Do not drive after dark in Costa Rica if you are not very familiar with your area. That means you should plan to be at your destination by 6 pm. The days are nearly uniform throughout the year, dawn coming between 5 and 6 am and dusk between 5 and 6 pm. Thus, if you have a flight arriving late in the day, or you are leaving fairly early in the morning and you have a long drive, you should plan on spending the night of arrival or the night before departure near the airport so you can taxi to or from your flight.

Driving with your lights on during daylight is not acceptable as a visibility tactic. Oncoming traffic will blink their lights at you until you turn yours off. You are disrupting an informal law of the Costa Rican roads. Lights are used to warn oncoming drivers that you have recently passed a surprise highway patrol checkpoint and the other drivers had better slow down.

A majority of bridges, not those on the Interamerican Highway or most in San Jose, are single-lane, but this is not a problem for those who can read or recognize the small triangular sign on a post that says "CEDA El Paso." This means give way. If your end of the bridge has this sign, permit any oncoming traffic to cross the bridge first.

On curves, drivers in outside lanes tend to straighten the curve so that drivers in inside lanes have to anticipate the possibility of head-on collisions or at least a sideswipe as they go into a blind curve, though these rarely happen. Costa Rican drivers are used to finding the oncoming driver, who should be in the outside lane instead in the middle of the road on a curve. Since the other driver of the car - or truck! - will maintain his shortcut arc rather than swerve back into his own lane, the inside driver must squeeze over or slow down. Squeezing over to the very edge of the road on a blind curve has a further danger because it's quite possible to find yourself about to run down a bicyclist or pedestrian just around the curve on a country road. Bicyclists and pedestrians are common day or night, but lights or reflectors are uncommon, so the driver must be preternaturally vigilant and cautious. Monkeys and sloths are less common on the roads, but you must watch for those, too.

Those who elsewhere in the world have trouble backing into parallel parking will find this skill little-needed in many Costa Rican towns. Most helpfully, you have a choice of parking on either side of the street, two-way as well as one-way. What's more, you can probably get away with double-parking or perhaps getting just the nose of the car into a short parking space at an angle, though these are best done only short periods of time. If you can't bring yourself to use these parking tactics, just be aware that many other drivers will.

Stop-sign protocol is liberal in Costa Rica, though often stops are required - supposedly - where stop signs are absent. The sign may have broken off, leaving a naked post, or perhaps the sign is completely faded. You might find no stop indicators, but local drivers know where they are supposed to be. The infamous "California rolling stop," for which one might get ticketed in the US, is accomplished here with guiltless panache and rarely challenged impunity.

Recognizing one-way streets can be a problem. Usually, they are not marked. And since drivers may park in whichever direction works for them on either side of two-way streets, parked cars are sometimes a false clue. For example, in the town of Cañas on the Interamerican Highway, nearly all streets are one-way, but there are no signs. Thus, you must familiarize yourself with Cañas over time to avoid hood to hood impasse with someone who knows the town. Cañas also is distinctive because it is the rare Costa Rican town with street signs, small metal placards high on the sides of buildings at the corners.

Though there is much reason for frustration in driving the potholed paved roads and rough unpaved roads of Costa Rica, use of the horn is minimal and usually friendly or informational. A slight beep or beep-beep may be used to greet an acquaintance or to tell others that you're in their vicinity or about to be. "Leaning" on the horn is a means of telling others that you are not a Tico but instead either a clueless stranger or a complete jerk.

For those who can handle making their own driving decisions instead of strictly adhering to signs and lines, Costa Rica is an enjoyable and even thrilling place to drive. Despite the hazards and frustrations, there's no road rage here. So, relax, enjoy the adventure. Or let a Costa Rican do your driving.