Stepping Out

Last Friday, I embarked upon my initial sojourn to another area since I arrived this time in Costa Rica. Keith, a friend of mine from high school, has been planning for several years to build a home near the city of San Isidro del General. The city is about 120 km southeast of San Jose which makes the journey from San Ramon about four hours. After the one hour trip to San Jose, I purchased a $6.00 ticket on the Premier Class bus that featured most comfortable, reserved seating and a snappy electronic sign board that flashed welcome aboard for the three hours of its journey.
Solo bus trips offer a qualitatively different perspective than most other forms of transportation; with no need for one to focus on the road or offer quaint and hardly ever insightful cultural commentary, my focus fixed on the scenes unfolding beyond the windows (except for the few times, I watched with envy, other more bus savvy passengers digging into endless supplies of savoury goods to help them retain their strength for the mountain passes). I did have four sticks of Trident gum; however, being sugarless, it lost its appeal after two chews.
San Jose is worth being driven through (in a bus). From my vantage point, it boasts an incomprehensible system of streets flanked by some lovely examples of Colonial architecture and some not too lovely examples of post-Colonial, post-parodic pastiche. Wealthy Costa Ricans and those from other countries who have to live in or near the city barricade themselves in self-contained, hermetically sealed, well guarded, gated, walled communities, the insides of which are invisible to the voyeuristic bus passenger.
Once out of the city, the highway opened, revealing the diversity of the country. Through the rich agricultural lands leading to Cartago, then the steep climb through mountain passes, endless switchbacks, windows fogged with a perpetual mist. All the while, the Costa Rican driving code in full operation, the horn, a modern transmitter of Morse signals, transmitting, "Pass now, there is a better than 62.5% chance you will avoid a collision from an oncoming truck...."
Once through the mountains, the sky cleared suddenly, San Isidro below, bathed in sunlight, welcoming the successful. Keith met me at the bus station and drove me to the place he is renting while engaged in his ongoing construction project. So much for the journey, later about the adventures encountered and the people met while there