Curitiba | Paraná | Brazil

Soon after returning to Brazil, it was time to celebrate Carnaval. After so much time on the open road over the previous holiday, I was already feeling claustrophobic after only a few weeks back in the city. With this in mind, Felipe and I thought about where everyone would go and drove in the opposite direction.

As previously mentioned, Brazilian traffic is rough on a good day. Toss in a national holiday and your estimated travel time of six hours might turn into fourteen. We left at 4 am to circumvent the gridlock but instead ended up right in the middle of a backup caused by an overturned truck. This meant that from 5-7 am, we were completely stopped on the toll road. That's right, two hours without moving. Naturally everyone fell asleep so, when traffic started to move several hours later, a police officer drove down the middle of the two lanes knocking on everyone's window to wake them up. No joke.