Rant time:
WTH is it with Costa Ricans walking behind moving cars? I do not understand this. If a car is backing up, would not stopping and waiting until it has passed be the prudent thing to do? No. Not here. Apparently. Granted, I have a taller-than-average car, and sometimes it's difficult to see directly behind me. But here again, wouldn't someone walking behind a moving car take that into consideration and STOP, wait for the car to go, and then keep walking? Or at least make sure the person driving the car sees you before you walk right behind it? Sheesh.
Esposo and I were at the Banco Crapional in Grecia when I almost hit a nun. It was not my fault. As I was backing out of the parking lot, I looked to either side of me, didn't see anyone, and proceeded to back out. Within two seconds I hear a banging on the back of my car. I stop, abruptly, and notice that there are now two women escorting a nun down the sidewalk. They bang on my car, I stop, and they keep walking behind my freaking car. I get the feeling this has happened to them in the past, because they don't even bother to stop, give me a sideways glare, nothing. They just keep on walking. I'm like, okay, whatever, and continue to back out after I'm sure they've passed this time. Esposo, however, and typically, freaks out. "What are you doing? Why don't you watch where you're going? Blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda." I'm like, shut up, I didn't even see them. And who walks behind a moving car anyway but a complete idiot? Or a group of idiots?
It wasn't my fault.
I must admit here, however, in the interest of full disclosure, I did hit someone once. But I don't really think it was my fault that time, either. Of course it was in Costa Rica, where people think cars are made of air or something. We (esposo and I) were at a resort in Guanacaste for some press thing. I was seven months or so pregnant -- oh, and I have mentioned that esposo does not drive? So yep, I had driven all the way from Ciudad Colon to Guanacaste, and now we were on the way back home. The driveway next to the reception desk was very narrow, barely allowing for two cars to pass each other. And wouldn't you know it, there was a car parked in the opposite direction, with some Tica yammering on to her friend in the parked car. Esposo got in the car, asked her politely to move, and she just stood there, sort of gesturing me to go around. Though there wasn't enough room to go around. I think I said something along the lines of, move, you stupid bitch, and she again just sort of glanced over at us, then back at her friend and kept on yammering. Well, by this point, I was more than a little irritated, so I started driving. And the passenger side mirror hit her in the arm. Oh well. I figured she deserved it. Was I wrong?
I will give that I am prone to bouts of "road irritation," though I wouldn't say full on "road rage." Mostly this happens near San Jose, and mostly during rush hours. Mostly because people there drive like complete morons. Not all people, but a very high percentage of them. For example, as we were driving C. and I. back to their house in Pavas, a bus had pulled into the intersection when the driver obviously must have known the traffic wouldn't move enough in time for him to leave the intersection clear. He just didn't give a shit. There was a delivery truck next to me, and so when I laid on the horn (hey, you get good at that after living here for a while!) to irritate the bus driver, somehow the morons in the delivery truck got into their thick heads that I was beeping at them. Why, I have no idea. So then at every intersection until we got out of San Jose, they'd pull up behind me or beside me and lay on the horn. Lovely. I know why some people want to shoot other people during rush hour.
On the way back to the highway, there's an on-ramp near the Vetrasa in La Uruca, where the left lane turns left and the right lane goes straight and onto the highway. Though I knew from the get-go that most of the idiots in the left lane weren't actually going to turn left, they just wanted to cut in front of as many people in the (longer) right lane as they could. I was in the right lane, and another delivery truck (coincidence? I think not!) was trying to cut me off, and I wouldn't let him. Yeah, I'm a bitch, whatever. So then he thought it would be funny to tail me the rest of the way with his bright lights on. Only it wasn't so funny when I slammed on my brakes, and then he gave me some room and turned the lights back down. I guess the jefe wouldn't have liked it very much if he'd have crashed the delivery truck for being a stupid ass.
Ooh, I just know my blood pressure is going to go up 10 points when we move back to Escazu...
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