trip to Matto Grosso do Sul

In November, 1992, Carol’s mother came to visit and Fred and Carol planned to take her with them when they visited the outlying state of Mato Grosso do Sul, that was part of our mission. Since it was close to the time for our leaving, we were invited to go too. We rode in the "Veraneo" the mission van. Of course, Fred did all the driving; he got sick if he was a passenger. Our first stop was in Americana, a city founded by Southerners after the Civil War. The ones who were willing to work were successful, those who weren’t, failed. There still are Southern descendants living in Brazil. We attended a Zone Conference in Campo Grande.
We visited the "Pantanal" which is like the Everglades. Lots of birds and water. We saw an alligator, "Jacaré, and an otter. There were very large white birds called "Tuiuiu (pronounced too-you-you). We also saw parrots, toucans and macaws. We had to take a ferry across the Paraguay River and stayed in the city of Corumbá. We were able to take a river trip on that same river seeing lots of birds and animals. Corumbá is on the border with Bolivia and we were able to cross the border into the city of Puerto Suarez and visit shops there. One of the stalls we visited was run by an LDS couple.
After visiting Corumbá, we visited an Indian tribe. There was a huge ceremonial hut called an "Oga" and we met the Indian chief, wearing only a pair of shorts. The hut was made of reeds or some kind of grass. There were some ceremonial feathers and things on poles but the hut was mostly empty. Leaving the reservation we saw ostriches and tall ant hills in the fields.
We spent the night in the city of Ponta Porâ, on the border with Paraguay. We stayed in a lovely hotel and we had musical entertainment: a harp and guitar and the fellows sang and played Paraguayan music. The next day we crossed the street into the city of Pedro Juan Caballero in Paraguay. We went to a nice shop and met the owner and a very cute Indian girl who waited on us. We took the girl’s picture and the owner wanted us to take hers too, so we did. I had always wanted to visit Paraguay and finally was able to.
Fred received permission for us to go out of our mission and visit the Iguazu Falls or Foz do Iguassu in Portuguese. Iguazu means Big Water in Indian. I had seen many pictures of them from childhood and was finally able to see them for myself. We rode in a boat to a place where there was a walkway built. There had been recent floods and we could see some of the damage along the way. We came to an observation place where we could see the huge fall called the Devil’s Throat. A huge fall with little birds flying through all the mist. There are 275 separate falls of varying size and covering a large area. Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet here. The falls are most spectacular and are set in tropical jungles. Really beautiful. When we left the falls we visited a huge hydroelectric dam at Itaipú on the Paraná River, making the largest artificial lake in Brazil. There were 18 huge turbines; quite a sight.
It was a lovely trip, a very nice way to end our time of service. When we got back we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Gallaher’s home, some American LDS members of the branch. All the branch members were present and it was a fun time. He worked for some big company, I can’t remember which, and had a huge, lovely home which was all enclosed with a guard at the front gate. Typical for Sâo Paulo. Fred, Carol and I did some singing as entertainment.