Thursday January 28th 2010

I made a few observations yesterday that made me think hmmmmmm okay. We were driving into the center of the city on a 4 lane highway which, as usual for that time of day, was very busy and the traffic was going at a pretty slow pace. On the other side of the road was equally heavy traffic, but coming towards us were several motorbikes with red lights flashing and the cars in front of them were pulling over to let the motor cycles come through. About 100 yards or so behind them were another group of several motor cycles doing exactly the same thing and behind them a third group. They were clearly making an empty lane.

There then followed several black cars with blacked out windows and behind them an ambulance. Now, Marcelo started talking away in rapid fire Portuguese, trying to tell us what was going on. Of course we had absolutely no clue. We couldn’t decide whether it was normal for ambulances to be escorted by out-riders like this or whether there was someone really important in the ambulance. I guess I will have to try and find out. But given that I am tending to avoid Portuguese TV I am not sure that I will.

Now, the purpose of this trip, was in fact to take Steve to the local airport for a flight to Brasilia and we were hitting fairly heavy traffic. As I have mentioned before, the Merricks are always early for everything so this trip to the airport had been planned with at least 30 – 40 minutes cushion time just in case. We hadn’t told Marcelo of this extra time so all he knew was that “Sir Steve” was going to catch a flight and it was his job to make sure that he did.

Now, you know sometimes when a police car comes up behind you and decides it wants to pass and gives you the fright of your life by putting on the siren for a second or two. Well, when we hit some particularly bad traffic, Marcelo bent down slightly and hit his “magic button”. I’m not sure who was more taken aback, the car in front or me in the back seat.

It turns out that our car is fitted with some sort of police siren!

All I need now is a red flashing light.