If I were not a technological dinosaur, I would currently be raking in the dough from the brilliant video game I’d have made called “Driving in Small Town Mexico.” (Okay, maybe I need a catchier name.) As it is, however, I’m just wasting gas money living in my video game reality, trying to get from Point A to Point B without any accidents.
Driving with Abuelo
Of course everyone driving anywhere is trying to do so accident-free. But if you’re accustomed to driving in the US, or some other place where there are rules and infrastructure relevant to driving, then you don’t really understand. Let me tell you a little about what my video game would look like. Remember, however, this is not a video game; this is actually a surreal, daily, real-life experience. Woo hoo!
Khalil practicing hailing a taxi
You’re in the heart of the “city,” and you’re dealing with all this: A man pushing a wheelbarrow full of papaya in the street, in the lane of traffic beside the parked cars, going in the opposite direction of traffic! Speed bump! People parked halfway in the lane of traffic! A woman with a big bicycle push-cart selling fruit flavored water, with a toddler riding on top as well! Speed bump! People parked fully in the lane of traffic, with emergency blinkers on! Huge groups of teenagers leaving school with a dizzying array of junk food- popsicles, fried tacos, candy, homemade chip-like salty greasy food, homemade donuts (Don’t look! Don’t hit any of them even when they walk directly in front of your car! Remain in the middle of the intersection trying to turn despite oncoming traffic!) A motorcycle that’s swerving in and out of traffic! Speed bump! A grown woman that just decided to cross the street without looking in either direction beforehand! Another motorcycle with four people on it, also nearly crashing! A truck full of dubiously precarious bricks that look like they’re about to come crashing down on top of someone any minute! Speed bump! A bulldozer going .05 miles an hour! All of the other cars trying to go around the bulldozer even though there’s not space to safely do so! Speed bump!
photo from bigskysouthernsky blog on wordpress. This is one kind of speed bump around here. There are several types, and there are really EVERYWHERE.
A bicycle cart- image from Google.
At the big intersections, you must avoid hitting any of the people standing or walking essentially in the middle of the road! The people selling pineapple juice, the people trying to wash your windshield in exchange for spare change, the traveler kids hula hooping or spinning fire for spare change, the just-out-of-the-hospital folks asking for help on crutches or with pee bags hanging out of their clothes or other major noticeable health problems, the occasional small child walking through the stopped cars selling something useless, the people in the middle of the road just trying to cross the damn busy street. Green light! Those traffic lights are great, let me tell you.
In other parts of town, however, there is the dilemma over who has the right away at many unmarked, stop-light-free, sign-free intersection. Often you know that you have the right-of-way, but does the car coming up the other street believe that as well? Who is going to stop? Then there are the intersections where neither street is bigger or more trafficked than the other, so who has any idea who has the right-away? I don’t. I drive slowly and cross my fingers a lot. At some intersections, it’s unclear even which part of the road is the lane for each direction, particularly when there are three different possible roads to turn down at the intersection. (Who planned these roads, anyway? Some of them appear to have been done by some haphazardly working drunk.) This is why there is a lot of praying on the road in Mexico. This is why there are so many religious objects in people’s cars, in taxis, even on public buses. Every day that you don’t crash is a small miracle.
But wait! The game continues! To arrive home, you must drive through a neighborhood. You might think you’re in the country, what with the dirt road once you get a couple blocks away from the main road. But you’re really less than 2 miles from downtown. There’s a one lane bridge: who goes first? Will the motorcyclist want to play chicken? Speed bump! Dog in the road! Chicken in the road! Toddler in the road! Speed bump made out of dirt! Big dip in the road- slow down! Really old guy pushing his ice cream cart in the road! Surprise dirt speed bump somebody must have made while you were out! Children out with their mama’s errand bag in the road! A big curve in the road where you can’t see an oncoming car because someone built a giant fence around their house at such a perfect angle! A whole herd of goats! More children! Slippery mud because somebody’s washing clothes and there’s nowhere else for the water to go! More adults in the road! Another car- scoot over because there’s barely enough room for both of you!
I think that in the video game, the objective will be the same as my real-life objective: get where you are going as fast as you can without any accidents- not even a chicken hurt. Would you like this game? Should I invest? Would you, or do you, like the thrills of driving in small town Mexico? Where have you driven (or ridden around) where it feels like a wild video game?
Here’s a map of Puerto Escondido to give you an idea of the layout.
Watch out for children and piñatas in the road at all times!
exile to mexico 
Glad you have a sense of humor about it. I’m developing an ulcer just reading about it. Yikes!
Well, you have to have a good sense of humor to survive. That said, I’ve been driving here for three years and I never *exactly* get used to it.
I’m just glad that adorable little taxi-hailer is going to fix all the roads one day… Miss you all.
Ha, I’m glad too! I wish he’d hurry up!
Miss you too!!