an attempt to give a sense of what Campo Grande looks like, and why I made the observation that it seems more Latin American than Brazilian. It's an attractive city in a certain sense, but I'll leave that certain sense to each of your particular tastes.
These views look east down Rua ("Street") Dom Aquino, toward the center of the city. This is my hotel's neighborhood, Amambaí.
As noted before, this city is the jumping-off point for the Pantanal. And if your city has one main attraction, and that attraction is spectacular, by all means you should play it up. So they did.
While running yesterday, I heard and then saw another blue and gold macaw. It was not as large as the ones below. It did, however, sound like a human. I thought someone had shouted at me, and turned to see the macaw in flight. She hadn't spoken in English or Portuguese, but the sound of her squawk certainly recalled a macaw or parrot's mimicry of human voices.
It was nowhere as large as these are.
Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the phone booths that are encased in large parrots. Someone else has photos here. I do have a photo of an animal-pomorphisized trash can, from Indigenous Nations Park:
Some spare thoughts:
1. The title of the post is Portuguese for "Then what happens?" Almost all my interviewees have used it as a rhetorical device. I think there were one or two exceptions. You can hear Faustão (Big Fausto, host of a Sunday variety show for the last twenty years) use the expression here about thirty seconds in. He then goes on to discuss his recent weight-loss surgery. I don't mind the phrase; I just find it charming. I do get mildly annoyed at people asking "entendiu?" ("did you understand?") at the end of every sentence, but I stifle my annoyance.
2. Cuiabá will be one of twelve sites that host games in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Campo Grande will be left out. This is a sore point here; some of the campograndenses have mentioned it without prompting. I replied that I felt their pain, but that I have no influence over FIFA or CBF decisions.
3. Today marks the beginning of antimalarial pills! Hooray! My run yesterday went toward the airport, past the air force base and the general hospital. As I approached the airport, the roadside trenches filled with water grew larger and larger. I decided to turn around early; I had no idea what type of (possibly-dengue-carrying) mosquitoes waited on the surface and would take flight in the quickly-falling dusk.
So tonight I take a ride out of this bus terminal, for the first overnight bus ride in Latin America since my trips in 2005. (My description of bus rides can be found halfway down here and here.) Lonely Planet describes the area thus: "The bus station in Campo Grande is an eyesore, rife with prostitutes and shady characters" (426). Yeah, my hotel is there, and I walked past this station daily to get into the center of town. As they also note: "Most budget accommodations are clustered around the bus terminal, but this is a seedy area with no shortage of small-time crooks and prostitutes" (426).
Judge for yourself. (Prostitutes most likely not pictured.)
Then there's this sign on the south side of the building (find it in the above photo!), which I found amusing.
The sign reads "This structure was the number one shopping center in Campo Grande and it was the postcard [image] of Mato Grosso do Sul." I don't know whether this is a protest, a boast, a lament, or just an observation. It certainly makes good use of the past tense.
In the city's defense, they're building a brand new bus terminal elsewhere, which is set to open in about one month. (In typical style, they already held the inauguration ceremony months ago, when the station was not yet operable. This same series of events happened with the Siqueira Campos metro station in Copacabana, Rio.)
Two more weeks until I return to Rio.
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