Belem

En route to Belem

We stopped near Palmas to see a few waterfalls. It was also a chance for a swim to cool off and rinse through some clothes to get rid of some of the dust from the road.

 This was the most impressive waterfall of all of those available near the city, a 80m drop with the opportunity to abseil, notice the rope to the left of the waterfall.

We found what looked like a good place to bush camp but the ground was deceptively soft w=and we got stuck. We got off and set up the kitchen for the evening whilst we dug the truck out, notice the fresh piles of sand near the tyres.

A closer view of the soft sand, plus a few rocks that we had gathered from nearby to act as ballast to give grip so that the truck might get out of the soft sand area. It took a while but it was ultimately successful.

The bush camp was adjacent to a railway line and I finally saw my first Brazilian railway locomotives, a pair or General Electric locos pulling 102 wagons, each weighing 32 tons and carrying 66 tons of aggregate, do the maths. that is a train weighing about 100,000 tons pulled by two locos.

A view of a couple of the wagons.

 Where we were camping was a grave yard for broken wagons. There were more than a dozen, either derailed or damaged during shunting operations. Our truck is on the far left and several scrap wagons are to the left of it.

In the morning we caught a ferry to cross the river.

 And then  moment that I hadn't seen since Africa. This was a roadside fire but unlike Africa where it was the dry season and fires might break out spontaneously, this was the result of a lightning strike a few minutes before. There was a blast of heat and the sound of crackling for a moment as we drove past.