I didn’t actually sit the driving test, though some wag suggested that I had to sit a psychological test. Whether that’s because he had driven with me or it was a requirement of Brasilian law I wasn’t able to discern. Suffice it to say that it appeared to be the correct thing to do according to the clerk at the delegacia.
I turned up at the testing centre and spent half an hour filling in a form aided and confused by two clerks. “That should have been the test” I thought as I was led into a doctors consulting room. After going through all the questions on the form, again, she gave me an eye test. So far so good.
I was then taken into another room with a desk and chair. After sitting, it was explained to me that several diagrams would be placed in front of me. I would have to draw them. (more…)
For many readers, the Great North Road relates to the old A1 in England. Here in Brasil, many would see it as the BR101. Its very mention brings shivers to the spine. Men huddle in corners and tell dark stories of pot-holes; of roads like Swiss cheese, bandits and ten kilometre long queues of three trailer trucks stacked high with scrap cars or tyre slicing sugar cane.
“I want to drive North” I said innocently to my Brasilian friends and I was pulled to one side as if I were a child been pulled from the path of a raging bull. “Taken leave of your senses, have you?” Well no says I. Its just the airports are in turmoil and really I thought it was a good way to get to know Brasil.
I approached several people including those who had driven from Fortaleza and Natal to Sao Paulo and Rio on a monthly basis. I also looked at all the websites that came up after entering “BR101 into the search engine. Not encouraging. Not a good word to be found and horror stories abounded, enough to put off the faint-hearted. (more…)
