New Shocks and a Bruised Rib

March for us was a month of travelling. We hit the beach several times. One such beach was Praia Juquehy, pronounced joo-kay-ee, or close enough to it. This beach was beautiful. You know, every time we hit a different one, we say, this is the most beautiful beach I have seen outside of Rio. Of course, until we hit the next one. Juquehy is about a 2.5 hour drive outside of Sao Paulo. It is really not that far actually. But to get there you have to go over 38 speed bumps, one way. Really they are speed reducing mountains due to the size of some of these things.

We picked the boys up from school on a Friday and headed out. It is really a nice drive over bridges in the mountains. Scary at times, but really nice, see?

I wish I could take a picture of the road with all of the speed bumps. It is about 40 miles long, so that works out to be about 1 bump per mile. However, I could not because, well the bumps. But we finally got to the beach. We hit the turn off but it did not look right. It was a dirt road with construction all around and it looked like we were heading into the jungle. So we took the long way around. Not the best idea either.

See they built this little city by the sea. But they did not build infrastructure around it. The bridge to go over the run out path has no boards in the middle of it. If you jerk the wheel? You are in the ravine.

I thought I took a picture, but this is a different bridge that we took to leave. But you can see where there are no boards. Also, the road that they built for this little town was very interesting. They did not grade it, they did not put draining in so that the rain would be taken away. So the road was EXTREMELY bumpy. I think I have a picture of that.

Okay, so I did not take a good picture again. It is not my strong suit. However, can you see the car in the corner? That is not due to camera angle. It is due to street angle. By the time we got to our hotel my youngest was trying hard not to pee his pants, which was difficult considering the jarring, and I bruised my rib on the door handle.

But get there we did. And, oh my, what tranquility. We relaxed for two days. It was so nice. The first night we lost power due to a tremendous storm, but we did not mind. The weekend was wonderful. We ate very delicious food. We played cards. We took walks on the beach, and we rested by the pool. We needed the break and felt rested coming home. Here are some pictures of the paradise we found. The first is the best of the weekend, taken by my nine year old. Actually, I think he took all of these. A photographer in the making?