Campo Grande, often overlooked but worth a stopover

Campo Grande is usually passed through on the way to Bonito and The Pantanal with a pick up arranged at either the bus station or airport to avoid going into the town at all. Having had generally poor to zero response from Pantanal tours based in Cuiaba we were still trying to finalise a trip and stopped over in Campo Grande while we confirmed. At the airport we met Gil from Pantanal Discovery who was good with the patter and sales pitch but we thought the trips may be at the cheep end in delivery as well as price. We settled on a trip and made plans to head to Bonito for a couple of days first. Campo Grande turned out to be well worth a night. Vitoria Regia hostel was a good place to stop, despite a bigger than usual language barrier. A friendly hostel who can get mates rates on the Vanzella bus to Bonito, 15 reais off the normal price. The hostel is based overlooking Orla Morena a purpose built walkway used as a running, cycling and skating track the like of which you see all across South America. These are well used meeting places especially in the early evenings. Being busy they are safe and well lit. We were fortunate to be there on a Thursday, where we discovered a great market selling an array of food, clothes, mobile phones and the usual market goods. There was a small stage with some kind of stand up comedy which seemed to be poking fun at the colonial past, but I couldn't be certain. The food was a range of Brazillian from various regions and Japanese. Great fun to wander around and take in what was clearly a night out for locals as we were possibly the only gringos there. Passing back through Campo Grande after the Pantanal trip we spent the afternoon at the park watching the Capybara swimming in the lake and grazing on the banks at our feet. We actually saw more Capybara there than in the Pantanal but that's another story.

I always enjoy spending a bit of time in the less visited areas just enjoying less visited towns and getting a feel for an area without the pressure to tick sights off a list. Campo Grande is certainly worth a night, especially if you are passing through in time for the Thursday market on Orla Morena.