We are relying heavily on Google maps to get us around through the many roads in this area, and – so far – it’s doing amazingly well!  However the funniest instruction is “… then, go straight.”  There is no opportunity to go straight here for more than several meters!

This picture shows the road as it goes through the nearby (5 minutes) village of Novella.  The road through the center of the village (upper left) is little more than a narrow driveway – yet, it not a driveway.  It is only one car wide at that point. If you follow down toward the bottom you’ll see a sharp 90 degree turn, then a hairpin/switchback turn, then another 90 and very quickly another turn of more than 90 degrees! Those 4 turns happen in less than 1/4 mile of driving!  This bit of road is not unusual – in fact, this is how it all is in the area. Of course it’s because of the moutinas. Going any distance causes you to be going up or down steep mountains, so the only way to make it work is to have these ribbon-candy like roads!

Today we were preparing to turn onto a road near where we are staying and suddenly a full sized transport truck came around the corner, drove by us and disappeared around another corner.  WOW!  This was a surprise.  We continued on our way and shortly came upon the truck pulled to the side of the road.  We continued, got some groceries and on the way back we pulled off to the side of the road at another intersection. (Shown here.)

As we sat and considered our route back, we looked up and to our surprise this is what we saw! The same truck came around the turn and on down that narrow road just like it was the Trans-Canada highway at home!  These guys are talented… but I don’t know what the driver meeting that truck would do!

Here is a quick video of a pretty moderate piece of local road:

A couple of road signs caught our attention today:

Chains must be ‘on board’ from 15 Nov to 15 April

Beyond this point either snow tires or chains must be used.

Finally, while on the topic of driving, I’m happy to report that after watching a local policeman park in front of his house, I used his kill as motivation for my own parking and am happy to report that I’m able to park like a local now!