Mile Markers #3: Return to Chepe

I see green paint on the street. Is this a lucid dream? The narrow bike lane follows a sidewalk away from my hotel. It dips down a hill and re-emerges a few blocks away. There’s no telling how far it stretches down the street. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. My heart pounds. Fireworks detonate in my head.

Bike lanes in Costa Rica! I marvel. Who would’ve ever imagined?

I unfold my bike and attach the pedals. Hotel guests pass through the main door, furrowing their brows at my tiny machine and helmet. This is not a normal sight in San José, the capital of Costa Rica. I know I’ll get many stares today. But I don’t care; this moment has been years in the making.

I launch off the curb and pedal down the lane. I suck humid air into my lungs. Colorful plaster walls and corrugated steel roofs pass on both sides. This morning, I will ride the ciclovías. I will rediscover the city I once called home.

Costa Rica, Mi Amor

You lived in Costa Rica? For two years? Was it totally amazing?

I do love this reaction, just as I loved my time living there. I loved working as a staff writer for a local newspaper. I loved learning the ways of “Ticos,” as locals are known. I loved the friends I made, Tico and expat alike. I loved the spring-like weather of the Central Valley, no matter the time of year. I loved learning Spanish. I loved my simple, transplanted life.

But I did not love San José, the rambling metropolis where most people live. I doubt anyone does love it. The nickname for San José is “Chepe,” and Costa Ricans have a grudging relationship with their one major city. Chepe is dense and chaotic; one-way streets meander up and down hills; houses are encrusted in wrought-iron bars and concertina wire. Sidewalks are haphazard and dotted with litter. Avenida Central is a long pedestrian walkway, which is splendid in theory, but it teems with touts and grifters. When the equatorial sun sets around 5 p.m., the streets get eerily dark. To enjoy Chepe’s museums and galleries, restaurants and cafes, a newcomer has to work at it.

And my word, did I work; with the help of friends and coworkers, I learned the bus routes, frequented cool pubs, and caught performances at the Teatro Nacional. I sipped gourmet coffee and attended film festivals at Cine Magaly. I visited the weekly Feria Verde and witnessed dozens of open-air festivals and parades. Day by day, I found things to like about Chepe, things I would one day come to miss.

Also, I biked.

Costa Rica

Chepecleta

A week into my new life, my boss urged me to meet Roberto Guzmán, the charismatic leader of the Chepecletas. This was exactly what I needed – a bicycle advocacy group that organized group-rides through the city. On that first rainy excursion, they even loaned me a bicycle.

“Riding a bike in San José is still a quite new thing,” Roberto told me that day. “Many people, they don’t want to come to San José – even to walk. So we started, two years ago [2011], to promote biking in the city as a way of transportation. Our first activity, we were like five people, then twenty, then a hundred. We had even 800 people, in March.”

Roberto was a svelte guy of indeterminate age with slick glasses and a raffish beard. He spoke in thoughtful monologues about community and multi-modal transport. As a newcomer with a love for cycling, I’d struck gold. I pedaled all over this strange new city with scores of Ticos, guided at every intersection by a police escort. Despite the drizzle, that first ride remains one of my fondest memories.

“We want to show to the city that we were a group of people interested in using our bikes instead of cars,” Roberto added.

Yet even for the most starry-eyed New Urbanist, Chepe is rife with roadblocks. The land is hilly, and gets hillier as you enter the suburbs; some barrios are so steep that only the burliest four-by-four can possibly ascend their streets. The rainy season erodes pavement into a wasteland of fissures and potholes. To irrigate so much water, the roads drop off into deep trenches, and sidewalks are sometimes outfitted with small bridges to reach the crosswalks. Motorways are narrow, and shoulders barely exist. Cars crowd the avenues, along with trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, hawkers, and stray dogs. Copenhagen, this is not.

Chepe from Robert Isenberg on Vimeo.

Worse, Costa Rica has no real history of bicycles. Roads have always been rugged, where they even existed. Colonists used horses and mules. Today, buses are cheap and go everywhere, but they have no foldout bike racks. To lock up your ride, the best you can hope for is a sturdy sign post. The OMNi bike share program only lasted a year or so, a victim of COVID and ambivalent reception. There’s a whispered stereotype that cyclists are “poor”; only day-workers, who earn too little for a car or cab fare, would get around by bicycle.

Still, I tried to bike in Chepe. The city was reckless and stubborn, and so was I. My wheels threaded through dense traffic, crossed treacherous bridges with low guardrails, and narrowly avoided people on foot. It was slow going, and I often resorted to sidewalks. I rode a cheap folding bike, anticipating theft. I took the bike to beach towns and rural villages as well, where rustic backroads welcomed my thick tires.

Seven months into my new life, I charted a course across Costa Rica, 450 kilometers from one coast to the other. I sweated down highways, over mountains, past volcanoes, and through myriad little pueblos. I played chicken with big rigs and weathered rainstorms. This solo tour took me eight days, right through Holy Week. I celebrated Easter by dipping my wheels in the Pacific Ocean. That journey remains one of my most cherished experiences on the road.

Chepe never got easier. I rarely spotted other cyclists, and no one seemed to approve of my efforts, drivers least of all. When my wife and I finally decided to return to the United States, I sold the bike to a friend. She would, in turn, give it to her boyfriend as a birthday gift. I loved that my storied little six-speed would enrich the lives of people I knew. But my own experiment was over. Give me a place with infrastructure, any infrastructure.

It’s funny, though: The evening I took the bike to my friend’s apartment – so she could wrap it up for the big reveal – I rode it down Avenida 4, a long pedestrian mall in the heart of Chepe. And there, to my amazement, was a carpet of fresh blue paint, with the icon of a bicycle emblazoned in white. The ciclovía stretched for blocks up a gentle hill. I pedaled upward, heady with delight. The lane wasn’t well placed, and walkers trod over it with abandon, startled when I snuck up behind them. Yet the lane existed. For the first time in two years, on the very last night I would ride a bike in Chepe, a sign said: Yes, you have a right to be here. Better times are coming.

Mejor Que Nada

Seven years later, I am biking again in Chepe. I follow the ciclovía across wide avenues, down side-streets, and up and down hills. To my amazement, few cars are parked in the lane, which is more than I can say for Providence. Delivery trucks and motorcyclists give me the widest berth they can. The weather is blissful – sunny and warm, with the slightest breeze. Beyond the rooftops, the horizon is chevroned with mountains. I ride through downtown Chepe, past familiar museums and shops, until I arrive at La Sabana, the city’s beloved municipal park.

Ciclovía, Costa Rica from Robert Isenberg on Vimeo.

The ride ain’t easy. I can’t find a digital guide online, and Google Maps doesn’t show a single dotted line, indicating bike routes. The ciclovía makes several odd turns, and some crossings are comically dangerous. My folding bike is small and weird-looking; its three gears aren’t well suited for the climbs. When I pass a crowd, a man points and shouts in Spanish, “HOW MUCH FOR THE BIKE?”

“Too much!” I call back, followed by grizzled laughter.

The interaction is funny, but I’m clearly a spectacle. I realize that, aside from me, the ciclovía is completely empty.

But something happens, when I pedal across Calle 23, only a few blocks from my hotel. The streets level out; the free-form layout locks into grids. Lanes widen; sidewalks connect, uninterrupted. Children play in a parklet, and adults use the free exercise equipment. A light rail car eases down its tracks, clanging a bell. Restaurants emerge, plus cafes, food halls, bars, beer gardens, and bunch spots. On one corner, I spy a bona fide bike rack, artfully shaped like an actual bicycle. Couples stroll in the midday sun, holding hands and peering into windows.

This is Barrio Escalante, a neighborhood just east of downtown Chepe. The barrio has always been clean and well planned, with cute houses and manicured lawns. Yet I never imagined what Barrio Escalante would become, in only a few short years. A supermarket stands in the middle of it all, and shoppers flow through the automatic doors. The tension eases; I realize I’ve been gritting my teeth. The main drag looks curated, trendy, but not exclusive. Chepe has far ritzier districts, with luxury stores and gated communities, where you’re always in the crosshairs of a CCTV camera. Barrio Escalante doesn’t feel like that. It looks pleasant and carefree. It looks like a fun place to hang out. The motor traffic is slow, and I confidently coast alongside.

I don’t spot any bike lanes, except along the periphery. At the time of my visit – fall of 2022 – the ciclovía skirts Barrio Escalante without really passing through it. For once, I don’t feel like I need a ciclovía. Walkers and drivers and cyclists all share the roads here, an effortless coexistence.

None of this would matter; I don’t live here anymore, and I doubt I will again, as much as I miss my personal pura vida. But Costa Ricans pride themselves on peace and progress. Residents rate highly on “national happiness” surveys. The country has no military, locals love to brag, and the government uses that money for civic betterment. Such lofty aspirations deserve an exceptional capital city, a city that showcases carbon-neutrality and livable neighborhoods. There’s always the danger of gentrification; not every Tico can afford to live, or even hang out, in Barrio Escalante. But it feels like a step in a healthier direction.

I return to my hotel, thirsty, exhilarated, my mind racing with nostalgia. Today is a first: I rode a bike around Chepe, and I didn’t spend the whole time fearing for my life. I will later learn how controversial the ciclovía is, how many chepeños grumble about it. Well, I don’t care what they think. A dysfunctional city tried something new. As Ticos are fond of saying, about anything that requires time or effort: poco a poco.

Little by little, it’ll get there.