Most of the family was in a stunned silence when our then-useless SUV finally rolled to a stop on the other side of the bridge. An aunt was crying in the seat in front of me. A cousin was having a panic attack. I was imploring my uncle to put the car in park — that was enough driving for the day, thanks. My uncle was spryly hopping out of the car while letting out a celebratory yewwww and looking around at us with a grin.
I’d just spent the summer studying international environmental law in Costa Rica. Before heading home, I met my family — three generations on my mom’s side — in Puntarenas, one of a handful of laid-back surf towns strung around the southern tip of the country’s stunning Nicoya Peninsula. Halfway into our trip, some of us decided to visit nearby Montezuma, where we spent an eventful night dancing with locals and bonding. There was alcohol.
The next morning we had plans to explore Malpais, so the rest of the family picked us up in the Ford Expedition that came with the house we’d rented. A barely functioning SUV that rattled something awful and died at random, it could generously be likened to a covered wagon.
I’d read that the surfing was good in Malpais, so despite having car concerns and a virulent hangover, I was ready to go. My uncle Dennis at the wheel, we took off down a particularly unforgiving, pothole-addled dirt road. At a certain point during the early going, my worse-for-the-wear body began to revolt, prompting me to say something to the effect of: “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” In retrospect, that was ill-timed hyperbole.
We hadn’t been driving long when the car started swerving. From the back I could see that my uncle was hunched over the wheel, basically standing up. What I couldn’t see was that he was also stomping hard on the brake, futilely attempting to slow us down.
The dirt path between Montezuma and Malpais is one of the only byways in a relatively remote region of the southern Nicoya Peninsula, an area of Costa Rica notorious for its terrible roads. It winds dramatically through dense jungle and is difficult to navigate when your brakes are functioning properly — ours weren’t.
In the first moments following brake failure, Dennis maintained tenuous control of the car, which was already gaining speed, by swinging it from one edge of the road to the other. The gradient was steepening, but it was still gentle enough to provide us with some maneuverability. We weaved around a series of blind curves, confident that the terrain would eventually flatten out, eliminating the need for more drastic measures. It didn’t. Instead, it became significantly more precipitous, more treacherous; and as the slope sharpened, the jungle constricted, taking away our margin for error. In seconds, we’d reached the point where it would be too dangerous to do anything but steer and hope for relief ahead.
With a look of focus on his face that was intensifying by the second, Dennis snaked across the path in an attempt to slow our increasing momentum — a tall order given that there were 12 of us in the car (yes, 12 people weighing down a beater Ford Expedition built for eight). Still no brakes. And the road felt like it was getting steeper around each successive turn.
A minute passed. Continually building speed, we narrowly skipped past oncoming cars. More blind curves revealed nothing but a continuation of a seemingly interminable descent. A palpable tension crept into the car, displacing any hope we’d had that the brakes would start working again. At peak velocity, we were moving about 50 miles per hour. One moment of wrong steering would have had us crashing through the forest.
Two minutes passed. The novelty of being in a runaway car had worn off, along with my hangover, when a section of flat road finally appeared through a clearing. It was at the bottom of yet another steep pass, and it would have been a welcome sight were it not for the very small wooden bridge that was also at the bottom of the hill, suspended high above a river and separating us from our much-needed runway. I quickly calculated that it was the exact width of a Ford Expedition chassis. It looked like it belonged on a golf course.
To make matters worse, there was another car driving toward the other side of the bridge, nearing the threshold from the opposite direction. We were already approaching at an awkward angle, going way too fast, in an over-capacity SUV with no brakes; so, if they tried to get on the bridge, we were absolutely going into the gulch below. I braced. My uncle, on the other hand, hadn’t flinched.
If there’s one person in my family who is made for these types of scenarios, it’s Dennis. My uncle and mom spent a significant portion of their childhood on Kodiak Island, Alaska, where my grandfather — a nuclear specialist for the Navy — was stationed. Dennis spent a significant portion of that time hunting and fishing in the Alaskan wild.
An intrepid nature and indifferent attitude to hazardous undertakings have been hallmarks for Dennis (the man once took a semester off to hunt moose in Canada). And, to some extent, they still are (during our trip he sincerely mused about giving up the grind to live in one of the tiny Costa Rican fishing shacks we kept seeing). Family members often tell me how similar we are. I’d like to think they’re referencing my adventurous spirit, though I suspect it has more to do with the fact that we kind of look alike. Either way, I hope it’s true.
The other car quickly pulled off the road, no doubt apprehending the danger they were in, but also dutifully obeying the only Costa Rican traffic law, which states, “The right of way belongs to the person with the least command of their vehicle.” So, we had enough space to sneak by if we could traverse the bridge. But that was a massive if. This was perhaps the longest and steepest elevation we’d encountered, culminating in a tight curve that led to an impossibly narrow wooden span. With as much speed as we’d gained, and no ability to slow down, getting as much as one tire onto the bridge was going to be a feat.
We reached the bottom of the hill, and Dennis jerked the wheel. The car skidded hard in response to the quick correction, its nose lurching toward the bridge’s entrance. The heavily weighted back end — four of us were huddled there, without seats or restraints — swung wide. As the front tires slipped onto the first few planks of the wooden crossing, screams split the air.
The rear of the SUV continued its slide, not yet making contact with the threshold. Our momentum could have easily carried the back wheels past the opening, which would have yanked the front end from its precarious position on the bridge and sent us tumbling into the river. But my uncle had timed it perfectly. And in its final act as a semi-functional piece of machinery, the car — miraculously — found purchase. The rear tires gained traction just as the back end was evening up with the dirt-strewn threshold, and we skated across. It was masterful. I have to believe it’s the closest a Ford Expedition will ever come to being used as a rally car.
The road widened considerably through the clearing, and the flat land allowed us, mercifully, to coast to a stop. Two older ladies got out of the other car, approaching us cautiously. Once out of the death trap, I walked over and thanked them for moving out of the way and checking on us, attempting to explain in broken Spanish what had happened, and that we were fine. Still, they looked like they were terrified for us. (It’s also possible they were terrified of us, given that my uncle wasn’t remotely fazed and actually seemed really stoked.) They explained to us how lucky we were to come out unscathed, how dangerous the jungle is for drivers, and how blessed we were to have been given new lives. It all rang true.
I still wonder what was going through my uncle’s head as we barreled down that road. Between the knowledge that most of his extended family was in the car, and that things could’ve gone very wrong, probably a lot. I’m sure he was scared, too. I imagine he, too, was wondering how in the hell we’d lost our brakes on that particular road. If my uncle and I really are that similar, though, then I at least know why he was smiling once it was all over.