Driving in Brazil

Yesterday, Sunday, was quite a day. We started with breakfast at 6:30 and then waited for our rides to Fortaleza. They were later than expected. We loaded up for the trip and took off. I was driving a little black VW Gol. (In the US we have the VW Golf but I think they are smaller here so they dropped the f.) Anyway, I had Julia, Luke, and Morgan in the back and Kris and I in the front. Al says the Brazilians drive fast and mad (angry), but I think they’re just trying to keep up with him cause he drives fast and mad (crazy)!!! So we were off to the races, with me trying to keep up with Al and not make Julia and Kris sick, impossible. To make matters worse, about 90 % of the cars here are about the same size and shape as the VW GOL and all shades of silver or black so picking Al’s GOL and mine from the rest can be a challenge. We also had intermittent heavy rain showers. Sometimes you would come to water running across the road. Going through you didn’t notice anything wrong until the wheels caught on the other side. During one of the particularly hard downpours Morgan decided he needed to add to it and got very desperate so we pulled over and fortunately there was plenty of tall grass to water. The rain had let up a little so he wasn’t totally soaked. A little farther along we came to a bridge that was limited to one lane of traffic. (As Roger would say more on that later.) There was less traffic on the road then when we came out, which I very much appreciated! When we got closer to Fortaleza we stopped for fuel. These VWs run on Natural Gas (not propane) which is stored in 2 tanks in the trunk under 6000 psi pressure. Sounds like we were driving a bomb. Driving in Fortaleza wasn’t too bad but I was glad I had driven for a few days in the mountains first. We went to Al and Nadine’s apartment and then left for the beach. After the beach we returned to the apartment to shower and get ready for church. Church was from about 6:30 till 8:15 then we headed back for Pacoti (said “paco che”) at 9:45. But there was a hitch, as we came out of church Al informed us that the bridge I mentioned earlier had collapsed and that we would have to take the back road. “It is shorter but not as good a road.” This turned out to be the understatement of the statement of the century. I have been thinking all morning trying to come up with a comparison to something at home but I can’t think of anything bad enough. It was just potholes connected by mud holes. As we left the church there was a huge Catholic church letting out at the same time. There was a traffic “fight” at the first intersection with no stop signs (Stop signs are only a suggestion in Brazil.) and we were on the minor street trying to turn left on to a main street (6 lanes). Al and the Guy I was following got across during a lull from a stoplight farther up the street. I kept edging farther into the street until I was blocking the first of 3 lanes. My passengers kept yelling to just go which would have put me right in front of a bus. We finally got across and into the traffic going our direction. Fortunately the Guy we were following was driving a white Chevy Bonanza (like a large Blazer) and we spotted him half a block ahead turning right onto another street. We managed to cross three lanes of traffic and make the turn 6 cars behind. We managed to keep him on sight till we stopped at a filling station on the edge of the city. We fueled up and got ice cream, snacks and drinks. I got a large Pepsi Twist (they don’t have Mt. Dew here) to help keep me awake, it turned out to be unnecessary cause the road was so “exciting”. We headed out and quickly had the windshield fogging up so we turned the a/c onto defrost which turned out to make it worse because it cooled the glass which made the humidity condense on the outside worse than ever. We finally just turned the a/c off. Soon the road deteriorated into something I can’t quite explain. We finally got back to Pacoti at about 12:30.

Driving here is interesting to say least. I have noticed that there are only 2 traffic laws that are obeyed here. One is stoplights although that one is iffy in the country cause when we stopped at one about 5 people passed us. In the city though most obeyed. The other is “Fiscalizacao Electronico” written on the road followed by a number. Which means in so many meters we are going to take your picture and if you’re speeding you will get a ticket in the mail. So you could be flying along at 110-130 kmph and then come down to 60 for the camera and then right back to twice the speed limit.

Well I will stop now and let someone else tell you about the Beach and church and stuff.

Tomorrow we are going to the largest private zoo in South America.

Ron for Brazil 2010