Who wants to hear more about container shipping in Costa Rica? I know I do!

Limon is the most important port in Costa Rica, by far. With 50,000 people, it is the second largest city in Costa Rica. The capital, San Jose, has 2.2 million. That alone would be enough to cultivate a serious second-city complex. But Limon’s soccer team is strong this year, pulling a draw against the best San Jose team in a game Limon really should have won. Even folks from San Jose tipped their hats to that.

Limon is connected to San Jose by a two lane highway, Route 32. It’s a nice little highway, well-paved, decent shoulder, suitable for cars, motorbikes, and light commercial traffic. It rises from sea level to about 3,300 feet before dropping into the sunny vale of San Jose in the central highlands. Route 32 snakes along lush misty ridges, delves into rain forests, and scribes along the sheer faces of mountainsides that fall away 500 feet into the thick jungle below. Rivulets of water trickle down the cliffs where mosses and lichens grow, and whole worlds of bio-diversity flourish. If you want to see the peaks above, you must stick your head clean out the window and look straight up. There are gorges so deep and so sheer that there isn’t enough daylight to read a book by. Eventually the road plunges into a tunnel that takes you through the arm of a mountain and delivers you to the Capital.

In 1994 Costa Rica elected a President who had considerable trucking interests. So, he appointed several immediate family members to influential positions, and various captains of industry to high office. He shut down the railway, claiming it was obsolete, and moved all the container traffic onto trucks. Anyone who didn’t play ball was fired. The poor fools who voted him in cheered him as a man of action. He got things done! The cost of moving freight quadrupled. As his term wound down and the investigations opened up, he moved to the country of his wife’s birth to out-wait the statute of limitations. His parting words translate roughly as “It’s a witch hunt. I’m the victim. This makes me smart.” The story is legend here; I’ve heard it many times. They tell it with a laugh. But the laugh tapers off and their faces tighten, and they look down.

This erstwhile adequate highway is now wholly overwhelmed. Loaded trucks labor up the steep mountain grade, trunk to tail, like elephants. Downbound trucks barrel around bends like kids on bikes in the thrall of gravity. Unhitched cabs dart in and out of traffic, scampering to find a container as if they’ve just realized they have no pants on. White-knuckled motorists hope for the best. The temptation to overtake is strong, yet there is no straightaway and the larger vehicles screen the smaller ones. Rather than cultivating a sense of self-preservation, the opposite seems to prevail. As a result, Route 32 is the deadliest road in Costa Rica. About a third of my 9 trips have encountered all-out automotive carnage: flipped semis, crushed cars, gouged earth, glass and metal everywhere. One truck literally had the wheels fall off. I kid you not. It was sitting on the pavement with no wheels. We were edging past it slowly so I had a lot of time to look for the wheels. None in sight. Where the hell did they go?

And just to clarify, when I say 2-lane highway, I mean one lane each way. So it only takes the slightest mishap to create a back-up. A major accident, well, forget it. How does all this effect travel plans and the general predictability of travel, commerce and profits for enterprises unconnected to the trucking cartel? Under the very best of circumstances it takes 3 hours to cover 101 miles. How d’ya like them apples? But the best of circumstances rarely prevail so 4 hours is a good rule of thumb. But it can take five, six, seven or eight hours. Sometimes people just turn around and go home. This is the major artery between the major port and the major city.

Most recently I was returning from the Pacific Coast – you can do that here, drive coast to coast and back in a day - when traffic came to standstill around midnight. In the U.S. if there is a serious accident either law enforcement instructs you to remain in the vehicle, or out of some Puritanical sense of protocol you suppress the very real urge to get out and gawk. Not here. Everyone piled out of the bus and walked around, kids, aunts, people bumming cigarettes despite the inescapable aroma of gasoline. No horns, no road rage, no strangers, just friends you hadn’t met before. We walked up to see the action. There were pieces of a shattered tree strewn about. But the thing that caught my attention was the overhead electrical wire snagged between the cab of a truck and its container. Next thing you know, there’s guy with a hack saw cutting away at it while others hold the wire. That’s when I decided to return to the bus. But for motorcycle underneath the 18-wheeler, it was like a block party.

Kessler and I head up tomorrow so that she will be on time for the AP English exam the next day. 101 miles.