My first international incident....

Trip Start Oct 01, 2007

110

Trip End Dec 31, 2008

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Where I stayed

Novotel Hotel

Flag of Brazil Vitoria, Brazil
Thursday, January 31, 2008

So now we've driven for another 600km through the hilly two-lane roads. We've got a new, more powerful rental car. It's a 1.4L Chevy Prisma. It beats the old Fiat like a an Ancient Egyptian slave-monger. Seriously though, the Fiat, had half a cylinder and 5 hamsters powering it. I'm pretty sure the motor only powered the piston on the upstroke and the hamsters powered it on the downstroke.

Well, this new powerful(God, I've been away from my MazdaSpeed 6 waaay too long) car meant that I was trying to make this drive go by quicker. I can actually accelerate down and UP hills now. So I was making good time, averaging about 100km/hr through towns and open highway. So about half way through the trip, I'm accelerating downhill to pass a car that wasn't maintaining speed. As I hit the trough, I see up ahead some guy standing in the road waving at me. It's the Policia Rodovaria and I'm getting PULLED OVER!! Somehow I managed to go fast enough to get pulled over in Brazil. This is the same country where I get passed like I'm standing still in downtown. Apparently they clocked me doing 140km/hr in an 80km zone...that translates into 87mph in a 50 zone. So what happened to me you ask?? Arrested? Deported? (obviously not since I'm writing this in Brazil), maybe at least frisked and given a drug or alcohol test...

NOTHING!!! ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY NOTHING!!!

They told Elias that maybe he should drive the rest of the way to Vitoria and said they'd call ahead to the Policia Rodovaria further down the road to look for us. So Elias drove slow for a while until we stopped for lunch. Then I got back in the driver's seat and drove normal(Brazilian version). Ended up making it to Vitoria in 7 and a half hours (including lunch, gas, and bathroom stops), spent another hour or so lost in Vitoria, and made it up to the hotel room by 16:30 that afternoon. We were lost for so long because they don't believe in road signs in Brazil...