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I thought of asking him to take us to the airport, but was not certain Tom would be ready. Of course he was ready -- it was ~ 10:00 am. and we were due at the airport in 15 minutes. We made the short trip in another taxi and were nearly the first to check in for VASP flight 373, scheduled for 11:30. There were no seat assignments so we aimed to be early in line. Soon after we arrived, the curio shop opened and I recognized one of the same women who served us last evening at CorumbArte. She has offered to silk screen a green toucana shirt over night & we demurred. But she had a green one, size 46, at the airport so I bought it. I also asked for a pen and ink sketch of Corumbá and she refused payment -- gave it to me. Then she took out 4 more of them in a variety of scenes and gave me those too.

By that time the airport had filled up with all the fishermen we had seen along the river. Including the lean, red man standing in his boat as we passed. They carried reels and souvenirs and cases of tackle. They mobbed the souvenir shop and we saw one of them try to bargain down the price of two little T shirts for children. No go! The woman said they were the same price as in town, and everybody had to live. What a business she must do! I didn't check back, but I doubt if she had a T shirt left when our flight took off.

Which was not until about 1:15 pm. The plane landed about a half hour after it was scheduled, and we each went through an inspection of our ^[[hand]] luggage at which time our camera case & Tom's larger bag were 

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placed behind the departure gate -- I had already taken a few pictures of the airport area. The one thing I couldn't record was the fresh sweet air, perfumed with roses. Sweet air -- at the fazenda and even around town was one of the delights of Corumbá.

At about 11:10, a great surprise. A young man from the hotel showed up with my hat and [[strikethrough]] read [[/strikethrough]] red raincoat! What service! We thanked him profusely & gave him a tip for his trouble, but explained we left them intentionally. Perhaps we should have put them in the waste basket, or told the woman we were leaving them. If we had, however, we never would have learned that the Hotel Santa Monica at Corumbá would send them after us to the airport. 

We waited at the Salido gate for a long time, then gave up and sat down. The word got around that we were held up because the airport at Campo Grande was closed during a heavy rain. Brazil is plagued by rain this year. Great floods at Coimbra, high water at Porto Esperanca, disastrous floods in the Northeast. Tom whiled away a few minutes by having a cafezinho, then, just as we had begun to consume ice cream-on-a-stick, the crowd rose and we began to board. Women [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] with children first thru a special gate -- in transit passengers crowded through and, altho I was in the wrong place and had no child, they motioned me through and Tom back. I had to wait until I could get him to hand my boarding pass thru a crowd of waiting men, then I took off and found us two excellent seats in the rear right -- the no-smoking side of the plane out of the sun. 

As we took off we got a splendid view of the Pantanal