Roadtrip to the Beach, Part I

The day after Samosa and I returned from Foz do Iguaçu, we rented a car and headed up the coast to the state of Santa Catarina. One of my internship supervisors has a pousada on the beach up there with her husband. She invited us to come stay in one of the apartments for a few days. How could we say no to that awesome and kind offer?

However.

Thinking that one can easily fly into town around midnight and then leave on a six-hour road-trip the next morning in a country that's not your own is perhaps pushing it. In retrospect, we both wonder if the trip wasn't the wisest of ideas.

We were pushing our luck. I was exhausted and getting sick, though I wouldn't admit it. Therefore I was acting with a single-minded stubbornness that made the various melodramas that we encountered while we were just trying to leave all the more difficult. Nothing in and of itself was insurmountable and much of it I had brought on myself. However, the entire day felt somewhat like wading through molasses.

Suffice it to say that we left the city limits at 4 PM in our little rental car, slightly later than our 10 AM anticipated departure time.

Luckily, the scenery quickly turned from cityscape to lush greenery. It was lovely. Our moods improved as we drove through this and drank in all the beauty.

We also got to observe a dump truck, weighed down just a tad too much by what it was carrying:

Ah, beautiful & green & hilly, oh my!

After dark, things got a little more treacherous. Several hundred kilometers of highway were under construction and we were forever weaving in and out of the highway and the frontage road, following lots and lots of signs and arrows.

We made it to our exit in good time. Then the adventure started. We crossed a bridge to an island-like location where the majority of roads were dirt and had no signs. We had directions but they weren't doing us any good. It was late. I'd accidentally forgotten my cell phone at work and had been unable to find it before leaving (another one of the earlier little melodramas). It was dark and late-ish. No one was around. We drove in frustrated circles, seeing lots of cute little pousadas, but not the one we needed to find.

In the end, we were saved by Samosa's iPhone. Seriously. I once had an angry person yell at me on the street in Austin, shouting that my iPhone wouldn't save me. But, in this situation, it did. Ha ha.

Before we'd left Porto Alegre, Samosa had meticulously documented each leg of our trip according to Google Maps by photographing each picture with his iPhone. Genius. Therefore we literally went through the pictures one by one, following the various curves of each road that we had to take to ensure that we were on track. I'll admit that I was useless in all of this. It was all Samosa's doing. The driving and the navigating. I was utterly confused and disoriented.

However, we thought things were going well, despite my lack of assistance, until we realized the road that we were following ended on the shore of the beach.

Ummm...

"Well," I offered, "My supervisor did say that the pousada was on the beach. I didn't realize it was a literal statement, but..."

We cautiously edged out on to the beach. The sand was firm. We saw a building in the distance we drove towards it.

"Maybe?" I said.

I got out of the car. Two guys were walking by with fishing gear and a fluffy dog.

"Um, excuse me?" I said timidly, "Um, are we in Praia do Luz?"

Have I mentioned before that I don't like asking strangers questions, especially when I'm lost and it's dark outside? I fit the stereotype of a typical guy when it comes to this matter. I know it's dumb and certainly something for me to work on. Samosa is much more rational and easily asks questions. However, he couldn't speak Portuguese, so I had to overcome my resistance and do all the talking.

"Yup, this is Praia do Luz," one of the guys said. The other stared. Phew. At least we were at the right beach.

"Do you know if this is Pousada do Luz?" I asked.

"I dunno," he said.
 
"Are there other buildings around here that could be?" I asked.

"I dunno," he said.

They walked on.

A young woman was supposed to meet us here but we were much later than we were supposed to be. I think we'd spent a good 45 minutes lost on the island's dirt roads too. I had no number to call her at and no phone anyway to do the calling.

Samosa stayed with the car and I wandered behind the building.

A group of men sat smoking cigarettes and playing cards at a small table. Light was diffuse. They stopped their conversation and looked up at me. I was reminded of some sort of painting. Or the opening scene of a movie. I just couldn't figure out what kind of movie that might be.

"Hi," I said, feeling foolish, "Umm...is this Pousada do Luz?"

They nodded.

Sweet! On the right track.

"So, uh, I'm friend's of Luiz and someone was going to meet us here. But we're late and I'm not sure where the girl we're meeting would be."

A man kindly offered to take me to the girl. We wandered around back to the front of the buildings. He went up some stairs and told a guy that some Argentinians were here to see him. Eventually that guy got us to the girl and she had the key to the place where we were going to stay. We had made it. It was dark. We were exhausted but excited to see what things might look like in the morning.

And when we woke up to birds chirping, this is what we saw. Yup, this is the road we came up the night before after driving down the beach.

And this is the magnificent beach. Praia do Luz (Beach of Light) is right.

"Oh my goodness," I thought, "It was all worth it!" Almost as though the utter gorgeousness of it all was quickly erasing all the tiredness and the mini melodramas from the day before.

Amazing.

We wandered bare feet on sticky sand down the shore, so very happy to be exactly where we were.