Those Costa Rican Roads

The holy ground in front of the Tinamastes Church

I have incurred several thousand dollars worth of car repairs over the last year. If one were to link that line with the title of this post, they might get to thinking that these expenses are due to the potholes. Welll... maybe indirectly. Directly, I just paid about $500 to have my balljoints and stuff fixed underneath my Montero. The "indirect" way is the fact that I refuse to buy a new car here, since the place is so #$%$@ hard on cars. Consequently I have older cars ('94 & '95) for getting from my home in San Isidro to my work in Dominical, and out showing properties in the jungle, so the cars are 4 wheel drive. Older cars seem to need constant maintenance, so I may be re-thinking my whole approach to this topic. I have actually been without any car on occassion, despite the fact that I've got this "back-up" arrangement.

Anyway, you may have heard that the roads are BAD in Costa Rica. And well... its true. What happens here in Costa Rica when things get to this level of road degredation, is that the people who support their families by driving the roads of Costa Rica, take matters into their own hands. The do a thing called a "huelga" which translates out to "boycott". To do a huelga, they simply block traffic by blocking some of the one lane bridges around the country. This is highly effective since it shuts the country down.

This remedy was recently applied in the Dominical area. The road between San Isidro and Dominical is horrendisimo. It is a truly teeth rattling ride. I'll take a bad dirt road anyday, over a bad paved road. The potholes on the bad paved roads have sharp edges that can wreck your rims.

So they blocked the Baru bridge. This is the bridge that is down on the flats prior to getting to the coastal highway. It is one lane and was blocked by someone, presumably someone with heavy equipment, who dumped several loads of sand, dirt, and rock on both sides of the bridge. Now, I'm not accusing anybody, but there IS a heavy machinery place right there near the bridge... Anyway, the action was supported far and wide. Even by those sitting there stopped - wondering if the bridge was going to be open any time soon.

The huelga appears to have had a good effect. Some of the major, silly-bad, pothole areas of the road have now been fixed. This is both a blessing and a curse since what I do is, I get to driving normal over the repaired parts and get my speed up to where when I get to an unrepaired part of the road, I really slam into the next sneaky pothole.

So, the current status of the road is that it is partially repaired. The holy ground in front of the church in Tinamastes, is fixed. Also, that part that is in front of the new thatched restaurant and fruit stand about 12 minutes the Dominical side of San Isidro is also fixed, as well as a smattering of other areas.

Just don't let you guard down when enjoying these parts yet

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