Later Day 115
Sao Paulo to Paratay, Brazil
We will call this entry "The Adventure We Never Wanted To Have."
It did not start that way.
We woke up this morning in an American house, with American beds and showers, and DVDs....it was quite a nice little break.
Ligia was a generous hostess and took us on our own personailzed tour of Sao Paulo. And despite all the bad things we had heard about this sprawling metropolis of crime and dirt.....we actually found ourselves liking the city quite a bit. We saw the American school, which was spectacular and I found myself quite jealous Bryce would not be educated there.

This picture was taken just outside the girls classroom. Everything is so green and pretty here!

We also saw the botanical gardens which make you forget you are in a city of 17Million people and make you feel as if Sao Paulo is still one huge jungle. We picked up lunch at a great little deli.
Ligia explained that lunch, with guests, in Brazil is usually a three hour ordeal...but we were anxious to hit the road.
Following our plane disaster from yesterday, I was refusing to fly. However, fearing crime in Brazil, Rich was refusing to take the six hour bus ride to Rio. We compromised on a car rental......if only we had known.
We had two days to arrive in Buzios just North of Rio, so we decided to make it a three hour trip and sleep halfway in a town called, Paraty. I had read great things about this small beach town and I was anxious to see it for myself.
We set off at 2pm. "Be careful." Ligia warned. Its Friday and the traffic will be bad.
"Well be fine" I said..."Were from the East Coast...we know traffic."
The car rental place spoke NO English or Spanish and had NO maps......but they did manage to warn us "Its carnivale....the traffic will be bad."
"We know" I said. Besides...we only had a three hour drive. Even if it took six....we would still be there on time for dinner.
Two hours and four gas stations later.....we had not even found the highway. We were completely lost! At gas station five I was nearly in tears when I heard a man speak up in English. I nearly attacked the poor bloke....but five minutes later we had perfect directions to the highway.
"At this time of day...the traffic will be horrible." He chided me.
"I know....we'll be fine." I said.
2 hours and 10 kilometers later......Rich looked very tense. I tried to disfuse his frustration by plastering a smile on my face and saying as cheerily as I could manage "Think of it this way, dealing with Sao Paulo traffic is just another one of those Brazillian experiences we will have gotten to have had! Six months from now this will be just another great adventure story."
The look he gave back to me said 'If Ihad a gun, I would shoot you.'
So, I shut up.
2 hours later, 6 hours into our 3 hour drive, and still not even out of the city of Sao Paulo.....if he had had a gun.....I would have LET him shoot me.
2 hours later, 8 hours into our 3 hour drive, the traffic eased up and off we drove.
With no local map.....we were going by our big map of South America. It showed one turnoff to Paraty. When we found it Bryce cheered and sang in the back seat. Rich seemed to relax a bit.
The sign said "Paraty, 95 kilometers". At least we would make it by midnight.
70 kilometers later. The road dead ended into the jungle.
Now nearly one AM, pitch black, no one around.....and we were out of road. In front of us was just a rocky dirt path that seemed to disapear into the thick brush. Behind us, the deserted twisty mountain road we had just spend an hour negociating.
Not wanting to go back......"This has to be it." Rich insisted.
"It can't be!" I wailed. "My book says Mick Jagger vacations in Paraty. Certainly a town glamorous enough forMick would at least have a ROAD."
Frustrated, out of options and exhausated, my husband ignored me and plowed our rented Fiat into the Jungle.
As we stumbled and sputtered deeper into the woods, I began to get very nervous. OK....I was terrified.
This is Brazil afterall and driving alone in the middle of the night in the jungle seemed like a very bad idea. Half of me wanted Rich to keep up speed to avoid being car jacked by bandits waiting in the brush. The other half of me was numb with the fear that if we went too quickly we would learch over the edge of the massive cliff that hugged our right side.
2 hours of driving through the blackness up and down the rocky path, jungle vines covering the road and banging off the top of our car, boulders scraping and ripping our undercaridge, waterfalls streaming under our wheels and causing our tires to spin in the mud.......and Rich developed a greater fear. We were in the middle of nowhere........and we were almost out of gas.
I tried to stay calm, but I was loosing it. I had visions of us dead in our tracks, sleeping in the sweltering heat of our little car, waiting for jungle badits to slit our throats in the middle of the night. How could we have been so stupid!? We were never going to make it out of this.....and it was my fault. My poor little baby sitting silently, but wide awake in the backseat.
Rich kept on, slowly navigating the ditches and watching the cliff as we crawled around hairpin turns on the mountain side. The only sign of life we had witnessed in over two hours was various animals scurrying across the path.
Then suddenly....we were blinded.

It was highbeams coming toward us. Friend or Foe? Friend or Foe? Do we stop them to ask for help? Or do we pick up as much speed as possible to avoid allowing them near our car?
Desperate, we pulled as close to the edge as we could, and waited.
The aged pick-up neared our side and stopped.
"Paraty??" Rich yelled through the window.
The elderly driver went through a tiraid of pointing and cursing in Portuguese. I am quite sure he was telling us we were insane. But, he said two words we understood.

Two words which gave us hope.

He pointed down our path and said " Seis K."
SIX KILOMETERS.
Rich looked at me and said "If its true. We should be able to just make it."
On we went and about 1/2 and hour later.... on empty....we broke through the vines and hit gravel. 5 minutes later we found a gas station and directions to our hotel.
Winding our way through town, the first night of Carnivale was in full swing in the streets. Party revelers danced and smiled and tried to pass drinks through our car window.
I have dreamed of Carnivale in Brazil since college. Here I was, and I could have cared less. We just wanted to find our Pousada and go to bed. It was 3 Am. 13 hours into our 3 hour drive.
Good thing Carnivale lasts for five days.
The next afternoon, as we asked the Inn Keeper for directions out of town, Rich would point to the turn off road on our map and ask "This way out of town?"
In broken English she replied "Oh, no. That road washed out years ago. It is very dangerous to go through the mountain. There are bad men...even in the day. And in your little car, you would never make it over the cliff."
Rich didn't bother telling her, we had made it....in the middle of the night. I hope we did not just use up too much of our good karma.