My friend Anna talked on Monday or Tuesday to a guy who works at her project about going to a beach outside of Rio, a "natural beach" instead of the "city beaches" of Copa and Ipanema. Anyway, he told her that he and some other people from her work were in fact going that weekend, and she told me and for some reason I thought it sounded like a fine idea. So we get out to the car where they're waiting to pick us up at 8:00 this morning, and it's just the guy from her work (who doesn't speak much English), his Brazilian friend, and nobody else. They hastily take our bags and tell us to get in. So I find myself sitting in the backseat of a coupe (no doors to escape) with my pepper spray and Anna's cell phone out of reach, driving away from my house and out of the city with two men I'd met only minutes before. And we'd ASKED them to do this for us. So I'm terrified out of my mind, and I keep whispering to Anna and the man in the front says sharply "speak UP when you are talking so I can hear" and when we ask him what beach we're going to he says "oh there are a lot of beaches we could go to." Also both are wearing jeans, not swim trunks -- no towels anywhere. So we drive and drive and drive for three hours and all the while I'm planning strategies to run away and practicing the word "help" in Portuguese and thinking of how Lindsey told me to never, ever get in a car if you don't feel comfortable with the driver. So finally the car pulls over in a driveway and there's a gate and beyond the gate is a path covered in vegetation with no end in sight and Leo (the one that speaks English) says "oh now we're going to visit my grandmother and I will change" and beckons us down the tree-laden path. I politely refuse, saying I will sit by the car (I got my backpack with pepper spray out of the trunk when we stopped) and with an eye on the road. Leo looks really hurt and Anna says she will go despite my frantic eye darting and mouthing "no!" So the three of them go down the path and I sit by the car and hope that my friend comes back alive and that if I need to run to the road one of those cars will stop and help me.
As it turns out, the guys are completely harmless; Leo was indeed visiting his grandmother, they take us to a beach in Angra (pronounced ahn-gra), a beautiful little city west of Rio where the water is clear and the mountains are covered in trees and the buildings are colorful and the locals are friendly. We spend 4 relaxing hours at the beach (I mean until I walked into the door of my house I was still not sure I wasn't being taken somewhere), the guys watch our bags while we swim, and then the four of us go to a mall food court for lunch/dinner (yeah I know okay) then drive home. Leo stops again to say goodbye to his grandmother and the driver puts on a Celine Dion CD for the ride.
So I guess the moral of the story is I need to trust people more? I need to make smarter decisions to avoid three hours experiencing waves of sheer terror? I need to thank God that I'm not lying in a ditch? All of the above?
A picture from the beach (I only took 3). Anna, Leo, and the Brazilian driver are playing in the water.Love from your thankful, thankful friend/sister/daughter.
2 comments:
christ, leah. be careful.
though i'm one to talk: i hopped on the back of a motorcycle in southern italy and didn't know the driver nor did i know where we were and i just didn't want to have to pay for a taxi. the driver whipped us through traffic at maybe 95 miles per hour and i almost puked when i got off, i was so nervous.
good grief! glad you are okay! please don't tell your mom this story, if it almost gave me a heart attack, who knows what damage it could do her! although, i think you're right - as stupid as it might have been, you have to trust people in life and take risks otherwise life isn't so fun:)
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