Transportation in Brasil

Alright, yesterday I promised some more pictures. Taking our weekend drive of 16 hours, we saw a lot of interesting things. I had to keep my camera ready at all times . . . I didn't want you to miss this stuff!

We like to call these guys Kamikaze Bikers (and don't think they drive more conservative just because they have 2 tanks of flammable material strapped on). You might also notice how great it is to be on a motorcycle: see how the guys behind Mr. Kamikaze can bypass the traffic?

On our way home, we got stuck in some traffic for a while. Once we came around this curve, we saw why:
This guy, assuming the crash didn't kill him, got really lucky! On the other side of the guard rail that he busted up is a no less than 40' drop off- straight down!

Apparently, before he flipped over, he ran into this dump truck full of sand.

A little further down the road, we were slowed by the 2nd of 3 trucks we saw that had flipped over. The truck here had already been pulled up by a wrecker, but his cargo (crates of mangoes wrapped in paper) were still on the edge of the road. Luckily, all these nice people stopped to help pick up his cargo . . .

. . . and load it into their cars??? Hey guys, free mangoes just lying on the side of the road!!!

But we can't quite figure out how the trucks manage to flip over when they are so carefully loaded. (This guy actually almost ran us into oncoming traffic when we passed him. Once we got around him, we realized that he was scrubbing the side of the mountain on that curve!) Geez, talk about top heavy! I'm pretty sure we would have seen a 4th truck flipped on it's side if we had stayed behind this guy a little longer!

Some of you might remember that Eric bought a 7.3 liter powerstroke diesel F-250 just 2 weeks before he was offered the job in Brasil. We had to sell it along with our other 3 vehicles before we moved down here. But, eat your heart out powerstroke fans (Jared!) We can buy a big beast of a truck down here too . . . sort of.

But, in case you can't handle the power of a 2.8 liter engine, you can always drop the horse power down to a single horse. Yes, we are on a major highway here.

My apologies for the sarcasm dripping from this entry! We were pretty entertained though by the things we saw on our drive. It made the 8 hours go a lot faster! I read in a book written about Brazilians that they generally don't place much value on human life (even their own). By the looks of the things we saw on the road this weekend, I would dare agree with that statement!