New Roads

Always trying to limit the kilometers, I have been trying to use different roads, to test their efficiency. I feel strangely over-excited by small discoveries like the ones I just made. It feels like beating Brasilia at its own game!
A few weeks ago I found this backroad that makes it much faster to get to the airport. It must cut off 5 or 6 km to the entire trip. This road cuts through what is called the chacaras, which were initially properties with a agrarian use. Today these properties are mostly large estates with comfortable mansions, just like anywhere else in the plush suburb of Lago Sul. The beauty of this road is not only its landscape but also the fact that there is no photo radar. Don't get me wrong, I am not a real speeder. But any distractions are so costly that I prefer taking the back road.

A more important discovery was this "highway" to the JK bridge, all the way from the W3 South to the bridge, uninterrupted by retornos (U-turns) or round-abouts. It is called Via das Ligação Se/Ne, the SE/NE Connecting Avenue.  Why am I so excited by this find? It is because if moving North-South in this city can be in a very short time and in a very direct way using the large Exio, moving East-West. But crossing the "wing" of the plane of Brasilia, through the quadras (clusters of housing blocks) is frankly speaking a pain.  Moving East-West was obviously not a concerned for the planners, imagining that weaving through the quadras would flow easily, but the effort of reaching the W3 from the bridges and Lago Sul is greater than coming from completely the opposite direction (Asa Norte).

In other words, without the Ligação, the West-East travel necessitates to needle in and out of the quadras through their commercial streets.  Commercial streets which are already congested by the lack of parking space and the number of enthusiast double-line parkers. And since the quadras are not aligned with one another, but arranged in staggered lots one from another, one has to flow along around a round-about to the next connecting street to the following round-about to the next quadra's commercial street to a set of three dips under the massive Eixo and its side Eixãos through the next commercial and around the next round about to the next connecting street to the next round about to the next commercial street until you reach the W3. Dizzy?
A portion of the  Ligação is fairly new, so new that Google Maps did not get it right yet (yes I doctored the maps to show you where I drive). But the good news is some planners have accepted to cut through the "picture perfect plan of Brasilia" to make something essential and efficient, probably amidst some purist opposition.

Via the quadras, the Garça Bridge and along Dom Bosco road: 18,4 km. 

Via the W3, the Via de Ligação, the JK Bridge and a bit along the Dom Bosco: 17,2 km - going straight.
We are talking about a km of difference, which is in itself not really convincing. But this is the retorno-free, round-about free line that saves the driver here. But looking at these maps quickly might easily be misleading about the issues. This is the problem with Brasilia. From above, from very far above, it is difficult the understand the challenges of the city layout. I mean, the guys who planned the city did not imagined how frustrating it would be to move around. At the contrary, they were convinced to have created the best place to live on earth!

SMDBs

We live in Lago Sul, a suburb of Brasilia, in the SMDB area; in the Setor de Mansões Dom Bosco. The name could be translated by the Dom Bosco Sector of the Manors, or something similar.  Even if it is not within the Plano Piloto, Lago Sul is a suburb planned along with the same rules as the rest of Brasilia: everything of similar use goes together. Consequently, the SMDB are the areas for large single family houses. And it is hard to find anything else there.
The interesting thing about the SMDB area is its order, which is very different from the rest of the city. Usually in Brasilia things are organized in an orderly fashion. Number are organized in order; 1, 2, 3 follow each other, as one would normally assume. I mentioned earlier that there is no conventional street name. Things are rather divided in areas, in large zones (like the SMDB for example, but also like the hospital sector, the school sector, the shopping sector), and then broken down in Quadras (neigborhoods) or in Conjuntos (junctions), and then the building number can be given. In Lago Sul, the entire area was sub-divided in two, the quadras along the lake - QL - and the inner quadras - QI. Then a set of numbers are given to all the little dead-end streets on which houses are aligned.
Here in the SMDBs, it is a little more tricky. First the SMDBs are not accessible from everywhere. They are clusters of a few SMDBs conjunctos (or small streets) and each of these clusters are accessible from a limited number of entry points through the QIs, and sometimes by only one point. The first trick is to learn where are these entry points. Then the SMDBs are sprinkled in a orderly fashion that is visible only from above - some big (ego) master plan power (also known as Costa, the planner), laid these around like someone sprinkles salt on his beans. The result is a little odd from the ground, where 17 and 16 are encountered before 14, where 12 is mix beside 28 and where you have 12a 12b and 12c next to 31 but really really far from 12 - an after-thought obviously. These SMDBs are usually on the hills behind the QIs. They all have either a view of the lake or a view of the surrounding hills, streams and nature.

Why am I writing here about this? Simply because the spatial arrangement of the SMDBs creates a unusual maze of roads and nature. I have enjoyed driving along their roads while trying to get Emmanuel to nap (a car ride does wonders these days).  I have circumvented my son's sleep patterns with the discovery of the area, while day-dreaming of landscapes over which these houses gaze. I keep taking some shortcuts (that are not always so short) just to keep that impression of being in the countryside. At times I stop the car, and contemplate a landscape that, if standing in the right place, makes you feel that you are somewhere else, away from a city, deep in nature. And I just love it...
Here is a view from this backroad shortcut to our house, under the light of the afternoon ending. Gleaming atop of the hill is our house and our neighbors'. I love this view.

And this photo does not really makes justice to the beauty of landscape.

Paying Up

I have a collection of traffic offenses, most of which were related to going a little over the allowed limit.
Wanting to get things done, wanting to avoid waisting more time in these banks, wanting to just tick one box on my long to-do list, wanting to get a life, I get to the bank a few minutes before opening hours and line up. To get to the bank on time is not a great feat, since the opening hours are eleven to four (yes my friends, banks operate only five hours per day here!).  I was not the only one with such brilliant intentions, about 20 people were already standing. But since my fellow bank-aficionados and I have nothing better to do, conversations were engaged; a good way to practice my portuguese. After standing for 15 min, the entire line of 30 people (who by now know where I am from and where my kids go to school) is moved downstairs to wait some more before getting to one of the two tellers counters. We each get a little number to make the wait more pleasant. The combination of two of these factors probably explains the clerk's kindness: I am kindly assigned the preference line, a privilege given to those with reduced mobility (remember I am wearing my super-boot), with kids in tow and with more candles to their cake than they usually want to admit. This practice also explains why I usually pull my kids along to all my banking trips: they reduce my wait time quite considerably. In turn, to entice them, I promise them ipad time during the wait.
Eventually, after a decent wait - to the despair of my video-games-addicted kids, I come to the counter, with all my multas (fines), my printed notes, my cash, my cane. And pay. Get a receipt.
5 minutes at the counter.
Walk out with my kids.
35 minutes in total.
For some reasons, it feels like a great accomplishment.

Speed or not

Driving here is easier than driving in China. But one of those driving surprise and distinctive difference here is the "fiscalisaçao". This is a speed control cars are subjected to when driving around the District Federal and more intensely around Brasilia. At every street corner and at about every 500 m there is a surveillance camera recording the cars' speed. Fortunately, the cameras are not really hidden. Large signs announce the coming fiscalisaçao, and their location is often joined with a large portal with a LED sign indicating your actual speed - and de facto telling you if you are going to get a fine. 

In practice, on the road, it also means that cars speed between the cameras and suddenly puts the brakes on and drive very slow for about 200 m after which they will resume speeding again. When arriving here, I saw them as hazardous drivers. Later, I caught myself behaving in a similar fashion. Yesterday, on a local expat's forum, I found a newcomer's question regarding the meaning of this strange driving behavior and laugh; the writer did not know about the hidden cameras. 

In the end, a driver following the flow of traffic will naturally come to follow the cadence imposed by the cameras, and slow at the needed points. A little extra caution is needed to match the required speed, sometimes very low. Indeed, the problem is that the speed limits are often extremely low (some places up to 40 km/h) following areas where the limit is 80.  And there is little mercy, with only a couple of extra km/h of margin before getting fined. 

Indeed, the cameras can catch a car "speeding" at 72 km/h on a 70 km/h zone, and  a generous fine of 85 Reais ($US 43) will follow. It is one of the most effective things here in Brasilia, to my knowledge. The first day I took the car, I also got fined for driving and talking with my cell phone. My first driving month was a baptism by fire, I collected for over 700 reais of fines. Let me tell you I quickly learned to identify these thorny camera spots. A useful tool to know when to slow down is Waze, this iphone crowd-source app where you can know about traffic jams, cameras and other important things. (If I mention this here it is because normal GPS do not really work here in Brasilia, when you input an address you end up somewhere else than expected). 

Once a car plate caught on camera, a note is sent to the mail to advise the driver. It is then possible to "debate" its validity. You might ask what is there to argue, specially when there is a picture of your car with a specific time and date attached to it? But you might not be the driver, maybe someone else. It is useless to take the first note to the bank, it is merely a piece of information, I later learned. A few months later an official note is sent by mail, confirming the actual fine. I learned, after standing in line for one another hour that even if this paper is the final bill, you can't use it to pay, neither at your bank or at the emitting bank. The clerk, who clearly understood I was clueless, took time to explain to me the process, and the impression of a special notice from the internet. I needed to go home, find the internet page, print, take cash with me and return another time during office hours. After standing in line in three separate occasions, for a total of 3 hours (give or take), I had not yet succeeded to pay my fines. 
I have been calling these my banking woes. They are the little thorns in my Brazilian life here. But I assume with time they will get less and less numerous and painful. 
Learning what to do with all these things - which bank, which paper, when, are all part of this "learning curve" an expat has to take to integrate in his new country. It takes time. And patience. 
Rachel here wrote a nice post about similar expat issues.