Porto Velho

Thursday 2nd June 1988

I got up early and ensured that the time here was definitely one hour behind that in Brasília. I made up a litre of vodka and orange using Tang powder for the coach trip and then took bus 202 to the Terminal Rodoviário de Cuiabá.

I was getting used to the Brazilian bus system with it’s conductor and turnstile half way along the bus. I had fun at the cafeteria, which was one where you told the cashier at the entrance what you wanted and then paid in advance, as I didn’t know what half the options were called in Portuguese. I managed to muddle through and get something to eat.

The bus to Porto Velho cost 3,940 Cruzados and left at 09:00 hrs. Porto Velho (Old Port) is the capital of the Brazilian state of Rondônia, in the upper Amazon River basin, and a Catholic Metropolitan Archbishopric.

Located on the border of Rondônia and the state of Amazonas, the town is an important trading centre for cassiterite, the mining of which represents the most important economic activity in the region, as well as a transportation and communication centre. It is on the eastern shore of the Madeira River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River. It is also Rondônia's largest city, and the largest state capital of Brazil by area.

The landscape we passed through was much the same as usual, becoming greener and more tropical as we progressed. We were in cowboy country and large grassy areas were populated by cattle. Several cowboys boarded the bus with their cowboy hats, denims, cowboy boots and saddles.

We stopped at dinner time for a hearty lunch of meat, rice, beans, pasta, eggs and salad. At many places along the road the grass verges were being burned away. In the evening the bus stopped at a Vaccination Centre where compulsory yellow fever jabs were given to those without cards to prove that they had already been jabbed.

Yellow fever vaccine is a vaccine that protects against yellow fever. Yellow fever is a viral infection that occurs in Africa and South America. Most people begin to develop immunity within ten days of vaccination and 99 percent are protected within one month, and this appears to be lifelong. At this time, in the UK in 1988, it was said that immunity would last for ten years and nobody who had been given it had ever caught yellow fever.

Recipients of the injections had to line up and roll up one sleeve as a medic went along the line and jabbed them one by one with the same needle attached to a large bottle of vaccine. Luckily, I had a certificate of yellow fever vaccination in my passport and was ushered straight through and back onto the bus.

We stopped at several “Wild West” style towns with hard packed red earth streets, open-fronted shops and saloons. The vodka and orange helped to pass the time but didn’t do much to help me to sleep. It seemed to go straight through me, necessitating frequent visits to the bog (toilet).