[not mom] The most exciting thing to happen on Friday
Tuesday, 9 October 2012 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daThis is on my not-mom filter, because she's afraid of heights. If you are too, you might want to skip this story.
Ever have one of those driving dreams where the road turns into a roller-coaster and you're zooming out over the ocean, barely making sharp turns, road getting narrower and narrower, waves crashing below and seeming to come dangerously close, driving faster and faster in order to avoid some nameless horror behind you, maybe missing a corner and falling to your doom?
If you have an urge to recreate this, have I got the road for you! It's the 1km road to the Ponta do Arnel lighthouse at the east end of Sao Miguel island. According to Google pedometer, it's 500 meters vertical, but I can't say I believe that; it was definitely steep, but not 30° steep. Anyway: my nightmare sales-pitch continues:
All this can be yours, just add your own nameless horror. We chose "followed by a van" on the way down this road, and "destroying the rental car" on the way up, a particularly effective horror because it wasn't at all obvious it would be waiting for us at the bottom; the way down was just white-knuckle steering around crazy switchbacks and barely seeing the road beneath us (Look! it's the ocean! we're driving into it from hundreds of meters up!). And of course nowhere to turn around, even a tiny car like the ours. The lighthouse itself was cool; and the views from it were pretty great too. Deep breaths, agreeing that was scary but doable.
On the way UP, though, you got your choice of horrors: "destroy the clutch" "destroy the tires" "stall and roll backward into a wall that might not be high enough to not fall off the edge" and the old favourite, "steer into a wall that might launch you to your doom."
The mechanics of getting our Fiat Punto (nicknamed "Squeaky") to climb the grade were... challenging. So challenging that dan, who is a better standard transmission driver than I, gave up after repeatedly stalling out in first gear- with squealing tires- on the second hairpin curve. So there we were, no idea how to get out- and Lo our savior appeared, a guy who was leaving the lighthouse. Dan and I had been joking earlier in the day after all of the roads with hairpin curves, that he had been driving on the "advanced" setting on the video-game. And there really were a lot of those roads on this beautiful island. Well, this guy had his "expert" chops. And he had played this level of the game a million times, enough to get the near-perfect score in somebody else's underpowered car. So with almost no language in common, the guy clearly understood our situation, and agreed to get behind the wheel of Squeaky. He did one run from where we were below the second curve, and was about to stall out, so he put on the brakes (using all three of his feet) and backed us all the way down to the lighthouse (eek).
All the way back into a parking space. I wondered, is he going to get out and leave us here? But no; he was just psyching himself up for the Boss Battle in somebody else's car.
And then he gunned it, went straight for the wall of the first turn, swung through, gunned it again up the middle of the road (I don't know about dan; I was in the front passenger seat going "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod" quietly to myself). (OK, maybe not so quietly). He made the second curve and almost stalled going up the next incline, but Squeaky kept going until it leveled off a bit. I think there was one more really steep one and our savior stopped on a mild (10 degree?) slope and made questioning motions if we could take it from there. And that we did.
I made sure he had beer money as a little thanks before he walked all the way down to his car, though.
And we agreed we wouldn't try and visit any more lighthouses at all, on this island.
Afternote: dan found this panorama and guide to the lighthouse and path. Sadly, we took few photos that include the road; it just didn't occur to us at the time.
Ever have one of those driving dreams where the road turns into a roller-coaster and you're zooming out over the ocean, barely making sharp turns, road getting narrower and narrower, waves crashing below and seeming to come dangerously close, driving faster and faster in order to avoid some nameless horror behind you, maybe missing a corner and falling to your doom?
If you have an urge to recreate this, have I got the road for you! It's the 1km road to the Ponta do Arnel lighthouse at the east end of Sao Miguel island. According to Google pedometer, it's 500 meters vertical, but I can't say I believe that; it was definitely steep, but not 30° steep. Anyway: my nightmare sales-pitch continues:
All this can be yours, just add your own nameless horror. We chose "followed by a van" on the way down this road, and "destroying the rental car" on the way up, a particularly effective horror because it wasn't at all obvious it would be waiting for us at the bottom; the way down was just white-knuckle steering around crazy switchbacks and barely seeing the road beneath us (Look! it's the ocean! we're driving into it from hundreds of meters up!). And of course nowhere to turn around, even a tiny car like the ours. The lighthouse itself was cool; and the views from it were pretty great too. Deep breaths, agreeing that was scary but doable.
On the way UP, though, you got your choice of horrors: "destroy the clutch" "destroy the tires" "stall and roll backward into a wall that might not be high enough to not fall off the edge" and the old favourite, "steer into a wall that might launch you to your doom."
The mechanics of getting our Fiat Punto (nicknamed "Squeaky") to climb the grade were... challenging. So challenging that dan, who is a better standard transmission driver than I, gave up after repeatedly stalling out in first gear- with squealing tires- on the second hairpin curve. So there we were, no idea how to get out- and Lo our savior appeared, a guy who was leaving the lighthouse. Dan and I had been joking earlier in the day after all of the roads with hairpin curves, that he had been driving on the "advanced" setting on the video-game. And there really were a lot of those roads on this beautiful island. Well, this guy had his "expert" chops. And he had played this level of the game a million times, enough to get the near-perfect score in somebody else's underpowered car. So with almost no language in common, the guy clearly understood our situation, and agreed to get behind the wheel of Squeaky. He did one run from where we were below the second curve, and was about to stall out, so he put on the brakes (using all three of his feet) and backed us all the way down to the lighthouse (eek).
All the way back into a parking space. I wondered, is he going to get out and leave us here? But no; he was just psyching himself up for the Boss Battle in somebody else's car.
And then he gunned it, went straight for the wall of the first turn, swung through, gunned it again up the middle of the road (I don't know about dan; I was in the front passenger seat going "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod" quietly to myself). (OK, maybe not so quietly). He made the second curve and almost stalled going up the next incline, but Squeaky kept going until it leveled off a bit. I think there was one more really steep one and our savior stopped on a mild (10 degree?) slope and made questioning motions if we could take it from there. And that we did.
I made sure he had beer money as a little thanks before he walked all the way down to his car, though.
And we agreed we wouldn't try and visit any more lighthouses at all, on this island.
Afternote: dan found this panorama and guide to the lighthouse and path. Sadly, we took few photos that include the road; it just didn't occur to us at the time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 9 October 2012 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 9 October 2012 01:10 pm (UTC)