pura vida

It occurs to me often that driving here is like learning a new language. Bare minimum, it feels like a cultural exchange of some sort. Every day I feel like I’m learning new things and figuring out how to use my car to communicate.

The first, most important part of driving here is the use of hazard lights. In my prior life, I thought of the hazards as only for dire needs … like I’m stuck on the side of the freeway and don’t want anyone to bash into me at 70 miles an hour. Yes, that feels like a real hazard. Damn it, where is that button? I’m not in hazardous situations very often.

Here, however, hazard lights are used multiple times a day, for anything from an upcoming speed bump (of which there are many!) to the person in front of you turning. They seem to be a courtesy to let the people around you know that something/anything is happening, rather than an indication of hazard. Or maybe the bar for what is a hazard is just way lower?

The hazard lights could be for just pulling over a little to the side of the road to chat with a friend, or slowing down to greet some people you know, or literally just stopping wherever you need to for someone to meet you. This will definitely be happening on almost any residential road you go on, multiple times over, but it may also be happening on a pretty busy main thoroughfare. These are definitely genuine hazards, I suppose, but mostly just slow everything way way down.

In general, it seems the attitude is to just go with the flow, rather than to be upset at someone for doing their thing on the road. At first glance, it can feel selfish. Like, how can you stop here and make everyone else wait? But when I’m sitting and waiting for whomever doing whatever, I notice that no one else seems bothered by this in the slightest. So if the collective driving consciousness is not bothered by any individual’s immediate needs, maybe I shouldn’t be either? I dunno guys; I may never get to an enlightened state on this topic. For now, we’ve been taking some backroads that are 1)incredibly beautiful 2)a bit longer than the shortest route but 3)consistent in travel time because there’s no traffic. Worth it, in my book!

Another slower of traffic is intersections, or even taking a lightless left turn on a busy street. It seems whoever has been waiting the longest takes their turn, even if it causes a traffic jam or slows people downstream. Often this is accompanied by a flash of the lights, which I think is a thing in the States, but one that I’m still learning how to slooooow down enough to use. I just mastered the use of my hazards, ok? The brights flash is actually a way deeper commitment to a ‘we’ll get there when we get there’ philosophy because it requires noticing the person who needs help getting across the road. In general these small acts of driving generosity really make me feel good, or maybe it’s more accurate to say I feel like a jerk when I miss them. So I’m probably going to keep making progress on this one, because Catholic guilt is real.

Animals on the road are common here, whether dogs and cats or horses and cows. We have had many a fretful morning going to school waiting for a guy on a moto with his 6 horses tied together. This horse guy is pretty impossible to pass. It’s a real white knuckle situation with the time! Every morning when we leave the house, we wish hopefully that the guy with the horses will not be there. And sometimes we are lucky and sometimes we are waiting behind a long line of 20 cars, hating this horse guy’s guts.

But sitting behind the horse guys is better than driving the opposite direction as a large truck. Wow trucks are scary here! For some reason, they legit drive so close to (over?) the center line, to the point that I’m not sure where to go. I’ve noticed a competing factor with ‘whoever’s been waiting the longest gets precedence’, which is that the biggest vehicle gets precedence. I’m not really sure what happens when two trucks who are driving on center/over the center meet one another going opposite directions, but I prefer not to think about it.

Which brings me to my last point of study, which is pedestrians. While pedestrians are not really given the right of way to cross the road (since they are the smallest fish in the sea), unless they have been waiting a really long time (since the collective consciousness allows the people who have been waiting the longest to go), they are given a lot of space when they are walking on the side of a road, which is common. This may be the facet of Costa Rican transportation I’m trying to adopt the most: Walking to as many places as I can. Right now, it’s mostly down this incredibly beautiful dirt road to the city center of Villareal to take Nene to the soccer field, to pick up food from the fruteria, or to occasionally go to Super Economico for whatever odd or end I need. When I am able to do this, I feel for some reason like I accomplished my goals in coming here. It’s sweaty, yes, and sometimes miserable (only when I am carrying a watermelon in my backpack), but I am able to move myself where I need to go, say hi to my neighbors and put food on the table. Baby steps, so to speak, but I’ll take them! Hasta pronto, amigos!