Going in the Dark

When traveling, I want to see and know my surroundings, to keep a minimum in the unknown.  I want to see with my eyes the mountains rolling gently in front of me or the shear cliffs of monsters that I'm passing on above.  I don't want to only know the specks of light dotting the distances and the smoke rising from those specks shading the moon.  I want to see the blockization of the land into farms and I want to see and if possible know the people living there.  I like a minimum of planning, but yet always manage to plan for traveling only in the day.  To only know the terrain that I'm in from prior knowledge and photos is not enough, I want to see on my own and become familiar with the bountiful forests spreading out on the wet side of a mountain range or the nothingness of a desert, only sand and rock to the horizon. (The two "knows" of Portuguese, saber and conhecer, would be nice to have in English.)

However, there will always be times in which you must move at night: you must meet an old friend on a deadline; you're hungry; or rain's falling like a sonofabitch.  Or sometimes, you just need a change, the current place doesn't feel good, the people aren't right, or the scenery's ugly. You have to go, into the unseeable.  You may even find yourself changing a flat tire along the Rio Tacuya at night one day.