General Carneiro, Brasil

My first big descent in over seven hundred miles since setting out from Montevideo dropped me over 1,500 feet in six miles to my first crossing of a significant river, the Uruguay River. I hoped this would be a gateway to a vast flat valley, leaving the demanding, undulating terrain behind me.  Not so. 

There was an immediate climb, longer by three miles than the descent, taking me a thousand feet higher than I’d been to a tableland over four thousand feet, and more up and down terrain.  At least there was a coolness to the air up among the pines.  Not being roasted, as I was my first couple of days in Uruguay and I know awaits me any day now as summer comes on and I approach the Amazon, feels like a lucky day.

Still, I would like the terrain to level a bit.  None of my eight stages (days) in Brasil has been a sprinter’s stage.  Each has been marked by a series of demanding climbs from start to finish with little relief between that would have done in the sprinters and opened the door for the likes of Sagan or Alaphillippe.  It would make for exciting racing, with any of the long climbs conducive to attacks, but it does sap the legs.  It’s been one hard stage after another, though they could have been harder if it had been hotter, as it will be all too soon.

At least the roads have been decent and mostly accompanied by a generously wide, relatively smooth shoulder.  I much prefer to be on the debris-free road proper, especially on the high-speed descents, but that’s not always possible with the huge trucks that ply these roads, often in mini-convoys.  Most pass me wide, but they are not prone to slowing if there are other vehicles approaching from the opposite direction. 

I have to be ready to get down on the shoulder, which is usually a drop of four or five inches, when I’m speeding at thirty miles an hour or faster.  One can’t be dreamy and let one’s mind wander, with one peril after another.  The legs rarely have an occasion when they can just leisurely pedal.  It is either straining up hill, or warily descending hoping trucks don’t pass simultaneously from both directions.

I begin each day with hopes the road might level off and I can reach my hoped for goal of at least 75 miles for the day.  I haven’t come within ten miles of if after leaving Uruguay and a final day there of 84 miles.  At 75 miles a day I could reach the Guianas before January when the temperature will start peaking.  If I were upping the mileage, I could be spared even more of the ovenish heat.  That 84-mile day gave me hopes of reaching the Guianas by Christmas and being home in time to welcome the New Year with Janina.  Now I’m concerned of getting back in time for the Super Bowl.

At least I have no food or water concerns with giant service stations usually with small cafes or full-fledged restaurants no more than twenty miles down the road.  The Ipiranga chain with an Am/Pm convenience store generally has WiFi as well.  Another bonus is the small packets of mayonnaise and ketchup and mustard on their tables.  I gather a few extras to add a little extra flavor and calories to my ramen.  Iripanha is my favorite of the half dozen chains of service stations.  Shell is the only branch of stations from home.  Rather than looking forward to the next Carnegie, I’m always looking forward to the next Ipiranha.

With the prevalence of machines dispensing cold filtered water at the gas stations there are few plastic water bottles along the road, just an occasional plastic soft drink bottle, mostly of Coca-Cola. Amongst the bottles I have spotted a few coins.  When I was last in Brasil thirty years ago the country had recently severely devalued its currency, rendering many coins worthless.  I’d find piles of obsolete aluminum coins dumped along the road.  Thus when I first picked up a fifty centavo coin on this ride, worth thirteen cents, that was dated 1996, I feared it too might be without value.  But it was legitimate and so have the handful of others I’ve gathered.  

The camping has been easier than Uruguay, where the abundance of cattle had the road lined with fences, forcing me to camp more often than not in thick bushes between the fences and the road.  It’s never too far between forests along the road in Brasil that I can disappear into when the light starts to wane.  I don’t always get far enough from the road for silence, but occasionally a dirt road has allowed me to put a little distance from the highway.

Yesterday morning when I returned to the highway on an overgrown dirt road that didn’t look as if it were in use, I came upon a bushy-haired guy I had seen walking along the highway the day before.  He had chosen the same pocket of woods to camp as I had.  All we could do was say good morning to one another, as Portuguese was the extent of his languages.  

I have yet to hear a word of English in Brasil.  My lack of Portuguese has frustrated quite a few people who have wanted to have a conversation, including several motorists and a motorcyclist who have stopped along the road to get my story.  I receive two or three friendly toots an hour, often from truckers, and vigorous arm-raised waves from motorcyclists.