Riding the Bus in Campo Grande

So since I am in a new city, it is my duty as a traveler to explore. I have Fridays off so I decided to explorer downtown Campo Grande on my first day off. My mode of transportation of course is the bus. Before deciding to take the bus to explore I tried to ask people different questions about getting downtown and about downtown in general. No one knew what bus I had to take because most people in the hospital drive or have a motorcycle. One person told me to take one of the blue buses from the bus stop in front of the hospital to the bus terminal and then take one of the red buses from there because they all go downtown. This information was helpful but not very helpful. Most of the buses are either blue or red and some red buses do not go downtown.

I had a breakthrough when the secretary of the Hospital Director told me that one of the hospital drivers could take me downtown Friday morning and that he could tell me how to get back to the hospital. Friday came and we were on our way to downtown, when I asked him about getting back to the Hospital. It took a while for him to answer the question only to have him tell me he didn't know. His suggestion was that I ask the people downtown and they would tell me how to get back to the hospital. I thought to myself, "Great, I'm going to get lost downtown, and it's too late to go back to the hospital."

When we got downtown, the driver dropped me off on one of the main roads and I started exploring. Downtown Campo Grade reminded me a lot of Anapolis in Goias. There were a lot clothing stores and several Latin American type diners. I don't know if I mentioned this before but in Brazil the favorite snack is something called pastel pronounced pasteu. When I was originally invited to have some I thought it would be sweet because the equivalent in English pastry, which is usually sweet. Here, pastel is flat rectanglur shaped deep fried pastry which is stuffed usually with cheese and/or meat/vegetable. It can be found in any and every Brazilian city or town. In downtown Campo Grande there are a lot of these diners that sell pastel.


I walked around the downtown area just exploring. I bought myself some lunch and drank coconut water and then decided it was time to head back to the hospital. I was not quite sure of how to get back to the hospital or where to get the bus but I decided to walk to a park where I had seen several buses parked. As I walked to the park I noticed that several buses passed by me with signs that said they were going to Aereo Rancho. I also remembered seeing a bus terminal near the hospital with the name Aereo Rancho Terminal. I, therefore, assumed that that was the bus I was suppose to take to get back to the hospital. The only problem was that I could not find the bus stop for that bus. I decided to stick to the original plan of walking to the park. When I got to the parked I asked someone who was selling bus passes what bus to take and he directed me to one of the bus stops.


My bus came and I took it feeling proud of getting on the right bus and going home. The thing is I was on the right bus but I was going in the wrong direction. I didn't know this until the bus got its final stop and I realized I was not in Aereo Rancho. I got off the bus with the other passengers and decided to get some information. I was told to take the same bus line to the final stop. I was upset because it had already taken almost an hr to get to that station and I had to get back on the bus. It would take me an hour to get back to the place I had originally taken the bus and possibly another hour back to the hospital. On top of that I would have pay another fare.


The bus I taken to the station had already left so I had to wait for another one. When another one finally came, I noticed that everyone rushed on the bus as soon as the bus rider and conductor exited to, I guess, use the bathroom or get a drink. I was wondering why no one was paying the fare. Then it dawned on me that once you were in the bus station you could get bus transfers for free. I didn't have to pay another fare because it was counted as a transfer. When I finally got to the final stop in the other direction it was over an hour later and I had to take another bus to get to the hospital but that bus ride was only 10 minutes.


Even though I got lost, I learned about the bus system in Campo Grande. While I was waiting for the bus, I saw a bus that went to the shopping/mall so next week I'll be going to the mall. Thanks for reading!