broken springs

For anyone who's thinking of driving in Brazil, here's a handy tip: they are crazy for speedbumps (lombadas) here. Seriously, there are millions of them. Which, in the city, is fair enough, even if it simply means they just go through brake pads that much faster.  Most Paulistas, I've noticed, drive pretty much like they're descended from Napolitanos, which, not surprisingly, many are.  If yours happens to be the driveway immediately adjacent to the lombada, I guess your a wee bit less likely to be flattened by traffic when pulling your car out - for everyone else it's a crapshoot.

But we just spent the better part of the day driving through the countryside of Minas Gerais, an interior state of Brazil that borders both São Paulo (state) and Rio de Janeiro (state).  And here, on what appeared like fairly remote country roads to me, the speedbump seemed like it might just be counterproductive.  Because when you're enjoying the ups and downs and rights and lefts of the idyllic farm country of Minas as it whizzes by your windows at 80 km/hr, a quebra molas, as it's called around here (literally - no joke - "breaks springs"), will do a lot more than break your shocks if you don't notice to slam on the brakes in time.  It's a small wonder you don't see the occasional Volkswagen wedged into the upper fronds of a palm tree, having been ollied there by an unforeseen quebra molas.

And they're not exactly what we would call "well-marked".  There are not, for instance, signs posted a few kilometers in advance that say something as mindful as "Do Your Coxis a Favor and Slow Down Now".  Instead you learn to quickly recognize this roadside symbol ahead in the distance:

Which, roughly translated, means "There is a Quebra Molas Right... HERE!".