drive by fruiting

I went to Santiago yesterday with a friend I picked up in Sosua.  We got back later than we wanted, there was lots of traffic by Puerto Plata where they were fixing the road and the traffic was getting backed up because only one lane was flowing.  

By the time I left Sosua for Rio San Juan it was just getting dark.  I’m pretty familiar with the route but this was my first nighttime journey.  Before I got to Gaspar Hernandez and after I left Sabaneta, in one of the little towns, somebody threw something at my car.  It felt like a mushy fruit, like an avocado or something with a lot of give.  It wasn’t a rock or an apple.  This morning we noticed a round spot on the windshield.  My maid thinks it was a tomato. It hit on the driver’s side close to the side edge.  I didn’t see it hit last night because my eyes were looking down at the road for holes.  I felt it and heard it but didn’t see it or who threw it.

My friend had warned me about stuff like this, throwing things at cars to get you to stop so they can rob you.  He mentioned even eggs as an example, which would be really hard to deal with at night because if you try to wash it with the windshield wipers, it just gets smeared all over.

It was odd I got targeted since I wasn’t the only car on the road and my windows are heavily tinted, my car came with a siren and loudspeaker in it and I had to change the windshield tint because it was presidential dark and you could barely see at night.  Whoever did it is pretty ballsy since this was probably a government car before I owned it and they had no idea who or how many people were in it.

I won’t be driving this route at night again, I will make sure I allow plenty of time for the drive home.  I probably am too ballsy for this country sometimes.

As it was, there were idiots walking in the road in lots of places, I almost hit a dog that ran full speed in front of my car.  He had something in his mouth, maybe food he just stole, it was a very big dog.  As soon as I saw him heading for the front of my car I thought in that split second oh no I’ve just killed this dog.  But my jeepeta has all wheel drive and a phenomenal computerized braking system so when I hit the brakes hard I missed the dog.  The tires didn’t squeal on the pavement at all.  I was so relieved!  I was going pretty fast, in between other cars going really fast and I’m lucky the moto who was right behind me didn’t mash himself, either.

I have hit a couple of deer when I lived in Georgia.  Once I came around a curve at night doing 60 and this huge deer with really big antlers was standing in the middle of my lane.  I swerved and almost missed but his butt went through the driver’s side headlight, taking it clean off, and he went right over the car.  It was a Corvette is why.  I pulled over and I got out to go back and kick the deer because I was really ****ed off but he had fled, there was no sign of him.  My car had deer hair embedded in the fiberglass and it cost $2500 to fix it, about 23 years ago.  We were both lucky.  I had avoided several deer running across the road there, they usually travel in pairs, when you see the first one you have to expect the other right behind him.

Wow, sleeping horses!  I have seen plenty of cows in the road but no horses yet.

I never go out at night so it really had me on my toes and focused but like everyone said, it’s a bad idea to drive at night here.  Now that I’ve made this trip once at night I will make sure I don’t do it again.  Ironically, I seemed to encounter more cars that night than during the day on the same route.