Palmas, Tocantins

The next stop on my Central East Brazil tour was Palmas, the capital of the state of Tocantins (toecanshins). Prior to arriving, everyone said told me that I was going to melt in Palmas because it is second hottest city in Brazil. I somewhat halfheartedly believed what I was told. I have noticed that some Brazilians like to employ exaggeration in their speech. This time, however, I had to admit they were not exaggerating. Palmas was very hot. Some days I felt like I was in Phoenix during the summer. The truth hit me literally, when I arrived at the airport and deplaned. As exited the plane, I was welcomed by a hot breeze.

Palmas in spite of being a state capital city is only 20 years old . That means it’s not as modern as other cities in Brazil. When I deplaned, I did so by stairs and had to walk on the tarmac to the airport building. The airport was very small. Also, when we arrived, our plane was the only other commercial plane there. Later I learnt that the planes going to and leaving Palmas all had Brasilia as their destination or their origin. This basically meant there are only a few flights entering or leaving Palmas and Tocantins on a daily basis.

Palmas is very small with a population of fewer than 200,000 people. There are not a lot of business and shops because the city is just developing. The public services here are very expensive compared to other cities. I also noticed that there was little variety in the foods in the supermarkets. Palmas does, however have an abundance water. The city was build near one of the biggest rivers in Brazil, the Rio Tocantins. From the airplane I could see the river covering a large part of the state.

In Palmas, I lived in an apartment with three other females. They work for the local conference here. It was pretty cool living with them. One of the girls was actually a student at IABC when I was there last year. She was surprised at my Portuguese because when I first arrived I didn't know any Portuguese but there in Palmas I was able to talk with them with very little problem. I was also happy about having a kitchen again so I could cook. There are some negatives to the current situation. I don’t have a piano to practice and on the first night I was welcomed by a scorpion. My room-mates later informed me that they usually found a scorpion in the apartment around once a week usually in one of the two bathrooms. I was glad that they only appeared in the bathrooms but I was a little paranoid about entering the bathroom. I wouldn’t enter the bathroom until I had carefully examined it from the door.

So far I am learning some interesting things about Palmas and the state of Tocantins. The first which I think that I learnt would interest reality show fans. Apparently, the last season of Survivor was filmed right here in the state Tocantins in the north. Another thing I learnt was that Palmas was built to copy the nation’s capital. Many of the buildings and the layout of the city are said to imitate Brasilia. Several people mention it was also a copy of an American city, but they did know the name of the city.

Anyway, the layout of the city in my opinion is very strange and very different from Brasilia. For example there are only two traffic lights in the entire city. They are located at the intersection of the only two streets that are named in the city. Throughout the rest of the city, the traffic is regulated by roundabouts. The roundabout system apparently works because there are very few traffic accidents but I still don’t understand why the city planner did not use more traffic lights considering that the city is expanding. But then again I am not a road planner.

One cool thing about Palmas is the fact there are a lot of river beaches. I had the opportunity to visit one on my second day in the city. These are very convenient given the record high temperatures most days. One positive thing about the weather in Palmas is the that it is dry heat. It’s hot but I think it would be even hotter if it was humid.