Costa Rica Charms In Spite of Roads
Anne Chalfant, ContraCostaTimes.com

Driving in another country is always an adventure, a surefire way to create memories, good, bad - maybe even scary.

Whatever category those memories fall into, bouncing along on four wheels through unfamiliar terrain sets you up for the unanticipated.

We traveled by rental car in Costa Rica during Thanksgiving week, my husband courageously taking the wheel in this nation of roads that range from good to pothole-ridden single lanes roughly imitating a flat driving surface.

Oh, and this country has no road signs. Really. To go from San José, the largest city, onto Highway 1, which traverses Costa Rica, you take a right at the Axis Bar, then drive past the Hampton Inn & Suites Airport and take the first angled road onto Highway 1. Got it?

No harm intended, The navigation gets even more curious when you factor in the Costa Rican drivers, who are never nasty, but who often take a casual approach to things. Casual, as in pulling out of a side road directly in front of you when you're doing 50 mph. This is never aggression -- it's just that the road lies there beckoning, so drivers go for it -- much as you would go for an itch on your back begging to be scratched.

Fortunately, we did have some inkling of what driving would be like in this Central American nation. Tips on car rental and driving conditions were listed in guidebooks, and we found an especially good description in "The New Key to Costa Rica" by Beatrice Blake and Anne Belcher. From that book we learned that if you have an accident, you must leave the cars in place until police arrive.

Accidents are not unusual. Ticos -- as Costa Ricans are called -- have the second-highest accident rate in the world. We witnessed six, or perhaps a few more -- nobody was counting -- over a week's time. No worries -- it was just crunched cars, no obvious injuries.

Car accidents left in the middle of the road might seem an impediment to other traffic. Not so -- the Ticos keep the traffic flow going in the most inventive ways. When an accident blocks the road, cars just drive around it, into oncoming lanes (the other cars will wait their turn). In the case of one accident, we followed the traffic trail up onto a guy's front yard. No problem -- the owner stood out front, chatting with his neighbor about the accident, unconcerned about the shredding of his grassy lawn.

All of this gave my family plenty to talk about on our driving trips to Poas Volcano, and then across the country from San Jose to the Central Pacific Coast.

There were more local amusements than traffic phenomena, though. When you're driving yourself rather than traveling with a tour, cultural immersion is immediate. We asked for directions when we got lost -- we did plenty of that -- and we stopped at little restaurants for typical meals such as gallo pinto -- rice and beans, and played menu roulette, turning up the occasional surprising, unidentifiable dollop of foodstuff.

Blundering your way along in a car gives everyone a chance to make a fool of himself -- which in turn provides fodder for family snicker-fests for years to come.

Unexpected companion. Then there was Hermano the reindeer.

He and his straw reindeer buddies stood by the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere, alongside the Tico who was selling them. The straw reindeer were a spunky troop of antlered hoofers with bells and ribbons around their necks.

Hermano was the pick of the litter for my 24-year-old son, Ethan, who paid 1,500 colones for him -- about $3.

Hermano became the perfect traveling companion. A good fellow well met, he was treated to a Pepsi and lunch at the little cafe with the spectacular view of the green valley with vertical slopes of coffee bean plants. Always willing to have his photo taken, Hermano's always-startled eyes looked a little more worried standing on the ledge there. A wind would have sent him over.

But he survived to sip piña coladas, go to the beach, gawk over a bunch of macaws hanging from a tree looking like bright kites. He became a member of the traveling family, which included my sister, my husband and our two twenty something sons. If Hermano wasn't among us, someone would pipe, "Where's Hermano?" and he would be fished from the luggage pile in the back of the four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Hermano never wore his seat belt, but the rest of us were diligent.

But the dangers weren't so great that I would avoid driving in this country. Especially when driving becomes part of the travel adventure.