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Very Brazilian, in both its vastness and its frontier culture, the Mato Grosso region is essentially an enormous plain rippled by a handful of small mountain ranges. Equally Brazilian, there's a firm political boundary, a line on a map, across the heart of the Pantanal swamp marking the competing ambitions of two mammoth states: Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul . The northern half of the region - the state of Mato Grosso - is sparsely populated with the only settlements of any size - Cuiaba, Rondonopolis and Caceres - having a combined population of little over a million. Most of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which is marginally more populous, is either seasonal flood plain or open scrubland. To the west of Mato Grosso do Sul there are Bolivian swamps and forest; the mighty rivers Araguaia and Parana (one flowing north, the other south) form a natural rim to the east, while the Rio Paraguai and the country named after it complete the picture to the south. The name Mato Grosso, which means "thick wood", is more appropriate to the northernmost state, where thorny scrubland passes into tropical rainforest and the land begins its incline towards the Amazon, interrupted only by the beautiful uplifted plateau of the Chapada das Guimaraes. The simple road network and the limited sprinkling of settlements make getting about within the Mato Grosso fairly hard work. Distances are enormous, and although most of the buses and trunk roads are good any journey is inevitably a long one. But the variety of landscape alone makes the trip a unique one and, for the adventurous traveller, there's any one of a wide range of fascinating locations - from swamps and forests to endless cattle ranches, riverine villages or jungle Indian reservations. The cities of the Mato Grosso are particularly deceptive. Although surprisingly modern and developed, they've only recently received the full trappings of civilization. Portuguese colonists began to settle in the region fairly late, at the time of the great Cuiaba gold rush of the early eighteenth century, though Cuiaba town itself remained almost completely isolated from the rest of Brazil until its first telegraph link was installed in the 1890s. Masterminded and built by a local boy made good - a down-to-earth army officer called Rondon - the telegraph lines were the Mato Grosso's first real attempt to join the outside world. These days, with the completion of Highway BR-364, Cuiaba has again become a staging post for pioneers; this time for thousands of Brazilian peasants in search of land or work in the freshly opened western Amazon states of Rondonia and Acre. Cuiaba can't exactly claim to be a resort town, but it is a natural stepping stone for exploring either the Pantanal, or the mountainous scenery of the Chapada dos Guimaraes. Until 1979 Cuiaba was capital of the entire Mato Grosso. Campo Grande in the south, however, was also growing rapidly and playing an increasingly important financial and administrative role within Brazil. The old state was sliced very roughly in half - Campo Grande becoming capital of the brand-new state of Mato Grosso do Sul . This tightening of political control over the various Mato Grosso regions reflects their rapid development and relative wealth - a complete contrast to the poorer, even more expansive and much more remote wilderness of the Amazon basin. Topographically, and in terms of its tourist potential, the Mato Grosso will always be dominated by the Pantanal , one of the world's largest swamps, which extends into both the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, and is renowned as one of the best places for spotting wildlife in the whole of South America. Between two million and five million cayman alligators are "culled" annually from the Pantanal, though it's better known for its array of birdlife and its endless supply of piranha fish - the latter used in an excellent regional soup dish. So far it's proved impossible to put a road right through the Pantanal, so travelling anywhere around here is slow. After Cuiaba and Campo Grande, Corumba , on the western edge of the swamp, is probably the next most popular urban destination. A relatively small city, it's only half an hour from Bolivia, but seven or eight from Campo Grande, the nearest Brazilian outpost. It is possible to travel through the Pantanal by river from Corumba, directly to the port of Caceres near Cuiaba, though unless you can afford a luxury tour this adventurous fluvial route takes at least a week, and often longer.
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