Things you might want to know before renting a car in Brazil...
This post is in English and Spanish. Spanish version is in the post following this ;)
I was shaking. All morning I had been anticipating this. Trying to figure out ways in my brain to make this stunt we were about to pull off a meditative process, cause driving is meditative right?
After 5 months of quarantine in a country that is neither mine nor my partner’s but serves as kind of a Swiss Covid middle ground, we were getting restless. General anxiety. Waves of feeling like I should be reading the Bible cover to cover, or doing daily online yoga, or in general, gaining a renewed sense of purpose. Meh.
Instead, what I have been doing, is working. Every day, without one day off, for five months. Our routine has become like clockwork. We wake up early; sun is still sleeping. One of us goes out on the patio and chucks bread crumbs onto the opposite side of the house so the rooster doesn’t crow into our open windows prompting my students to think I am interrupting them with a chicken alarm clock. This seriously happens daily. I smear blush on my cheeks because pro tip that immediately makes you appear half awake, log on, and teach small children English. But I really need to take a vacation. We really need a vacation.
The stress of the indoors, not knowing where or when we are leaving here, and being together, but not really together for five months has been heavy. I think a big part of what keeps me plugging away so hard is witnessing the world spiral into an economic crisis and listening to war stories of trying to get a hold of the unemployment office, and seeing the around the block lines here at the banks for emergency relief checks. I imagine myself losing this financial life raft and having to find work which at this point could separate us inevitably. Fabian is not allowed into the US and I am not allowed into Argentina. So we cling to this English teaching boat, Fabian has found some freelance work online, and we work.
But today, to celebrate one year together, one year across countries and shootouts, and home cooked meals, and drumming concerts and moving multiple times, we are going to take a trip. We have collectively decided that with the state of things around the globe, Brazil will be our home together for the foreseeable future, so why not EXPLORE HER (safely while wearing a mask and keeping hands sanitized) ;).
We were renting a car and taking a road trip.
Now there are two very important things you need when you decide to rent a car.
The obvious - a driver’s license. Unfortunately, since we have overstayed my visa and Fabian’s license just expired and no official offices are open to re-instate it, we are renting the car using my license. Great, you may think. Well...
You need to know how to drive. Duh, if you have completed step one you have mastered step 2 right? The thing is I never really mastered stick shift. Actually I never really tried to master stick shift. I attempted in a parking lot once with my dad at 16, but the whole experience of him being freaked out that I would ruin his clutch put a quick stop to that. And 99% of the cars at Hertz, are stick.
So, we sat in our kitchen, three flip flops on the floor, clutch, brake, gas, walking through the steps that it would take to pull the car out of the lot, down the street to a parking lot, where then Fabian could take over. Easy right? No, I am absolutely freaked out of my mind at this point imagining me stalling out in an intersection and the rental car guy having to come to pull me out and take away our vacation. Mortifying.
We went through the whole process a few times, clutch, brake, lil’ gas, release the clutch, go slow, breathe, first gear. Then, I looked at the Google map of the car rental place, like a burglar stalking out a precious jewel in a museum I needed to know my escape route and save it to memory, even if that complicated route was making a right turn, and then another right turn. We decided Fabian would ask the person working to leave the car at the gate so I would simply need to start it and pull forward instead of learning how to reverse. Seemed practical.
When you are scared to do something other little things that you may want to rush through in your day become moments to stretch out to avoid the inevitable thing. We took a lingering walk to the bus stop in the 85-degree heat. We sat on the empty road and watched Urubus (vultures that are everywhere here) fight amongst themselves for the entrails of a cow that had died, or been left to die in the bushes. We talked about our favorite animals and watched the birds fight intensen. I thought about the people who must spend years filming Nat Geo specials on animal families. How they must sit for hours trying to decipher the smallest details in a bugs life or capture all the dead animals that other animals eat. Driving a stick shift for a hundred feet has got to be better than a year in the bushes watching dead animals.
The van finally came after we walked a mile uphill to the main bust stop. It dropped us off 30 minutes later in the bustle of downtown Buzios. It feels more open now. Businesses with their attendants in masks but open, and comings and goings downtown people working on a weekday. The downtown uniform here is flip flops, board shorts, and tank tops optional. We absorbed all this energy like socially dry sponges. I took it as a welcome distraction. Anything at this point I was clawing at.
But then it came. The bright green Hertz building like a towering structure of doom positioned on a giant hill. Shit. Google maps did not show me the hill. Now, in all of my mental preparation, I never prepared for driving up or down a hill. How do you even drive down a hill then stop then start again? I watched our break at freedom, roll down that hill, and stall out.
The gate was closed so we thought for a brief instant the place was closed. Slight relief. But soon a guy came out and pulled the giant gate back. A lot of things right now in Brazil look closed we would soon realize, but are actually open. We entered and immediately Fabian shifted and I sensed a levity and smile coming from his masked face. “Eu conhece você.” He said to the man working. I know you. Oh, thank you Jesus I thought.
Fabian had lived in Buzios for almost four years before we knew each other. He had come here to train, teach, and get his black belt in Jui Jitsu. This guy must be a fighter. The last two times he had recognized someone they had equally been in critical moments for us here in Buzios. The first was our ability to get into the town. With a car full of cat babies and no proof that we lived here, the police on our first day here would not let us in. We all sat defeated in a cramped, overheated car, that is until a cop recognized Fabian from fighting. By the grace of God, we entered and the rest is history. This must be a good sign.
His name was Geraldo. Immediately upon recognizing Fabian he lowered his mask to show his face. Yes, it’s you! We joked about how many people we must see every day without knowing it because of the masks. Geraldo had apparently also been unrecognizable because in the last year he had dropped 18 kilos. (about 40 lbs.) At this point, he had completely taken off his mask. We were getting comfortable.
“I’ve lost so much weight I can now really enjoy being a dad. Look at these photos, scroll to the right.” He handed his phone over the little plastic protective barricade. We looked at his photos, but then came the video. So the last picture we saw was of his 9-year-old son on a bike.
“You know he already knows how to drive,” Geraldo said proudly.
Thinking there was something in the translation and the use of the verb “to drive” I assumed he was telling us that his kid learned how to ride a bike on his own. So awesome I thought.
No.
He pressed play on a video of a long country road and a car coming right at the camera. Geraldo who is holding the camera phone yells at the car jokingly, “Hey man I’m trying to find a ride! Can you give me a ride?” The accelerating car which is going pretty freaking fast mind you slows momentarily as it passes him, just long enough for you to see that the driver is, yes, his 9-year-old son. He then speeds away clocking in at least 30mph. And yes the car was stick.
At this point, I’m thinking what if the Hertz security cameras somehow see him showing off his child driving?? Could he be fired for this?
And second thought, what is this guy going to think of me, a grown woman the age of 35, stalling out in front of him and not having the slightest idea what the heck I’m doing.
But then, there was the third thought, if this guy was willing to let a 9-year-old drive, wouldn’t he be willing to let his friend with an expired license drive?
The answer was yes.
We didn’t even need to ask. He asked us.
Fabian said, unfortunately, he didn’t have his license, but Geraldo just punched some keys and made it work. He handed the keys over to Fabian, and perhaps this is one of the few times I savored the machismo culture of Brazil. Yes, go ahead and let the man take the wheel I thought. But quickly followed by, I really need to learn how to drive a stick shift damnit.
We got into our new ride beaming.
All the fears and angst entirely evaporated into pure unfiltered giddiness like teenagers again taking our parent’s car for the first time, we smoothly rolled down that giant hill and into our vacation. It was at that moment I looked at Fabian touching the wheel of a car and realized, this was the first time either of us had driven together. One year together without ever driving!
We made the most of the day and the car by visiting as many beaches as we could before the sunset. Since beaches are still technically closed here due to Covid, a drive-by technique was the perfect way to experience the over 27 beaches on this peninsula. The whole freakin city is like a beach. The last one we navigated our way to was Praia das Tortugas. A long winding cobblestone road gave way to a series of small fishing boat storehouses all painted bright colors but faded by the saltwater. There was a restaurant with light ambient music playing, a Brazilian samba. It was empty just like the beach.
The way the sun was setting against the clouds created gold and silver highlights flickering off the slow-rolling ocean. The sand was warm. We were free. I looked across the expanse of ocean then back at the love of my life, silently smiling, then back at the silver-lined clouds. Every cloud does have a silver lining I thought. Followed by, but really Em, learn how to drive stick.
