Going from Santos to Sao Paulo you drive steadily upwards, surrounded on both sides by beautiful hills and valleys. I guess technically the road goes up a mountain, but it feels more like driving through them. It’s not one of those winding small roads that cling to the side of a mountain, which in my view makes it even better. I love a good highway, and especially a high way going through the hills and mountain tops. Eventually you’ll find yourself looking down at the fog, which feels very much like looking down on clouds when you fly.

The road back was even more beautiful. It was dark by then, so the only thing visible was the lights from Santos in the distance, and darkness that I knew were either mountains or ocean. In the car, Ana and Zé were talking about Coehlo, and I was listening to Eilen Jewell singing Worried mind, and I thought about all the strange roads and decisions and co-incidences and luck that led me to this point in time, enjoying a Brazilian highway together with a bookseller from Santos and a Portuguese writer and a brave and faithful guide.

There are so many lives to live out there, so many stories you’ll never tell and language you’ll never learn how to speak, people you haven’t met yet and perhaps never will, and right then that thought was inspiring instead of depressing. But it’s also a mystery, that I’ve stayed in the same city in the same country all these years, when there are so many great adventures out there yet to be experienced.