RUA TRIP! part 1: a word on my balls

My balls are all f-ed up, and they have been for like four years now.

I'm not talking about my cojones, which are obviously huge and made of steel; I'm talking about the balls in my ears, which are supposed to be like on human hydraulics that keep your balance and don't let you get motion sickness.

My balls crap out and let me get motion sickness all the time. It sucks. I hate them. Cars I'm not driving, trains-that-aren't-underground, and taxiing planes, all make me greenfaced and moany, and if I could make upset-stomach moany-sounds the whole time I would. But I can't because this is 'socially unacceptable' or whatever. So I tend to just become very quiet and stare straight ahead, in a semi-meditative state, echoing with whispers of the mantra 'Don't puke. Don't puke. Don't puke.'

So the plan was a five hour car ride from São Paulo to Paraty, a night and day there, then a three hour drive to Rio and three nights there. Then Mark would drive the rental car back to São Paulo while Tickby and I flew from Rio to Manaus on our way to the jungle.

I wasn't looking forward to the motion sickness, but could not WAIT to see the sights, even if they were just monotonous freeway-type sights. mark and I have been exclusively in São Paulo for almost six months now, and while this city is expansive and bananas, well, i'm an American. I like my highways, my 70mph rides, I like covering long distances in mere hours and seeing it all fly by.

VIVA VULVA caught tickby's eye

Yeah. So we were stuck in a little over two hours of standstill just trying to get out of our neighborhood. Tickby took some cool pictures of graffiti, and the happy WTF that is Brazilian sex shops. I drained the soda I'd brought as a stomach settler just to combat the oppressive heat, and of course had to pee within forty minutes.

Our spirits weren't f-ed though. We were finally on our rue trip! Just the stop-and-go motion was a little hard on my balls. (Heheheheh hard on.)

you're not the only one with a gay zorro fantasy

Finally the traffic broke and we were out of the city, savoring our freedom, the wind in our hair! So we pulled into a rest stop immediately. To pee. We also needed more sodies and snacks. And to see if my balls couldn't settle down a bit.

The rest stops in Brazil are impressive. This one had the same kind of food-plaza setup as you'll see along I-95, but the restaurants had buffets of fresh food, there were snack options that were natural and delicious, and there was a bakery where local folks were stopping by to get their bread and cakes. So the whole place smelled nice. We loaded up on sweets and some kind of  awesome caramel corn, sodas and sparkling waters, and gum. Then back into the car, ready for the REAL ACTUAL rua trip to commence. And it did.