Over the speed bump, and down the pothole, on Brazilian roads we drive…

My dad likes to say that in America you know someone is drunk if they’re swerving all over the road.

In Brazil, you know they’re drunk if they’re NOT swerving all over the road.

This is due to the potholes (and by potholes I mean, canyons deep enough to swallow a semi and still have room for a car).   A quick flick of the wheel might allow you to avoid the pothole or send you into a deeper one in the opposite lane of the two-lane highway.

Driving at night is not for the faint of heart or really anyone who values their life or car.  Missionary friends were once driving at night when they hit a pothole-that-was-really-a-car-swallowing-monster.  The top of the car kept going, but the chassis had decided that the pothole was a nice place to stay.  No one was injured in the accident—except the bisected car that is.

To make up for the huge potholes, or perhaps to add more fun to the already obstacle-course-like roads, speed bumps also rose out of the ground—often unexpectedly— like veritable mountains.  And what they might lack in road building skills was more than made up for in their speed bump building skills. They bore little resemblance to the speed bumps that dot parking lots across America.  These things were the grandfathers of those picayune little bumps.  Or maybe even the great-great-grandfathers.

And then there were the trucks.  Big trucks loaded with goods that were also trying to avoid the potholes.  More often than not you shared a lane—going opposite directions.

A friend once took a video while driving with my dad who was swerving in and out of the opposite lane with a truck coming towards the car.  Absolutely horrified by the danger he’d been in, he insisted on showing it to the rest of my family.  We shrugged our shoulders wondering what they big deal was.

After all, you’re only really in danger if you drive straight.