The Long Way Back From the Beach

The drive to Guarapari was only 13 hours. The drive back was 15 due to traffic, although that was hardly the worst part of it.

There is always danger eating food from street vendors and beach vendors are even more risky. I think that the kiosks and bars are fine, but the guys walking along the beach with fresh oysters, for instance, deserve a bit more care. They get the oysters early in the morning, put them in a little basket, and walk around in the hot sun selling them. Patrícia and I had some one morning and they were the best I ever had, opened in front of me and served with lime juice and salt. Absolutely delicious!

The day before we left, Patrícia and André had some at about 10:00 in the warm sunny morning. Everthing was fine until the next day...when I packed the car, she was feeling bad and André looked particularly unhappy. Sure enough, 20 minutes into the trip home, he did an Exorcist immitation and vomited all over the door, the seat, the blanket, himself, the floor...

With my lovely woman feeling under the weather too, it was up to me to clean up the mess. Bleah. I came close to joining André in reviewing what I ate for breakfast. The poor thing had to endure about eight hours of twisty roads and he threw up six times, the last five in plastic bags, thank god. As for the rest of us, we had to smell vomit for 15 hours.

Road Danger

After waiting through a painfully slow traffic jam we passed a rolled over car in the middle of the road with one of the dead occupants still sitting in the back seat. The others had been thrown onto the roadside. We also saw a number of smaller accidents, however that was not what caught my attention. In driving so slowly, I had time to really look at the road. Specifically, all of the scratches in the asphalt from terrible accidents. On both sides of almost every curve, there were the marks of what must have been head-on collisions.

Finally arriving into a satellite city of Brasília at 3 am, I felt like I could relax with nice large, well-lit, familiar roads. Of course, that was exactly when someone, shooting out from a side street, clipped the car in front of me, smashing both cars and spinning them like tops to the side of the road.

Showering and getting into my own bed after 15 hours of smelly vomit driving was a pleasure beyond words.

New Years at the Beach

We were all dressed in our white New Year's clothes, me with my new very light beach shirt that I asked for and got for Christmas, white shorts, and flip-flops. We ate a big dinner that included rice and lentils for luck, drank a few glasses of wine, watched the big fireworks display that was on the beach, and then went to jump over seven waves and make seven wishes.

There is also a tradition of eating seven grapes and keeping the seeds all year, except the only grapes we had were crushed, fermented, and put into our glasses.

It was certainly the most memorable New Years I have ever had. I still want to spend one in Rio where they have two million people on the beach. It must be crazy.

The Beach in Guarapari

I have been to many beaches but I could not understand when Patrícia said we were going to sit in a beach bar all day. I wanted to be on the beach not in at a bar. Turns out that the beach bar is right on the beach and depending on the tide, almost in the water.

We always had a nice shady table with umbrellas or under a big leafy tree. She had told me about the food too, but again I did not understand. The bar where were had food and drinks and then there was all the food that passed by. There were fresh oysters opened at your table (best ever in my life), skewers of BBQ meat and seafood, corn on the cob, a guy that grills skewered cheese on a tiny BBQ, fruit popsicles, quails eggs, giant fried fish, giant fried balls of cassava root (as big as my fist) filled with shrimp, cheese, or meat, and more. And lots and lots of really cold beer.

This picture is of a big fish that has been deep fried, covered with shrimp and fried bananas. It comes with french fries, a tomato, bell pepper, and onion vinagrette salad, and farina, which is best described as a crunchy powder that adds a delicious texture to food.

Incredibly, I did not gain weight while I was at the beach because I swam so much. I did however cut up my feet and hands pretty good on the rocks when I went diving off the big rocks. I managed to avoid the thousands of sea urchins in almost every hole of the rocks.

As far as the beach itself, the sand was very fine, the water was just a little cool (perfect for the hot weather) and even when there were a lot of people, it didn't feel too crowded.

I loaded more pictures onto my Picasa site, click on the link to the right.

The drive to the beach

I was 13 hours of driving to the beach. I was strongly warned about the roads before we left. At first the roads were fine, then the rain came. If you have never been in a strong tropical rain it is difficult to image just how much water we are talking about. It makes driving a little dangerous, particularly when there are little mini-rivers running across the highway. A few times I could feel the car hydroplane a little.

Then came the section of road I would describe as craters of the moon. It was like a video game, trying to drive as fast as possible but swerving back and forth avoiding the larger suspension damaging and car swallowing holes. It was safer driving on the shoulder than on the road itself. This section was only about 25 miles long and the road got better. Strangely, I found the experience entertaining and a better part of the drive.

Then came the curves and curves. The problem was it was dark and raining intemittently and I was tired. It was draining. We passed a couple cars that had damaged their cars after hitting big holes. We also saw a dead motorcylist laying in the street and a few lesser accidents.

I was relieved when we arrived a little after midnight. Unfortunately, the kids slept most of the way and were awake while I only wanted to collapse.

Christmas in Brasília

We spent Christmas eve at Patrícia's parents house so we could eat, drink, be merry, see Santa, and exchange presents. Every year Santa stops by near midnight to give the children their presents. He spends his days at the big shopping mall in Brasília, but for about $60 he spends about half an hour handing out presents, talking to the kids, and posing for pictures. And not surprisingly, the children believe in Santa Claus because he really comes every year to personally give them their presents.

As midnight nears the kids go out in the backyard by the pool and sing carols up into the sky to call him. And miraculously, he appears in the livingroom with a sack full of presents. When it is time to go, they go back out by the pool to sing to him as he leaves and to watch his sleigh fly away. It is great fun and the kids are sooooo excited.

We went home early, around one, so we could get up early and drive 13 hours to the beach on Christmas day.