Campo Grande

Introduction

Campo Grande is the capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul in the central western part of Brazil and has roughly 750,000 inhabitants.

Sights and Activities

Although not in the city or immediate vicinity, Campo Grande does serve as one of the three main gateways to the Pantanal, one of the most impressive paradises of nature on the continent.

Weather

Campo Grande has a (sub)tropical climate with generally warm or hot conditions with relatively high humidity, but not extreme like more tropical cities like Manaus. Temperatures range from 25 °C to 30 °C during the day and 14 °C to 20 °C at night, the highest temperatures being from October to April, which is also when most of the rain falls.

Getting There

By Plane

Campo Grande International Airport (CGR) is located just a 10 to 15-minute drive away from downtown Campo Grande, depending on traffic.
Five airlines serve the city, and only Gol Airlines does right on the fact that it is called an 'international' airport: they serve Santa Cruz in Bolivia. Domestic services with them are Cuiaba, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Manaus, Porto Velho and Sao Paulo.
Other airlines serve roughly the same domestic routes, plus services to Campinas, Maringa, Brasilia, Corumba, Londrina and Rio de Janeiro.

By Bus

Regular buses connect Campo Grande with Corumba, the city on the border with Bolivia, taking around 6 hours. Some buses stop en route in Aquidauana and Miranda, the latter being a good base for shorter trips into the Pantanal.
Regular buses make the trip to Cuiaba (10 hours, nine daily) and there are buses to Bonito (five hours, six daily). Frequent buses go to Ponta Pora (four hours, 21 daily) on the Paraguayan border. As well, there are regular buses to Sao Paulo (15 hours, five daily), Rio de Janeiro (four daily, 23 hours), Brasilia (two daily, 16 hours) and Foz do Iguacu (one daily, 14 hours). Buses to the latter are more frequent with a transfer en route, taking just an hour more or so.

Getting Around

Campo Grande's downtown area is small enough for you to cover it on foot.

The tourist office bus or City Tour Tour Bus on the corner of Av. Alfonso Pena and Av. Noroeste can be very helpful and the staff speaks English.

Sleep

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafes (Lan houses) are increasingly common, and even small towns often have at least one spot with more or less decent connections.
An increasing number of hotels, airports and shopping malls also offer hotspots for Wi-Fi with your laptop computer or of course smartphone. Sometimes it is free, sometimes you need to register and there is a time limite and sometimes you need to pay a small amount for (day) use.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to Brazil is: 55. To make an international call from , the code is: 0014. All cities use the following emergency numbers: 190 (police), 192 (medical) and 193 (fire department). However, if you dial 911 or 112 while in Brazil, you will be redirected to the police.
Brazil uses two-digit area codes, and phone numbers are eight digits long. Numbers beginning with digits 2 to 5 are land lines, while eight-digit numbers beginning with digits 6 to 9 are mobile phones.

Public payphones use disposable prepaid cards, which come with 20, 40, 60 or 75 credits. The discount for buying cards with larger denominations is marginal. Phone booths are nearly everywhere, and all cards can be used in all booths, regardless of the owner phone company. Cards can be bought from many small shops, and almost all news agents sell them.

Brazil has 4 national mobile operators: Vivo (Telefónica Group), Claro (Telmex/América Móvil Group), OI and TIM (Telecom Italia Group), all of them running GSM and HSDPA/HSPA+ networks. Pay-as-you-go (pré-pago) SIM cards for GSM phones are widely available in places like newsstands, drugstores, supermarkets, retail shops, etc.

Post

Correios is the national postal service of Brazil. It is a government run postal service and overseen by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications. Post offices are generally open from Monday to Friday from 09:00am to 5:00pm, although post offices located in shopping malls have their own opening hours, usually from 10:00am to 10:00pm. There are no set opening hours at weekends and as post office owners can choose when to open and close. More and more post offices are open until 1:00pm on Saturdays though. You can check things at the nearest post office.

Sending postcards, letters and parcels is a rather straightforward process and services are reliable, though not overly fast when sending post internationally, mostly taking about a week to the USA and Europe, and there is a track-and-trace service for this as well. Domestically, there are both next day as well as more expensive same day delivery options. Stamps are available at post offices, as well as some kiosks or other places where they sell postcards.

For sending packages internationally, you can also used competitively priced private companies like TNT, UPS or DHL. They are generally much quicker and not much more expensive.

External Links