Impressions: Road Hazards (Where the Streets Have No Name)

All right, where was I?

Oh, yea: ...take a left at the last sign for the seminary.

Well, if you take that left, that means you have braved the Costa Rican roads, and whether you have done that by foot or tire, you have most certainly needed bravery, for you have most certainly risked your life.

I suppose that's true of any road anywhere, but the degree to which it is true here is the reason this impression, more than any other, still seems as fresh to me as on the night of our arrival.  I remember the light show of a silent storm up and off to the right, and I remember the streaming lights on the road, headlights and tail, and the big billboard lights and neon lights of the city, and the police lights that followed us for what seemed like more than an hour (--our driver, a school employee, and the other school employee sitting shotgun paid them no heed--not even enough to answer our own questioning glances back and forth); and I remember the goofy smiles Suzy and I wore, half fake and half full of wonder, as we shed all lights, shed the airport and the city, shed the cop, and then finally took the inside path, the one just to the left of the seminary drive, and were completely swallowed by the night and the jungle--by our Costa Rican adventure.  I thought maybe Mr. Kurtz was waiting for us up ahead.  But no, it was Grandma and Aunt Katy, who, as I have told you before, worked perfectly to mitigate "the horror, the horror."

Six months later, and despite the fact that it is necessary to use the roads everyday, I do not suspect I will ever get used to them.  Ignoring the stray dogs and overly curious squirrels, and admirable, if a little crazy, runners and pedalers, in whose number Suzy and I regularly count ourselves, and ignoring the appropriately named "muertos" (--Costa Ricans call speed bumps "muertos" or "dead people"--the aforementioned gringo runners, I presume, fallen and covered over with pavement), and avoiding the usual suspects of other motorists, construction sites, car accidents, emergency vehicles, and railway crossings (--no signs here, no flashing red lights or long lowering candy-colored beams; just horn-blaring trains screaming by--the moment you realize they're upon you is the same moment you're praying you remembered to stop before and not on the railroad tracks, which, of course, you always do)--putting all of that aside, you still are far from safe, for the Costa Rican roads are, in and of themselves, hazards.

For one thing, they are narrow.  The major highways are actually pretty nice--I'd say the equivalent of 285 before it was widened--you know, when people still had bumper stickers reading: "I survived 285."  But off from them, like where we live and work, the roads are starving thin.  I mean you cannot fit two passing cars and a runner across them.  And if there is a bus, forget it.  On some roads just a single car and a runner is a question mark.  In fact, there is one road above us that reportedly dwindles to a dirt running path leading into Cartago.  I say "reportedly" because you have to climb high and far to get to it, and so far Suzy and I have not made it that far.  The hills around our place, to and from school are climbs enough, steep and long.  Our most frequent run is only about 3 miles, but it takes us more than 40 or 50 minutes to run it...

And the roads are often slick.  I have not slipped in the car yet, but after a super giant slalom down the last hill before our school running one day, I am never confident.  And, of course, it is slick because it rains--a lot--I mean consistently, and sometimes as though the sky wanted, in a single effort, to make up for all the days in history it forgot to rain--or as though it said jokingly to the sea, "What land?" (--I will never forget the storm we heard one night in Arenal--with rolling, echoing thunder that lasted forever, and with rain whose pounding of the roof above us outdid the thunder--I literally thought the ceiling was going to give...)  Anyway, all this rain explains the potholes--oh, and the man-deep gutters you often see on both sides of the mountain road.  And when cars are dodging potholes or cutting corners--well you get the picture--or you kind of do: I mean, the rain reduces visibility a lot too, especially at night, especially in my Geo Tracker, in which, I swear, they tinted the windows backward.

And that brings up the rules of the road, all of which can be boiled down to the simple, most primitve rule of life: "survive."  Again, that is true of every road, of course, but here, after 24 years of becoming accustomed to US roads, I feel like I am always on some distopian movie's version of Reality TV. Actually, Suzy (whom I call Katniss now) and I will frequently pull a move we would hardly ever think about doing in the States, where we scoot past a bus or a slow truck on the wrong side of the narrow narrow road.  "But, Officer, everyone does it." And everyone does do it, especially the motorcycles, who do it to me and to everyone else every hour of the day.  In fact, Suzy and I say we "Tico-ed" it when we do it.  And now, whenever we find ourselves stuck in traffic, one of the kids will invariably call out, "Dad, Tico it."  "Tico," by the way, simply means "a Costa Rican," and, of course, we are doing our best to assimilate.  However scary or funny this is, though, my real worry is what happens when we return to Colorado.  "But, Officer..."

Once, early on, on a perfectly clear day, I found myself humbly pulling along on my side of the road when this midsized truck comes barrelling straight at us, apparently in order to win some race.  I could sense the quick jerk of Suzy's head as she looked at my startled face, and then, again, when we both recognized, pretty much as the truck righted itself and flew by us, that it was a cop.  No, we couldn't really ignore that one...

And then, assuming your nerves aren't all frazzled and fizzled by the continual hairbreadth escape you call your commute, you then have to deal, of course, with the fact that on Costa Rican roads you are only ever more or less lost.  Seriously, we have had life-long residents of our little municipality say to us, "You cannot get around without GPS."  This is due partly to GPS or, what most of them use out here, "WAYZ."  But it is also due to the fact that streets have no names--right, like the U2 song; and landmarks you would use for directions are often missing or changed.  About a month ago, we were roaming around San Jose trying to find a bookstore that no longer exists.  And home or business addresses are literally something like: "300 meters southeast of the Dulce Nombre police station."  As I already told you, the best way to find our house, at least for now, is to drive and hope you keep seeing signs for the seminary.  Then when the road splits in three, take the middle one--the one to the left of the seminary road.  And if you find yourself in the city?  Well, the best way to navigate San Jose is to bypass it altogether, as Suzy is doing right now to pick up her mother.  She took the kids this morning to surprise Grandma at the airport, and all I can say is: "I hope she makes it back."

In truth, we are learning our way around, even in the neighboring districts.  It's still tricky, what with roads that suddenly become one-ways you are going the wrong way down, or seeming shortcuts that only twist you up like a pretzel; but, believe it or not, I am, at least, pretty used to the labyrinthine roads out here--not as good as GPS, I'm sure, but not needing it either.  And for all the "Tico" moves, like nudging your nose into an intersection so you can make your way, Costa Ricans are generally polite drivers.  They honk more often to thank you than to warn you, and, except in standstill traffic, they never honk out of rage.  And everyone, car or truck or even bus, stops for runners or bikers when  we make things too sketchy.  I don't imagine drivers are too happy about it, but they never honk or yell something at you out their windows.  I always lift my hand to thank them if I have caused them to slow down or stop...

And the speed limit is also low.  The highest I have ever seen is 90 km/hour, which is about 55 miles/hour--and that was on an interstate.  Of course, I think the speed limit has less to do with regulation here than with the science that keeps a typical car making a turn at the bottom of some ridiculously steep hill from turning over, which is perahps why motorcycles feel entitled to break every road rule ever written...

But do not fear, my kith and kin: like Bono says, "When I go there, I go there with you. It's all I can do."  Of course...  Ha, look at that--right on cue: Mommy has returned with Grandma and the kids.  You see, you'll be in good hands with us--or, at least, you will provide us a bit more cushion...