A Ride Like No Other

If not for needing the internet a time or two during the week for work, I would be happy to stay on our mountaintop. An occasional visitor comes by and The Kid checks in on us regularly. It is quiet and peaceful.

We break this cycle every few days by taking the bus to San Isidro de El General, where the noise, diesel smells and hectic pace cause us to appreciate our little village even more. The bus ride is arduous, to say the least.

The bus leaves the village in the dark daily at 5:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. We walk the half mile downhill to the pulperia to catch the later bus. To be sure we didn’t miss it the first time, we arrived at 12:10 and sat on the plank that serves as bench in front of the store. Shortly after one o-clock the bus was heard in the distance and finally it crested the road high above the village. It swept down past us and rolled up the hill to park under a tree for another 20 minutes while the driver had his lunch. We heard the engine start up again; a few minutes later the bus emerged, chugged down the hill and came to a stop in a cloud of dust in front of us. We greeted and paid the driver (700 colones each).

The bus is always empty at this end-of-the-line stop; it is red and white with a flat front and a battered body. I’m not sure if it is a several-decades-old passenger bus or former school bus. Windows open only at the top and one is shattered. The back windows have been boarded over.

Pecos walks down the aisle in front of me and the roof is only an inch from his head. There are no seatbelts. Seats are hard and child-size, two on one side of the aisle and three on the other. Pecos cannot fit into them without lifting his knees to his chest and therefore must sit sideways with knees in the aisle, folding them up and in whenever someone passes. He would rather sit in the very rear seat for more room, but the last two rows are missing. Heavy leather sandbags lay on the rear floor to help provide traction. A cracked plastic bucket is wired to a post at the rear door to serve as a trash receptacle.

Bus stops along the many kilometers down our mountain are marked by yellow wood stakes in the ground every so often. Our bus groans to a stop about 15 times, picking up passengers who wait under the shade of trees or in full sun under an umbrella. The brakes squeal with every stop. Everyone greets each new person who steps on. Nearly every passenger carries a small rag to first wipe off the seat.

On our most recent trip, we were sitting near the rear of the bus. At one stop as several passengers boarded up front, a young man darted from the bushes and ran behind the bus. We couldn’t see him pass the other side and assumed that he held on to the back for a free ride to hopefully somewhere close.

Our driver, a small man who looks incapable of wrenching the broad steering wheel around (let alone the vehicle) nonetheless carefully maneuvers our bus up and down steep grades, grinding gears smoothly and inching it sideways and slowly around sharp curves. He nonchalantly edges us past bottomless drop-offs. No one but me seems nervous.

The driver calls out a loud “Yo!” to people walking on the roads and nearly every house that he passes. A two-liter soft drink bottle, half full, dangles from a wire just behind his head. It swings wildly and nearly clobbers him on the sharp curves. I remind Pecos to leap into the driver’s seat to save us if our driver is knocked senseless.

The windows are all shut tight and it has to be more than 100 degrees inside the bus. I open mine for fresh air and clouds of orange dust blow in. I quickly shut it again. Passengers talk loudly to each other, whether many passengers or rows are between them or not. They ask us in a friendly way as to where we come from and what are we doing in Costa Rica. They laugh at our Spanish and I wonder what we’ve just said. I clutch my computer bag, shoulder bag and straw hat; Pecos clutches his shoulder bag, cloth hat and knees as we bounce up from our seats on the washboard road and crash against each other on every turn. I fear that my teeth will come loose.

Finally we reach blacktop and every passenger near a window jumps up to open it. Cool air blows in and suddenly the bus ride isn’t so bad, with the only worrisome part left being the aged suspension bridge over the Rio de San Isidro.

Two hours after leaving our village, we arrive at the crowded bus station in the heart of town. San Isidro is hot and muggy, always at least 10 degrees hotter than home. We have barely three hours to walk blocks away to an internet connection, buy groceries at two different places, pick up a few things at the hardware store, and get something to eat. As usual we buy two glasses of iced orange juice, freshly squeezed for each order, from a friendly Tico’s cart in front of the park. As we walk, I strategize on which restaurants or hotel lobby I’ll use this time for bootleg internet, sometimes bribing the waiter or desk clerk for the business’s pass-code and loitering until too obvious, then moving on to the next place. I avoid the internet cafes as have found these run-down places of outdated computers, usually located down an alley or over a store, are rather popular with persons who use the computers to view sites I’d rather not walk past.

Our return bus departs daily at 12:50 and 6:50 p.m. At 6:15 we walk back to the bus station, arriving just as our bus pulls into its diagonal parking spot. It is the same driver as early in the morning. I hope he was able to nap somewhere. A line of about 20 people on the sidewalk quickly board and toss shopping bags, backpacks, cardboard boxes filled with groceries, and tall sacks of coffee beans or seed onto the floor at the rear of the bus. People hold seats for others. We take a row of two seats – one with a spring sticking up – and decide to stay put. By the time the bus departs it is completely full and one man stands on the front steps near the driver.

About half a kilometer out of town, our driver pulls over to a bus stop and five people step on. They stand in the middle aisle, hanging onto seat backs and an overhead pole. A little further, we stop again and more people get on. This happens again and again and we keep asking each other how it is possible to squeeze anyone else onboard. Despite the many buses plying this highway, our driver stops for all who wait in the dark at the side of the route. The center aisle is packed with passengers who lurch and sway over those in the seats.

Several men sit on the heaped boxes and bags at the rear; others perch on the railing of the rear steps and stand in the doorways. Three burly men are seated at angles in front of us, arms layered over the back of the seat. Everyone is cheerful and nonplussed by the cramped conditions.

Passengers start departing about eight kilometers from town. By the time we turn off the highway, no one is left standing although the bus remains full. As the bus creeps up the mountain passengers get off at stop after stop. People sitting on their porches call hello to our driver as we follow the chain of infrequent street lights that curl upward far ahead.

By the time we get to our village, we are the last passengers once again. For the return trip home, the fare is paid as we depart. We gather our parcels, tell our driver buenas noches and step off to hike the last steep climb to home – first flicking on our head lamps to assure that no nocturnal creatures wait to greet us on the road. 