Arriving in a foreign country with no understanding of the language is an intrinsically confusing circumstance, and even the most seasoned traveler must experience an aggravated intensity, an underlying anxiety that will overcome the exhaustion of a 10-hour flight to imprint that very moment upon his or her brain for the remainder of its functional span. So it helps when there's a guy with a sign waiting to pick you up, even if the two of you have only gestures for conversation. I'm taken to a compact car and try to stop the guy from handling my bags, try to tell him I'll take care of it. I may have traded in the backpack for a duffle and briefcase, but self-sufficiency dies hard. I even eye the queue for city buses, imagine myself with a map and a plan, but alas, I've only to breathe for the next few hours and look out the window as I'm driven north out of Rio de Janeiro.
The driver, whose name is difficult to pronounce, pops in a cd, and probably because he knows I'm American, I'm tortured by pop music: Madonna, Cindi Lauper, Michael Jackson, and something I can't believe I recognize as Fine Young Cannibals. My introduction to the wonders of Brazilian music will have to wait. I'm also treated to the type of driving you only get outside the first world. It's bedlam, mayhem, balls-to-the-wall acceleration and lane-changing in perfect anarchy. In the city, barefoot vendors sit or pace beside concrete dividers in the median, and we're on a freeway. They've got snacks or drinks or whatever, and when traffic backs up, they make rounds. It hardly looks safe. On a two-lane highway outside of town, we pass cars and trucks on the shoulder to the right. Sometimes we shift to the left, driving in the opposing lane with oncoming traffic bearing down--we're never going to make that--but without fail, the cars or trucks slide to the shoulder and scream past without slowing down, occasionally sounding a horn.
As traffic subsides, the countryside turns beautiful, and granitic knobs and domes protrude from the earth. It looks like a climber's paradise, and a view from a rock face would surely inspire; an expanse of lush green bellow, valleys dotted with people on horseback. I read the sign "área de proteçao ambiental" and development disappears from beside the road.
In an hour, we emerge into an expanded highway system adorned by an enormous, maybe five-story sculpture, the entrance to Macaé, the petroleum capital of Brazil. While the country has established itself as a world leader in the production of bio-fuel, that supply only feeds about 40 percent of the country's demand. The rest comes the old-fashioned way, by drilling for fossil fuels. Although the deep-water drilling taking place off the Brazilian coast isn't considered old-fashioned within the industry. Its considered the future, and all the multi-national oil giants and their accompanying support network, companies like Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker-Hughes, are all scrambling to get a foothold in what's currently the world's greatest market--especially since the failure of the Macondo well slowed deep-water development in the Gulf of Mexico. Its an oil-rush to Brazil, and business is booming.
Of course, offshore operations need boats to run the show, and those boats steam south in staggering numbers, with more support vessels arriving every day into Guanabara Bay, from the Gulf of Mexico or other parts of the world, from American companies or European, the Pacific Islands. My new employer, an American company with international subsidiaries, is of course sending boats, too. Some change registry to Brazil and are thus crewed entirely by Brazilians, but others remain American-flagged vessels, subject to annual inspections by the US Coast Guard, and therefore require an American master on board. That's where I come in. I'll be the only American on board with a crew of eight.
I'm taken to company headquarters and shuffled around. I stand around awkwardly in a busy office, sipping espresso from a disposable plastic shot-cup. I smile slightly upon eye contact, nearly delirious from the day's events. I'm waiting for the translator, someone who speaks English to show up, but it never really happens. I see two Americans pass at the end of a hallway.
Given a brief run-down on the next few days in more broken English, I´m finally taken to a hotel, a nice place on a peninsula, a block from the water in two directions. After dinner and two beers, I've been awake 40 hours, but I´m still too wired for sleep. It's pouring rain, so I dig into my bag for a jacket and hit the streets for a walk, craving exhaustion. I'm immediately hot and within two blocks sweating, my jacket sticking on the inside; I take it off and walk in the rain along a beachfront sidewalk, mostly deserted, a few stragglers with umbrellas, a thunderous surf pounding the shore.
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