The Wedding in Brazil - day 1

I wrote this little story the day I landed in Brazil last month after flying the Miami-Salvador sector three times due to my own idiocy:

My fabulous hosts

I am writing this in the car to try and focus all sorts of bits of me into one place - my body, to leave a record of the possible last moments of my life and to squash the desire for hard liquour before midday!
Meet Ana and her Mum and Dad greeting me at Salvador airport, look like normal, sane people don,t they? Ha! Off we go on the road trip 5.5 hours to the coast.

See! 2 lanes behind one truck

Did you know in Brazil that it is perfectly acceptable to drive at breakneck speed (all the time) on the wrong side, up a blind hill overtake a truck and THEN when you meet the inevitable oncoming truck that truck moves over to the shoulder to let you pass! Ina, Ana's Mum says "how kind" and drops back off to sleep!
Ana's Dad, Giorgio,  wants to know why I am not sleeping after my three days of flying, Ana explains that I am spending most of the drive with my hands over my face he says, in Portuguese, that I will have to get used to it as that is how it IS in Brazil. How do I know what he said? It is amazing how fast you can pickup a new language when you are in the midst of a continuous series of near death experiences!

Drying cacao seeds on the side of the road

We turned off to a minor road and they complain about how horrible all the trucks were on the highway. I venture that I was rather glad of how they slowed the traffic down which was greeted with huge hilarity, they congratulate on my endearing sense of humour.  Giorgio apologises for this slow winding road as the government is trying to save this particular forest (thank you thank you) oh, dear lord, schools out....stay off the road I scream in my mind.

cacao trees really were in everyone's back yards!

It just occurs to me that I have to retrace this journey to get back to groundhog airport....seriously guys you can manage without me, I'll get a job in a hotel, maybe i can catch a boat back.....whooshh cacao plantation...whooshhh village (oh you won't like that) whoosh rope ladder over the road for monkeys..whoosh ..no i'm fine in the back with no legroom it's just like American Airlines why change a thing!....this red dirt road we are now on is really cramping Giorgio's style (ohhhh) .....hey actually the music,s pretty cool...lalalammmmlaladedadammm... I can sing in Portuguese now..when I sit back and look at them actually this family's  very kind and funny and loving, I am so lucky to have such friends, gee what a great view, I think I'll just relax and go with the flow. What do you know? We're here!

Finally arrived!