When we took my parents into Curitiba I discovered two new reasons to dislike driving in Curitiba. First, as I was arriving in the city I noticed a new street sign that they have decided to torture me with. It said “Mão Inglesa” or English Way, (as apposed to One Way). It seems that they now have a few two way streets in which you have to drive on the wrong (left) side of the road.
My next discovery happened at an intersection that is hard to describe, so I made a little diagram of it which you can find below. Basically, the North/South road is one way and the East and West roads are both one way – but pointed at each other. There are 3 ways to get into the intersection and only one way out. The intersection has stoplights to control the flow of traffic. So far so good.
I entered the intersection from the west. The east/west stop lights were red, and the north to south traffic was moving through. Then their light turned red and my light green. As I moved into the intersection I noticed that the lights on the east side of the intersection also turned green. So now there were two one way roads that ended face to face, both with green lights. One road had three lanes, the other two. We both had to merge into three lane road, all while avoiding head on collisions.
Thankful we arrived safely and were able to spend some with my parents relaxing in Curitiba. Below you will find the diagram in the intersection and some night pictures from the top of the hotel we stayed in.