que supresa!

From the time I arrived in Brazil everything has gone smoothly. Well, sorta...well, let's say it's already been an adventure. But then again, I think that in some language somewhere, my name means adventuress, so I'm lovin' it.
Finally got a guarana (my favorite soft drink ever) on the TAM airplane. Saturday's arrival in Recife was picture-perfect. Except for the fact that Recife is not a very pretty city - it's as if someone just kept putting up unimaginative, ugly buildings with no thought of creating a skyline. My passage through customs and immigration was uneventful, with a smiling Drew and Sueli on the other side.
We grabbed a quick hamburger at Bob's in the airport and got on our way...south! South? Joao Pessoa is north of Recife.
"We have a surprise...it's a good one." Marta, who teaches in the university and works as a tour guide during holidays, has brought a group of teenagers to Maragogi, a resort on the sea. In Brazil it's considered a 5-star resort (www.miramarmaragogiresort.com). Que supresa! (what a surprise!). Because she's the guide, she can just add people to her tour, so she added the 3 of us. I'll go back to Joao Pessoa with her and the group on Sunday afternoon. I like Brazil! I haven't done any work yet and I'm getting rewarded with a nice resort stay.
But let's talk about our route to get here. Recife is in the state of Pernambuco and this resort is in Alagoas. We were told it was just about 30km over the border. Each state in Brazil has its own borders and taxes are collected from the trucks each time they cross into another state. Along the way, there was gorgeous scenery. I would say mountainous, but I don't think the height qualifies them to be mountains. However, they are larger than hills. It's as if God just stirred up very lumpy "earth batter" (wouldn't you know I'd relate it to cooking?) and just drizzled it over the area. All over these very high lumps there grows sugar cane. Kilometers and kilometers of it, with occasional banana trees for added visual texture. Sugar cane, of course, is used to make the alcohol/ethanol for gasoline. For quite a while we drove without encountering any oncoming traffic...only to be stopped by a huge traffic jam. Yes, in the middle of the countryside. As is often the case, people get out of their cars and trucks and begin talking with others along the way. We discovered there was an overloaded sugar cane truck that had broken down on the one-lane bridge about 1 or 2 km ahead. So we sat for almost an hour. However, Drew, ever the resourceful guy, drove further ahead...intending to, shall we say, cut in the line? About 20 minutes after we made our move, we saw the first oncoming traffic...about 5 cars. Then it was our turn, and because of Drew's decision, we were in the first group of 6 cars (we were second to the last!) that went over this one-lane bridge, hastily erected by the army...just wide planks across with a few going lengthwise. Behind us were probably several km of cars and trucks and it would have been a couple hours' wait had we stayed way back in the line. I think they were going to alternate sides, 5-6 vehicles at a time. Say it with me now, "cutting in line is a good thing."

[Brings back the eerie memories of one of Terry's and my trips to Brazil, when we had to fly to Caracas, Venezuela and then come in to Brazil on an overnight bus through the jungle. Of course it's blacker than black in the jungle at night. Every once in a while we would slow down considerably and then bump along for a while, then speed up. It's probably better that we had no idea what was happening, because later, we discovered that the slow-downs were due to rivers or deep gorges where we crossed wooden make-shift bridges similar to this one - only not built as well, sometimes only the 2 planks lengthwise...and no sides!!! The bus driver just had to keep the wheels on those planks! Then there were the soldiers who boarded the bus and came straight to the 2 Americans - pointing machine guns at our heads...well, we've had some adventures.]

We crossed the bridge into the state of Alagoas, thinking we had just about 30 km to go. Wrong. We just kept driving and driving...no cell phone signal so they were unable to call Marta...but I love how helpful everyone is. We stopped and asked people several different times and most of the time their directions agreed. The number was more like 70 km! At one point, one man told us that the road ahead was out, but a farmer had allowed some of his sugar cane to be cut down in order to make passage available. In the states we usually have several options of getting from point A to point B. In other countries, many times there is only one road with no other roads crossing it for miles and miles. So if a road is out or under construction, you might just have to turn around and go hours out of your way.
We found the way into the field and drove along, 12-ft. sugar cane stalks on either side of us. By this time it was dark because sunset begins around 5:30. It had rained sometime during the day here so already there were deep ruts in the still gooey mud. Hard to believe, but we again encountered a "traffic jam". This time only about 5-6 vehicles on either side of a really big quagmire where a heavy truck had sunk down to where the back wheels and the back end of the truck were entirely covered with mud. I'm wondering how he ever got out (or maybe he's still there) because it was just a bunch of guys with some ropes and smaller trucks with no chance of decent traction! Drew measured the space between the truck and sugar cane and figured we had just enough space to squeak past, so we decided to go for it. Of course one needs to keep one's foot on the gas lest one also gets stuck in the mud! I'll usually take on any driving challenge, but let's just say I'm glad I was not the driver in this case. When we finally arrived back on the main road, almost 6km later, it was so potholed that we had to slow down tremendously so as not to break an axle or get a flat tire...some of those spots were canyons! Think about it for a minute...black night outside, no street lamps, no towns, very few cars at all, no gas stations...you get the picture. I was glad I had not drunk too much water at lunch.
We arrived at the resort at almost 7pm, after leaving the Recife airport at 2:30, and were greeted by Marta, waiting in the lobby...we hugged and she apologized to me for such a stressful arrival. Stress? Who, me? I was laughing and taking pictures the whole time. We got our little bracelets that allowed us to do all of the activities, dropped off our luggage in our rooms, and met for a delicious dinner, after which we all went to bed. All except Marta, that is, who went dancing with her tour group. Sleep came very easy to all of us.