Driving in Colombia: A Beautiful Disaster

I spent a lot of time in traffic today, and this serene period of reflection gave me a new appreciation for the utter chaos that is driving in Cartagena. This isn't merely what we think of as "bad traffic" nor the usual lack of respect for traffic laws displayed in most developing countries. No, driving in this city has gone beyond such banalities and ascended to a higher plane of lunacy; it has become an art form, an exquisitely subtle ballet of metal, flesh, and concrete, each careening around and past each other in a stunning display of grace, speed, and disregard for human life.

First let's talk about the streets. In Cartagena there is not even the pretense of lane lines, not even the concept of dividing up the streets into coherent sections. Any given passage, whether it's a narrow alley or a highway, is a mad rush of kill-or-be-killed survival, any pause or hesitation exploited by a half-dozen road warriors who are completely willing to run you off the road if they can gain half a car-length of advantage.

Even the division with the oncoming lane is viewed as a technicality: at every opportunity drivers will swerve into oncoming traffic to get around a bus or motorcycle, regardless of whether or not there are cars in that lane. Sometimes they'll even just hang out there, enjoying the open road while forcing oncoming cars onto the shoulder from their own side of the road without so much as a wave by way of apology. I guess they don't feel too guilty since just up ahead the cars driving in the opposite direction are doing the same thing, which once in a while causes two walls of cars, each packing 4 or 5 columns of drag-racing madmen into what should be a two-lane two-way road, to meet each other in a honking, swearing morass of spinning tires and death threats.

Road construction is ubiquitous in Cartagena, supposedly as part of a city-wide road renovation, although it seems to have been going on for as long as anyone can remember, as it is even mentioned in guide books and tourist pamphlets. People are extremely used to it, which must be why they don't make any effort to block off or place signs near construction zones. If they need to make a giant hole in the middle of the city's busiest intersection, by god, they dig one, common sense safety measures be damned! Construction materials are sometimes dumped in the road, where they conveniently double as speed bumps, and workers seem to have developed a color of clothing that completely blends into surrounding traffic, traffic which encroaches upon the work site as if it's an on-ramp.

And then there's the buses. These beauties really deserve their own post, but while I'm on the subject of traffic I might as well include them.

There is no form of city-run transportation in Cartagena, therefore the bus system is made up of a large number of private bus companies who essentially do whatever they want. Buses come in every imaginable shape and size: from shiny, air-conditioned shuttles to rickety jeeps with a couple seats under a flimsy canopy to diesel monsters belching smoke to wooden chiva party-buses.

But the most common type of bus is mid-sized to large, and painted in bright colors with various crazy decorations. Giant spoilers jutting high into the air, shiny gangster rims, glittery paint - they really go all out in their attempts at catching your attention. They also all seem to be dueling to see who can have the most random and nonsensical sticker on their back window. A few days ago I saw one with a giant picture of Jesus looking down upon the Earth from space with a single tear rolling down his cheek and the caption "Jesus sees what you do, and it makes Him sad." Today I saw one that almost made me cry myself it was so bizarre: a huge U.S.A. flag with a helicopter breaking through the center, with the simple large caption: Bomb.

I really struggled with this one: Did they mean "bomb" in an imperative sense as in "keep bombing those bad guys!" or in an educational sense like "this is a bomb" or was it a warning like "Oh my god, watch out, there's a bomb!" I was deteriorating into an existential breakdown when it occurred to me that the sticker's creator was probably as clueless as I was when it came to its meaning.

As amazing as these buses can be on the outside, they're even wackier on the inside. The drivers treat the front area of the bus as their own personal shrine, and fill it with anything they seem to find interesting: statues of saints, porn centerfolds, miniature cars, sports paraphernalia, stuffed animals. One time I saw a life-size, realistic-looking baby hanging from the rear-view mirror. By its neck. Another time I saw a driver who had lined the entire cockpit area with bright pink fur, including the steering wheel, and remember being impressed at how secure he was in his masculinity. In general I really wonder whether these guys ever worry about how their little freak shows look to the hundreds of people passing through their bus every day. I guess not.

My favorite thing about the buses, though, has to be their horns. My theory is that as a response to jaded motorists who didn't even notice the constant barrage of honking horns anymore, bus drivers adopted a new system to get their attention. The result is that bus horns in Cartagena are like those toy weapons we used to play with as kids: their honking sound cycles between lasers, machine guns, police sirens, nuclear launch alarms, and, my favorite, a long whistle descending in pitch and ending in an explosion. The audacity of using these sounds in a country wracked by decades of virtual civil war and in which it is common to see children without limbs because of these conflicts redefines for me the term "tragic irony."

And then there are the motorcycles. Whereas the cars merely ignore traffic laws, these guys actually treat them with contempt. They use their bikes as weapons of intimidation, jutting their wheels through centimeter-wide cracks just to see if you have the nerve to not swerve sharply out of the way. They cut off trucks and buses that would crush them without even noticing and don't even flinch with the ensuing screeching brakes and machine gun fire. They seem to be just daring you to put them out of their misery, mocking your aversion to involuntary manslaughter with ever more daring feats of recklessness.

I must say though, they do find an unusually wide variety of uses. Here is a list of things I have seen riding on motorcycles: dogs and cats, pregnant women, a husband and wife and their two small children, washing machine, window frame, construction materials, small refrigerator, very recently discharged hospital patients and, most unusually of all......helmet.