SMDBs

We live in Lago Sul, a suburb of Brasilia, in the SMDB area; in the Setor de Mansões Dom Bosco. The name could be translated by the Dom Bosco Sector of the Manors, or something similar.  Even if it is not within the Plano Piloto, Lago Sul is a suburb planned along with the same rules as the rest of Brasilia: everything of similar use goes together. Consequently, the SMDB are the areas for large single family houses. And it is hard to find anything else there.
The interesting thing about the SMDB area is its order, which is very different from the rest of the city. Usually in Brasilia things are organized in an orderly fashion. Number are organized in order; 1, 2, 3 follow each other, as one would normally assume. I mentioned earlier that there is no conventional street name. Things are rather divided in areas, in large zones (like the SMDB for example, but also like the hospital sector, the school sector, the shopping sector), and then broken down in Quadras (neigborhoods) or in Conjuntos (junctions), and then the building number can be given. In Lago Sul, the entire area was sub-divided in two, the quadras along the lake - QL - and the inner quadras - QI. Then a set of numbers are given to all the little dead-end streets on which houses are aligned.
Here in the SMDBs, it is a little more tricky. First the SMDBs are not accessible from everywhere. They are clusters of a few SMDBs conjunctos (or small streets) and each of these clusters are accessible from a limited number of entry points through the QIs, and sometimes by only one point. The first trick is to learn where are these entry points. Then the SMDBs are sprinkled in a orderly fashion that is visible only from above - some big (ego) master plan power (also known as Costa, the planner), laid these around like someone sprinkles salt on his beans. The result is a little odd from the ground, where 17 and 16 are encountered before 14, where 12 is mix beside 28 and where you have 12a 12b and 12c next to 31 but really really far from 12 - an after-thought obviously. These SMDBs are usually on the hills behind the QIs. They all have either a view of the lake or a view of the surrounding hills, streams and nature.

Why am I writing here about this? Simply because the spatial arrangement of the SMDBs creates a unusual maze of roads and nature. I have enjoyed driving along their roads while trying to get Emmanuel to nap (a car ride does wonders these days).  I have circumvented my son's sleep patterns with the discovery of the area, while day-dreaming of landscapes over which these houses gaze. I keep taking some shortcuts (that are not always so short) just to keep that impression of being in the countryside. At times I stop the car, and contemplate a landscape that, if standing in the right place, makes you feel that you are somewhere else, away from a city, deep in nature. And I just love it...
Here is a view from this backroad shortcut to our house, under the light of the afternoon ending. Gleaming atop of the hill is our house and our neighbors'. I love this view.

And this photo does not really makes justice to the beauty of landscape.