Going Native with Ros

For the first time in months I spoke with a friend of my mine from Vitoria, Brazil last night, Rosilene. [Yes she's hot, she's Brazilian - really, I wish you'd stop asking that question].

I've known her for a while and in May I travelled with her from Vitoria, which is about 3 hours car ride north of Rio, to Salvador (and that's not El Salvador as every idiot I speak to keeps thinking, it's Salvador, a city of over 2m people about 1200km north of Rio). Looking at the map, I'd decided that at a push we could drive from Vitoria to Salvador in a day. I hadn't counted on Brazilian roads.

Faced with barely-visible speed bumps every 10 minutes, windy roads, bad weather and only one lane in each direction coupled with aggressive Brazilian truck drivers who enjoy overtaking on corners, I quickly realised this trip was gonna take fucking forever. And it did. It was the scariest 2 days of my life.

Having said all that, I loved it. Although surprisingly the Brazilian countryside isn't the prettiest (in contrast to its stunning bitches beaches), driving through Brazil with a Brazilian is a real eye-opener. I'm a big fan of car journeys in foreign-countries. You get to leave the city/resort and venture in areas where the average guy lives and you get to do that at your own pace, listening to local radio, slowly imbibing the true feel of the place.

Up until the air conditioning broke, then I used my BA miles to fly back to Rio, you wouldn't want me to be uncomfortable would you?