Highways, Byways, and Topes

Today let's talk about the roads...are you ready for a bumpy ride?

The main streets of PV are very nice. 4 lane divided with 2 "turning lanes" on either side of the main road. You will find the main roads like this going through town. And yes, I did mean to say "turning lanes on the outside of the main road." If you want to turn left, you must exit the main street into the turning lane. About every block or so there is an exit into the turning lane. Then you can turn left with the green arrow, across all lanes of traffic! Thus, in PV, one needs to go right in order to turn left!

When you get off of the main traffic streets, you come to the cobblestone streets. Quaint! Very quaint, you say? Bump,bump,bump. Cars can travel about 20 mph. Some do...and some don't! Taxis flying down the cobblestones are a familiar sight. Hang on! Also, since there are no sewers for the rainwater, when it rains (everyday during July, August, and September) water collects in the streets and much of it remains. Splash.Splash.

Next come the dirt roads. Mud, dirt, real dirt roads. With potholes that you could bury a small child in. The school is located almost 1 mile off the main road on the dirt road. I travel this dirt road twice a day.

And then there are the topes! Topes are speed bumps to the non-Spanish speaking folks. And such speed bumps you have never seen the likes of! Seriously, they are huge rock-type things across the road and every car literally stops, gets the front wheels across and then stops to get the back wheels across. The next tope might be 15 feet further down the road and another 30 feet on down. I am reminded of the old movies of the covered wagons, limping across rivers and mountains only this time, I am in the "wagon".

The huge potholes in both the dirt roads and the cobblestone streets collect water which has been there for as long as I have been here. But this is the rainy season. I have seen water covering the wheels of cars; in fact, every morning I ride to school with the elementary principal and she drives through water that I would never go into. I just hope we make it each day.

My house is on a cobblestone street and as you can imagine, in between the stones are large and small puddles of water. The people here just walk right through it like it wasn't there. When the sun comes out, as it does every day too, some of the smaller puddles dry up. It rains once, sometimes twice a day for varying amounts of time, and then the sun shines, cranking up that humidity!

As I said, I ride to school in a car but I come home on the city bus. Bus rides on dirt and cobblestone streets can set your head spinning! But that story is for another day.

Hasta luego.