Passages

We stayed two nights in San Jose, explored a neighborhood and met a few interesting characters. A restaurant owner from Venice, Italy lamented his inability to find anyone capable of making decent pizza crust and offered me a job as manager (and presumably, crust maker) starting the next day. We also wandered down a gravel lane to discover a lushly planted Persian courtyard with replica mosque, reflecting pool, houka lounge, and authentic Iranian food and music. The owner told us he was from Persia (interesting introduction, since the country has been known as Iran since 1935). He bragged that he won awards as best gown designer in North America in the 1990s, took his fortune, and built his own paradise in Costa Rica. He designed the furniture for his place – twisted driftwood and wrought iron tables, chairs, stools, bars – including huge tables built of driftwood tree trunks with rings dating 1,800 years (he said), where one dines between the roots. Overhead, moss hung in long sheets from giant banyan trees. Every available surface was painted with Persian murals or motifs - a heady mix of cultures, for sure.

We became lost, so incredibly lost, leaving San Jose for our village four hours away. We weren’t able to leave until mid-day as it took hours to find another rental car at a reasonable price, after learning that the cost on our original reservation would not be honored. Finally we were on our way. Our directions were to follow the main highway into the heart of the city, then travel down Avenida Central, the main avenue that crosses San Jose east-west. We would follow the avenue heading toward Cartago, about 20 kilometers east of the city, where we would then head south on the Pan-American Highway.

Ticos drive with wild abandon. Motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, between lanes and often coming in sideways. Very few drivers signal. Trucks and buses change lanes at will, regardless if a vehicle (like ours) happens to be next to them or if they run off the highway and back on again. All of this at high speed with horns blaring, drivers yelling, brakes screeching, and an occasional pedestrian trying to run across. Somehow we found Avenida Central (thanks to my guidebook, which noted the busy street by its huge park and hospital). Driving on city streets is as treacherous as on the highway, with the added features of disregarded traffic lights, narrow streets, fearless pedestrians and up-close wild-eyed drivers. Street signs are a rarity, and one should not depend on their accuracy. I read that San Jose did not name or mark the streets until the mid-1990s – and when signs were placed, city workers often put them up at will, not always in the correct locations. No problema for us, as we never saw one street sign anyway.

Avenida Central vanished. We were headed in the wrong direction, according to the sun. Much later we found the highway east toward Cartago (not marked either). This was after Pecos and I had a major breakdown in communication in that he could not understand that when I said go around, go around, that it meant to enter a busy round-about at six o’clock and leave at 12. We circled several round-abouts at all hours on the clock and each time as the busy traffic came at us at all angles, it became more confusing as to which way we’d entered and which way to leave.

The Pan-American Highway is mis-named. It should read instead as a snaky two-lane, no-shoulder blacktop road with huge potholes and with edges crumbling away over the hillsides. Highway 19 to Fossil would compare as a super highway, perhaps an interstate – perhaps an inter-continental route, much as the Pan-American claims to be. Hairpin curves, crazed drivers hauling all kinds of produce and products, and motorcyclists and bicyclists weaving in and out. A sudden slow-down ahead of us, then the traffic stopped. Trucks, cars, motorcycles, even buses hauling crowds of passengers left the pavement to drive on the grassy slopes to get around. It was an accident, a fatality, a mangled bicycle and crushed vehicle. People came pouring out of houses and buildings to stand and watch la policia and medical personnel. We were shaken. About five miles down the highway we came to an open roadside chapel, where we stopped to send a prayer to the victim.

The P-A Highway rises steeply from San Jose as it winds upward into the Talamanca Mountains, crossing the summit at 3,491 meters (approximately 9,000 ft.) before descending through the clouds to the valley where the agricultural city of San Isidro de El General is located. This is called The Mountain of Death, so named due to the many traffic accidents that occur there. We took it slowly, noting that besides the lack of guard rails along the steep cliffs and the fathoms-deep potholes that the highway itself was eroded underneath in a few spots, thus reduced to one lane. These were marked with a few orange cones. Apparently whoever speeds into the good lane first can have it and oncoming vehicles must swerve to a stop. Many drivers passed us on blind curves. We drove through patches of dense fog and past mixed hardwood and cloud forests. An occasional house clung to the edges of the highway with steep slope underneath. The air was cool. When the clouds and forest broke, the views of the valleys far below were stunning.

We arrived in San Isidro as it was getting dark. No chance of finding our way to the village in the dark, so we took a room at a downtown hotel – the best in the city, according to the guidebook. Rather run-down, it should have cost less than the Costa Rica rate of $28 US for a deluxe room w/ private bathroom and the option of hot water. We slept on top of the bed. The hotel is situated at one side of the huge city square, which is anchored at one end by a towering cathedral and edged with busy shops. Attractive patios, benches, gazebo and tropical plantings fill the square, which is much used by persons of all ages for social gathering. Cars and motorcycles circle the square endlessly, including an aged pick-up truck with blaring loudspeakers on top. Three or four Ticos wedged up front give a non-stop staccato advertising message, over and over and over. Our quiet village would have to wait until daylight and then we would be on our way. 