Dino's post reminded me of a couple of things I forgot to mention in my original trip report. I had a couple of scary situations that happened on my last weekend in Brasil.

1) How Long?!!! - I was sitting in my girl's car riding on the mountain sides of Recreio, when she looked at me and asked "Thumper, are you a good driver?" I responded "I guess so. I've been driving for 22 years and I've only had 1 accident (Other guy's fault) so I guess that qualifies as a good driver". "What about yourself?" She started laughing and said "Well for someone who's been driving for one month, I think I am pretty good!"

I damn near had a stroke as I looked out the window and I saw the huge cliffs that we would tumble off of, if she lost control of the car on this narrow, winding, dirt road! I immediately started thing "This is how I am going to fucking die!! All the bullshit Ive been thru! All the times I just knew that my life was over and I was able to walk away without a scratch!! I am going to die because the girl at the wheel only has a month's worth of experience and we are zooming down a mountain side!!"

Unfortunately, I had to act as cool as a cucumber, in order not to make her nervous. Believe when I say the "pucker factor" was off the fucking meter! Luckily we made off the mountain and back to Copa without her killing us both. Come to find out, she never even attended driving school, she just paid the instructor 1000R and he filled out all the proper paperwork and she got her license!!

2) Dude! We are going to the hood! - While we were coming back from Recreio, we did a little bit of siteseeing. She started driving into one place that looked really poor and seedy. She asked me "Did you see that movie, City of God?". "Yeah, why?" She said "Well this is the place where it was filmed, this is Ciudade de Dios"

I immediately asked her "Could you please get back up on the highway so we can get out of here?" Dont get me wrong, I dont mind going to the hood, I'm as comfortable there, as I am on Wall st, but I like to fucking know ahead of time when I am headed there!! I told her not to do anything like that again and to inform me if she plans on taking me anywhere that is not safe.

3) WOW!! Thats a big ass gun!! - Another night we were coming back from Jacarepagua and we were just getting on the highway near the favela Joao (Sp?). I noticed three cops with these huge ass rifles/machine guns sprinting down the sidewalk near our car. I said "Um honey, you better get on the highway fast! Something is going down, those cops arent running for nothing"

Next thing I know, this cop let off a blast from his Terminator gun! That shit was deafening! (Now I've been around gun fire before, hell, Ive had assholes try to blast me into the after life on a few occasions) But I have never in my life, heard a gun that was that loud and powerfull!! It looked like some shit you go elephant hunting with!

My girl starts screaming and floors the fucking car, we were zooming up the highway at 100 miles per hour! Now I didnt mind us getting out of there before the banditos started returning fire, but I looked over and she had her head below the fucking steering wheel!!! (As far as I know she isnt a Jedi Master, so she didnt have the ability to use "The Force" to guide our car safely!) I started yelling at her to "Slow the fuck down and look where the fuck you are going!!" She was still screaming that we were going to be killed! I had to grab the wheel and steer the car, until she calmed down enough to lift her head up and use her vision to drive. I am so lucky that GOD protects fools and babies:-)

If I had to pick between being caught in the middle of a firefight between favela trafficantes and having to escape with a garota who never learned to drive manning the steering wheel of the getaway car, I'm not sure I could pick. As George Carlin used to say "when I see shit like that highway, I pull over and take public transportation".