Costa Rican Travel

There is something striking about Costa Rican roads. About a week ago, my husband and I were in the small Central American country, with no real agenda. All we wanted to do was relax and see some of the diverse landscape. So we made arrangements to travel to a small coastal town, a city with an active volcano and a cloud forest. To get there, however, we traversed some of the worst roads I´ve come across in my life. I first noticed the roads when we took a bus to Manzanillo from San Jose. Most of the road was well paved. Then came the bumpy, thrilling ride from the coastal town of Puerto Viejo to Manzanillo. Happily asleep for most of it, I was jerked awake as the road turned cavernous. Every ride out of the town and back, made perhaps five times total, became a stomach-turning adventure. I´d hold on to the seat in front of me and pray until it was over. If the weren´t for the extremely large potholes, the ride might have been like any other in Costa Rica: a jolty, noisy, exhaust-filled, regular ride. Walkers and bikers beware. However, this it was not.

I found out from one of our guides that the road was paved about eight years ago. The government, although praised by the US for its commitment to democracy, and indeed a ¨poster child¨ of sorts in the region for its stability, is still corrupt. The roads, as we learned, are evidence of this. Because the road was only paved with concrete a few inches thick, it quickly broke down. When I asked why the government didn´t fix it, I actually got a scoff in reply. Apparently I´m way too naive. Its too expensive for the contractors to fix, when they were the ones who overcharged and underworked in the first place.


As we continued our trip, the roads became a fascination for me. I avidly took photos and knew I had convinced Jack it was something to concern oneself with when he pointed out men working on the roads! It was amazing. They were walking down the street, not with a huge truck dumping concrete out the back while men put out orange cones to warn passers-by of the danger. Oh no! They were cranking the concrete machine themselves and hesitantly walking beside it. We had rented a car for the day, which I drove because it was a manual, so I swerved to the side of the road while Jack whipped out the camera. (You could say we were oddly fixated, yes.)


We continued to notice the streets, maybe me more so than Jack. But, goodness, I was driving on them! Not an easy task, especially when the car won´t go uphill without some coaxing, in pooring rain, and when the not-so-occasional pothole continued to make me shout profanities. (Ok, so I cuss like a sailor anyway when I drive, but this was outrageous!) Suffice it to say we were both happy to return the rental car and leave the streets of Costa Rica behind.