Day 82 - 25 Feb.2012 - Ilhéus

Today was another day of driving and we managed to leave early for our standards and by nine thirty we were on the road again. We managed to drive 2km when we hit traffic jam again. The end of the queue was just right next to a petrol station and we decided to fill up the tank and ask for further information for the cause of the traffic jam.
It turned out that earlier on that day an articulated lorry had crashed into a smaller truck and both must have gone up in flames. The road was closed for several hours and by now they are letting the traffic past the accident in turns per side.
So we went back to the main road and joined the crowd again. As we were crawling down the hill a lot of people from the nearby city were running towards the scene of the accident. Eventually they were coming back all holding some bottles of spirit in their hands. Some of them were even selling their newly scavenged bait back to the people waiting in the cars. One of the trucks involved must have been carrying bottles of high percentage drinks. Some of the bottles were quite black from the fire but otherwise still intact. Well, some certainly made an unexpected but welcome profit that day.
As we were coming closer to the scene of the accident, it became clear what had happened. The articulated lorry, loaded with wooden chips must have been speeding down the hills and as the result its breaks got hot and ineffective. On the bottom of its last hill the driver did not manage the curve and collided with an oncoming truck, the one with the whisky bottles. The scene looked horrible and we were sure there must jhave been some casualties in this accident. But accidents like this seem to be not seldom where lorry drivers are speeding down the hills causing the breaks to overheat and ending up in the bushes in the best case scenario.
Once past that accident, we continued our way along the BR-101. We stopped at a small restaurant, or rather a private house where they serve some lunch. Normally these places are quite all right to eat, and it is much cheaper than the restaurants at the big petrol stations.
We continued our way and in Itabuna we left the BR-101 to drive to Ilhéus. As usual the TomTom mad a real mess of going through the town and wanted us to cross a pedestrian bridge with our pick-up truck. We reverted to visual navigation and followed the main crowd through the city and here we go - it worked. In Ilhéus we drove past the airport, which is right next to the beach. When a plane is landing it goes right above the street next to the beach (the internet is full of images and movies showing that. But when we drove past, no plane was landing. We found a lovely pousada with pool close to the beach and went straight for a walk along the beach to stretch our legs. At the end of the afternoon we got back to the pousada, sat next to the pool and ordered a refreshing, cold and long looked forward to beer. We stayed right there and ordered dinner, which was in fact quite OK. The kitchen of Bahia is famous for its African influence and indeed it was really tasty and welcomingly different to our standard fish stew or chicken ;-)