LABOR AND CLIMATE
Sailing out of Rio at 6 p.m. Dec. 8th, next morning early we docked at Santos. We loaded 400 tons of rather inferior bananas for Montevideo and Buenos Aires, all hand work except for the crane that lifted the sling of loaded bananas off the dock and lowered them into the hold. When they wanted to move a car up or down the track, about 50 men would surround it and push, and slowly she would begin to roll. At 11 a.m. the city siren blew and everybody quit work right then and there until 2 p.m. That gave us two full daylight days in Santos.
I had been told in Rio that another representative of one of the companies would meet and take care of us at Santos. The first day we drove to Sao Paulo, referred to by Brazilians as the "Chicago" of Brazil. To me, that is a Churchillian understatement. It is the manufacturing city of Brazil, some 50 odd miles up in the mountains from Santos. The two cities have rail and truck connections. I asked our host how come manufacturers would unload raw products or knockdown parts onto railroad cars or trucks, make the haul up to S.P., manufacture or assemble it there, then rail or truck it back down to Santos or Rio. Why not do it at Santos or Rio and cut out all that haul and extra handling?
The answer was "labor conditions and climate differences—mostly the former." After seeing those 50 men gingerly moving that banana car of half the capacity of one of Sir Herbert Martin's box cars, I began to catch the idea.
We had lunch in a super class French restaurant. For some unknown reason our host and his sprightly wife wanted to take us to The Jungle—a real, for sure Brazilian jungle some 140 kilometers on beyond Sao Paulo. We started, but long, long before The Jungle we practically ran out of road. They were improving and re-locating the highway. We held a caucus. Our host was as game as they come. . . Open revolt came when our host said he had inquired and was assured the road would get better farther on and that he would have us back aboard ship by midnight, perhaps before that time. A vote was taken. Three were for returning then and there, with one not voting. We turned around and headed back for Sao Paulo.
On the way out toward The Jungle we met truck after truck loaded high with sacked charcoal enroute to Sao Paulo where it sells as high as a doctor's bill back home. It is used in cooking. There seemed to be no coal. Gasoline is expensive and oil men tell me it is not as good as our "regular." No Ethyl.
Our host, knowing we had driven from Rio to Petropolis, at the day's end told us we had traveled almost half of the total good road mileage of Brazil.