Super Scare on Highway

I drove Yella to the David airport this evening. She is off to Colorado. She called when she got to PC, having arrived intact and at the right hotel. Ya!

Now for the drive back.

It was dark, rainy and really, really dangerous.

A little background...

Panamanians either have no lights or the lights are not aimed properly, meaning that the lights are in your eyes. Add in people walking on the side of the roads dressed in dark colors. Now mix in a little slow bus traffic, erratic side road entry and general stopping on the road for no reason.

Get the picture?

I was traveling through a little town when an on-coming bus pulled half off the road to let people exit. This is a typical move where the on-coming traffic swerves out into my lane to get around the bus.

Normally, this is accepted and easy to deal with.

But it's raining with lights in my eyes and I can't see shit. So I swerve over to the edge of the road or at least where I think the edge is.

Suddenly, I see a women walking on the edge of the road, dressed in grey, RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

Faster than I can think, I jerk the wheel over toward the center of the road, somehow missing her and the on-coming traffic. It seemed like it was physically impossible to miss everyone but I did.

Then I was left with the dump of adrenaline in my system. It took 30 minutes to calm down.

If you hit a pedestrian in Panama, you own them and their extended family for life. Not to mention hurting the person. This is the most trouble you can get into in Panama. You don't want to hit a walking person. Bad news!

Of course, people walk all over the roads. And, they pass out lying in the middle of the road. They stop to talk in the road and, generally do what ever they want in the road.

Shit! This is scary stuff.

I feel sooooo fortunate in avoiding this incident. Whew!!!!!!!!