More Adventure than You Can Shake a Stick At

Where would you imagine is the worst place to stall a car? At a red light that has just turned green? In an intersection? Or smack in the middle of a two-lane highway with oncoming traffic in both directions? Yes, I would imagine that that would be particularly bad.

This weekend, in the name of horizon-expanding and escaping the city, a friend and I rented a car and headed to the small beachtown / fishing village of Gaibu, 40 minutes or so south of Recife. Followers of caipirissima, aside from being much appreciated [thank you!], will know that I have been timidly attempting to tackle the roads of Brazil these past few months. With this in mind, actually deciding to rent a car was a major step, as it would be my first time driving standard, by myself, in Brazil, not really knowing where I was going, with no professionally trained instructor next to me. And somehow my friend agreed to all this....

We picked up the car at the airport early Saturday afternoon and headed into the city to pick up the keys to the little beachhouse where we would be staying. Things started well with an immediate wrong turn out of the airport which landed us in a maze of one way streets and no left turns. This isn't actually very surprising, since Recife is almost only composed of one way streets and no left turns. Somehow we managed to right ourselves and we gingerly made our way into the city. I hadn't driven standard since the end of my ten lessons back in March, and well ... let's just say that there was a small period of adjustment. We finally made it into the city after making several more wrong turns and found the house of the owner of the keys. After getting more detailed directions on how to find the beachhouse, we headed on our way, by now, feeling a little bit more confident about the whole clutch/gear thing. Once we hit the highway, everything was golden. Except of course for all the horses, cows, bicycles, children, and vendors which wander in and out of the lanes with alarming frequency. I'm all for local employment [vendors] and transportation [bikes], but really, these people should not have so much confidence in my driving skills.

By mid-afternoon, we made it to Gaibu and were welcomed by the beautiful beach and the relaxed atmosphere of the village. Having never been to Gaibu before, I hadn't known what to expect and was most pleasantly surprised to find a wonderful beach without many people (the strong surf and rocks make parts of it somewhat dangerous for swimming) and an charming village with less tourism than its neighbours, but still with a decent infrastructure of places to eat, music to listen to, and things to do. I didn't take any pictures since without knowing beforehand the security situation of a town, I tend to leave my camera at home. Turns out Gaibu and my camera would have gotten along just fine!

The next morning we found a lovely spot on which to perch ourselves -- on the final rock jutting out of the point in the lower right hand corner of the map below -- and spent several hours watching the surf go in and out. We even managed to watch a group of five dolphins play for a few minutes before they disappeared back into the sea.


Unfortunately because of the terms of the rental car -- 24 hours or your first-born, please -- we could not hang around all day and had to head back into Recife towards the end of the morning. The trip home was smooth sailing and we landed back at the airport with nary a drop of perspiration. There was the moment when a speeding car passed me on the right while I was passing a motorcycle, but it was over in a flash and ended well.

As for Gaibu, a definite two-thumbs up! I have no doubt that it will be incorporated into my routine. And the driving? I think that this weekend was exactly the push that I needed to finally buy my car. Worth every centavo! Oh, and about the worst place to stall a car? Some things are better left unsaid.