Enough to Drive You Nuts – Part Uno

Before I came here on a business trip in March, the company website warned travelers not to rent a car because of the exorbitant insurance charges and the “flat tire scam” run by some rental agencies designed to take more of your money. One of my Maple Grove colleagues also advised against driving and mentioned that “There are no street signs and one day a street is one way one direction and the next day it’s switched”. Ever the obedient corporate citizen, I heeded the warning and as fate or more likely good planning on the part of my boss-to-be would have it, my ground transportation was for the most part with BSC colleagues.

So here I am in March, just off the plane, riding in an SUV in the early afternoon, the sun is out, we’re surrounded by distant mountains and the traffic is relatively light on what looks to be a highway, heading to the Heredia plant, which is on the way to San Jose from the airport. The weather and scenery match the travel brochure, but the driving is not as advertised I gleefully tell myself.

I asked my colleague what road we were on. “I don’t know – it doesn’t really have a name.” Hmmm. Interesting. “We’re traveling east aren’t we?”
“I don’t know – we don’t really use those directions here”.
Huh?

Later, we leave the plant and head toward my hotel. It’s rush hour. My delusion about the driving drops faster than the employment rate under Obama. Cars have come out of the woodwork and the only thing moving faster than the people walking on the road (going whatever direction that suits them – along, against or across) are the motorcycles weaving between cars. The truck driver up ahead doesn’t seem to mind that his truck has died on him in the middle of the road. The bus driver on our left seems to expect to keep moving so he revs his diesel engine, billowing plumes of carcinogenic poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbon airborne particulates in our direction (that must balance the Obama comment, right?).

Anyway, my colleague seizes the opportunity to get past a line of cars by driving on what I am sure is the shoulder. I believe it to be the shoulder, because inches (ok centimeters) from the edge of the pavement is a drainage ditch deep enough to put any vehicle on its axle. But it turns out to be the right lane.

As we zoom along, miraculously missing pedestrians and motorcycles alike, I see a large building with a sign that reads “Carrion”. Too big to be a mortuary, I think to myself, but with all of these people walking on the road…my thought is interrupted by the squeal of tires and brakes as my colleague decides to turn left to get to my hotel. Pay no attention to the fact that we were in the right lane of a 4 lane road. There was a traffic signal after all. Not that we had a green light. The on-coming and crossing traffic weren’t moving because another truck had died on the other side. As I staggered out of the vehicle, I think “at least the weather is nice…”