DRIVING mi loco!

For those of you actually following this blog, sorry for the delay between postings; I traded the hot humid weather here for a wonderful girls weekend in chilly Chicago. Nothing like a Bears game in windy 45 degree weather to cure island fever. For you football fans, what a great game, the Bears beat the Vikings! Text about that Brett. (Sorry Favre fans) 

Anyhow, back to the real topic at hand, driving in Vieques. Driving in Vieques is really unlike any other vehicular experience I've ever had. I've been to Mexico, Japan, Thailand, the Cayman Islands, etc. and I have never had a remotely close experience. So to give you the best visual possible I have compiled a "Top 5" list, accompanied by several photos of course, as to why driving in Vieques is so....interesting.

#5- Chit Chat

So I'm sure many of you are asking, what does she mean by chit chat. Unlike us in the States I do not mean that they can't drive worth a dang because they are too busy talking on their cell phones, I mean that they actually don’t drive (stop completely) to chit chat with a friend walking by or the person that may be driving the opposite direction. What exactly is so pressing that they feel the need to stop traffic, sometimes in both directions, I have yet to discover, but I imagine it must be extremely important..."Hey amigo, where are you going for cervezas tonight?"

I know what you’re thinking, why don't you just honk and get 'em moving. Trust me I know, I thought the same thing but believe it or not honking at the person who has so politely stopped traffic to chit chat is actually poor etiquette. Like any mature and extremely patient adult, you just sit and wait. (Sorry, no photo of this, I wasn’t sure if people would think me rude for taking a photo of the chit chatters)

#4- Narrow Roads

I can’t even think of something witty to say about this, the roads are just NARROW. I’m talking pull your mirrors in when you’re driving so you don’t hit the car parked on the side of the road, can’t tell if it’s really a one way street, all the cars have scratch marks down the side of them narrow. Here are a couple of photos to help illustrate my point.

You can see how this may be problematic when driving a large vehicle or even more so when a large vehicle is coming right at you.

#3- Parking

This tends to go hand in hand with the narrow road thing, although sometimes it is actually the cause of the narrow roads. So apparently the rule here is, so long as the curb is not painted blue or yellow and one car can still pass by then you can park there. You don’t even need to park facing the proper direction, as illustrated below, you can just pull across the road and park in a spot no matter what direction you are going. If you ask me, the rule “as long as one car can pass by” is rather subjective, one car as in a Geo Metro or one car as in a 10-passenger cargo van, see where I am going with this? As most of you know I am currently driving a nice but rather large four-door Jeep Wrangler with mirrors that stick out a good 10-12 inches (pull your mirrors in when you drive). I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had to drive up onto the curb to get down a street because there is not enough room for me to actually pass by, however the "parker" thought that “one car could pass by,” yes, that one car is indeed the Geo Metro.




Look very closely at the park job of all of the cars, which way does traffic go? Any way it pleases.



#2- Potholes

There is plenty of sand on this island, can’t we at least just fill them with sand? Something? Anything? Bueller, anyone?




Yes, this is also a two-way street in case you were wondering (see #4, narrow roads)

 

 *Speaking of potholes, don't forget to watch the video below to see how well maintained the beach roads are here. 

#1- Animals

Ok, so we’ve all had a dog or cat run out in front of our car scaring the crap out of us as we swerve to miss it, but how about a horse, chicken, iguana or crab in addition to the usual dog and cat. Yes, you read correctly. Just today actually, I had to brake rather quickly (the speed limit on the entire island is 35 so that tells you how fast I was driving) because a horse, not a chicken, decided to cross the road. The animals here have become so accustomed to being in the road that dogs, or goats, will actually nap in the middle of the street and lift their heads just long enough to let you know that the sound of your vehicle is disrupting them. No one bothers to cage in their animals, instead the creatures have free reign over the island, but heaven forbid you hit someone’s chicken or horse. Should you have the misfortune of hitting another’s unkempt animal and you’re a gringo, you better believe they are going to come after you for the money to replace their horse, chicken, dog, crab whatever it was, even though they may not have seen it in a month.

Related story: An employee of a “Well knoWn” resort (get it…) was driving home from the bar intoxicated one night (drinking and driving is legal here, but not wearing a seatbelt will earn you a fat ticket) and happened to hit one of the only two cows on the island. Unfortunately this resort has pretty recognizable vehicles and of course someone was witness to this “hit and run.” The next day there was a line out the drive of the resort of people claiming to have owned this cow seeking compensation for their loss.

Moral of the story, if you’re going to drink and drive, remember the cow in the road is not a hallucination!

So what do I have to say for the strange rules, narrow roads, chit chatters, potholes and animals? It’s always an interesting ride (drive) and if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. “Hola amiga, donde esta la fiesta tonight?”  

Here is a fun little video of our drive to the beach. The beach roads, like all of the other roads truly are an adventure.

                               Warning-Do not attempt this at home (or without 4-wheel drive)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels!

Rental Car, Rental Car, Where Art Thou Decent Rental Car?

As most of you know I like nice cars. But when we decided to make the move to Vieques I also decided that it was time to trade in the Infiniti for a shiny new (well not really) Jeep Wrangler.

I'm actually very excited to get my jeep since I think it will make me look a little more like a local (fake it till ya make it right?) but that's still a couple of weeks away as the customs department down here is like everything else...very slow. Until then we are able to expense up to (4) weeks of rental car, if you can find one for that long. Apparently that's another thing that there is not enough of on the island, rental cars. We called several places and the only place that had a car available for up to three weeks was a newer business on the island so we booked it. In order to protect this newer businesses dignity, I mean identity, we shall call them "Joe's." The experience with Joe's started out wonderful. We were late getting to the island so "Joe" told us that he would take the car home from their lot and we could meet him at his house, walking distance from ours, to get the car whenever we got in. Got over to Joe's house around 7pm, signed all of the necessary paperwork and drove back home in a 1999 Jeep Cherokee, cool, I look like a local! 

Seeing as how there is only one gas station on the island that has a tendency to run out of gas, I was told by several people "Never let your tank get down to 1/4 or less," so after a day and a half of driving around and only half a tank to begin with, I figured I better put some gas in my fine Puerto Rican driving machine. I pulled into the gas station, went in, you can't pay at the pump, and told the nice man behind the counter "Veinte on dos por favor" - thank you language learning software- and proceeded back to the pump. I placed the nozzle in the gas tank, squeezed the lever and SPLASH....gas all over my foot! Do gas pumps work differntly here? The sad thing is that I actually double checked to make sure that I had properly placed the nozzle in the tank as if I hadnt been doing this for thirteen years. (In case you were wondering, yes, it was placed in there properly) Not quite sure what to do and certainly looking a little stunned, I stood there for a second until the man at the only other pump at the station came over, got on the ground and tried to tell me in Spanish, not so successfully, that the gas line was cut. Yep, that's right, thieves on the island steal gas out of your car too! I would have thought siphoning it would have been easier, but I guess when you're a stoned teenager cutting the gas line seems like a good idea at the time.

Joe was very understanding as to why I needed to return the car and although he didn't have another rental available until Thursday (this was Tuesday) he offered to loan me his personal car until he could get me into another rental. Once again I met Joe at his house, returned the almost gasless white Cherokee and drove off in his green Cherokee, all was good.

I agreed to return Joe's car to him at 4:30pm on Thursday in exchange for the new rental that I would hopefully be driving for the next two weeks. We met at their lot this time, which is really just a grass lot on the way home from the W. Joe walked me over my new rental and I just about bust out laughing. There was no way Steve was going to fit comfortably in this Geo Tracker or whatever this thing was but I guess it was going to have to do. I exchanged the keys, signed for the new car and got ready to drive away. As I turned on the engine I would have sworn that I just hit the ignition button on a rusty old 747 Jumbo Jet, damn this thing is loud and not in a good way. "Adapt, adapt, adapt" I kept telling myself trying my best to push my ego aside. Then I looked down at the instrument gauge and noticed the check engine, oil and airbag lights were all on, hmmm, "I'm sure they wouldn't rent it to me if any of these things were really wrong, they probably just cant afford to have the lights switched off," I justified and clanked away in my new rental car.

I picked Steve up from work that night around 10:30pm in the "new" rental and the first words out of his mouth once he heard, I mean saw, it were "What the hell is this?" After the short three mile, twelve minute drive home he ordered me to "Call around and find a new rental car tomorrow, I'm not going to have you, a little gringo girl, driving around in this thing. I'm not sure if its going to die or explode first but you're not going to be driving it when that happens" Obviously no complaints from me.

The next morning I called Maritza's car rental who had just had a car returned that I would be able to rent for the next few weeks. They agreed to pick me up at the W at noon to take me to their office to sign papers and retrieve yet another rental car. My sister and I hopped in the clunker around 11:30am, stopped at the post office where the locals literally laughed at my heap of clanking metal (if the locals laugh at your car your know its BAD) and proceeded to the W. We entered the gates to the hotel and about half way down the drive I heard it, the sound of steel marbles in the engine, then complete silence. "Oh sh*t, the engine just blew" I started praying with all my might that the car had enough momentum to make it in to the parking lot. No such luck.

Yes, I had to do the POS car push in the middle of the W drive. Fortunately my sister was with me and when two gardeners at the property noticed, they ran over to help push it the remaining twenty yards into the parking lot. Once the car was in the lot I immediately picked up the phone and dialed Steve. I wont even begin to detail the expletives that I used when telling him how furious I was that I just pushed the POS that we were paying $55 per day for into the parking lot. Breathe......

I handed Steve the keys to the heap and told him to call Joe and tell him to come pick it up just as Maritza's arrived to take me to get my 4th rental car in seven days. Maritza's was nice, they had an actual lot, a nice air conditioned office and extremely friendly staff. So long as the car they gave me didn't sound like a jet engine with marbles in it I had a feeling things were starting to turn around, on the rental car front anyways. I signed the necessary documents and was then asked to go outside to inspect the car. Just then one of the employees pulled up in front of the office with my new rental. Be still my heart....could it really be? A shiny NEW red four-door Jeep Wrangler. I could barely contain my excitement, you would have thought they were pulling up in a brand new Audi S5 for me, but after the past few days this jeep was my knight in red shining armor! I walked around and inspected the car, it was as perfect as one would expect give the terrain on this island, and then returned inside to claim the keys.

I hopped in my new ride, put the key in, turned the ignition and that's when I heard it....Gwen Steffani. What!!! It has a radio, that actually WORKS!!!! I went to crank up the volume and at that moment I could swear a tear of joy ran down my face (OK, it was actually sweat from the obscenely hot humid weather but just play along), there was an i-pod plug. Oh My Gosh! I squealed like a thirteen year old at a Justin Bieber concert, cranked up the volume and drove off into the sunset (sunshine, whatever) in my new red four door Jeep Wrangler.

I am happy to report that I have now been driving the AWESOME jeep for thirty-one hours, its running great and I still love it! Good to know that there really are decent rental cars on the island.