Mexican Driving Lessons

After we got the car that we paid too much for and didn’t even want, we had to make our way to the highway towards Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart would have been a straight shot if we could have just taken a left turn out of the rental lot. But, I’ve learned that Puerto Vallartans go out of their way to make driving as complicated as possible. This includes divided highways, sub-divided on each side. Of course, you make your left turns from the division farthest to the right. Sometimes the left turn lane is in the left lane of the right division, but most of the time you make left turns from the lane farthest right. Sometimes there are two left turn lanes in the farthest right two lanes. I haven’t figured out how you distinguish a left turn lane from a straight lane, or figure out when there is only one left turn lane or two, except that maybe there’s two lanes if the guy in front of you is also turning left, and maybe not. Oh, but watch out for the divided roads where the left turn lane is actually just the left-hand lane. Those will get you every time.

We pulled right onto the highway, as we couldn’t cross the divider at that point, or go right to make a left. We went around the block and immediately after pulling off the main drag we found ourselves repeatedly bottoming out on pothole-laced dirt roads. Dirt is the norm for Mexico. Roads in nice neighborhoods are cobblestone; paving is strictly reserved for highways and resorts, but only if the crew doing the paving then goes back and creates an adequate number of potholes to make the road both dangerous and comfortable for those used to the dirt roads after a flood.