No Hay Paso

You know the situation, you're ready to go, excited to get there and you open up your maps for your drive only to see a bunch of red along your path. Traffic, ugh...

Well, traffic is a common occurrence in Costa Rica. Many on the road, and many moving lots of things in vehicles not commonly thought to do so, mini trucks with horses in the back or perhaps a motorcycle with 3-4 passengers on it.  Maybe an ox cart parade. Traffic is common and can definitely slow down your drive time.

There's another predicament of the civil infrastructure here that commonly adjusts your travel plans. Road closures. 

“No Hay Paso,” you can’t pass. For years now, I’ve found my travels sidewinded by road closures, leading us down the oddest of detours; farm roads, ferries, fjording rivers, etc.

Last week, Eli and I went to Jaco to play in the ocean for the day, pretty amazing day in the waves.  Boogie boarding was a ton of fun, but riding waves in the rain took it to the next level. We stayed all day playing in the waves topped off with a warm beach side shower and some cold ice cream! It was a great experience, but as we began our drive home I entered our destination into the map app Waze (everyone here uses this), uh-oh roads closed there's a horrible accident and our 1 Hour Drive looks to be more like 3 1/2 hours down some backroads detour. With no understanding of when the highway would open, off we went. It was getting dark and this detour was very windy narrow and slick. I like driving and feel pretty comfortable in Costa Rica, but this situation was giving me a bit of nerves. 40 minutes into the detour we started hitting quite a bit of traffic backing up.  People were turning around, a nice lady rolled up to tell us, “No Hay Paso."

Turns out the detour was blocked too. Well now what? Both ways home blocked…What else you gonna do, wait. Back we drove to the main freeway and found ourselves a dinner spot. The rest of would be travelers were all around waiting too. Trucks tucked along the side of the road, people filling up parking lots chatting it up.  No where to go, best make the best of it.  

In the end I'm glad to say we didn't end up going down the long somewhat scary detour.  Soon enough the main highway opened up and off we went with the hundreds of other cars that had been waiting, into the maelstrom of traffic.  Still our 1 hour drive took us 3 1/2, but we were safe and all in all, we had a great day.

Yesterday, driving home due west on the main highway out of the capital city of San Jose, something wasn’t quite right, what's that?  No Hay Paso.  Turns out construction was taking precedent, and the road was closed for the day.  Looking up the detour, my 17 mile journey became 40 miles of back roads through the mountains.

Of course a nice rain storm arrived into the situation and the dirt road became quite muddy and slick adding a nice element to the washboard, potholes and quebrada crossings. But don't get me wrong, the roads are really quite good.  I would like to say Costa Rica engineering is pretty amazing with their roads, never have I driven on steeper more hair-pinned passages over and through rivers.  The terrain is not easy and these roads have brought access to some seriously remote and rugged places. I find the roads quite enjoyable when I allow myself to.  Although the detour took twice as long, I never wanted it to end. It was beautiful! Surrounded by stretches of vast remote jungle vistas or passing through old estates of of shade grown coffee. Taking a few seconds to slow and have a staring contest with a cow on the side of the road, or hearing the tunes of the local bar bumping at the crossroads.  This was a road where everyone waved, because… well…Pura Vida.  

Slowly and enjoyably, I made my way home. 

HAY PASO

The old cliche line is ever more the truth of our situation here in Costa Rica, The journey is the destination!