One vet who has lived here for a while is reader Rick Deahl who asked me if I would like to publish some information regarding medical and hospital services available to United States veterans living here in Costa Rica.

I jumped all over that, and this post is the result. If this topic is of interest to you, read on! I am not a vet, so if I screw up some terms, cut me some slack. If you wish to add information, correct me, please use the comments area at the bottom of this post. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised as to the breadth of the data and services available to vets. At the end of this post, look for a list of all web sites I could find that might be of value to vets living or coming to live in Costa Rica. Also, several links in this post require Adobe Reader be installed on your computer. Adobe Reader can be downloaded here.

Extensive medical benefits are available to vets living here.  By this I mean excellent medical care, access to specialists, hospitalization, prescriptions (either free or at a discount), and varying support services.

While it seems that some other hospitals do have some staff familiar with VA affairs, it appears that one hospital in particular is the best contact point and provider of all the services mentioned above.

Hospital Hotel La Católica (+506-2246-3000) also sometimes known as Clinica Católica is located in the San Jose suburb of Guadalupe. The hospital was known as Clínica Católica for twenty six years and was founded by Franciscan nuns.  Years later, the formal name was changed to Hospital Clínica Católica de la Purísima Concepcion Association or just Hospital Hotel La Católica.

Hospital Hotel La Católica actually has an American Legion office on the premises. The director Jim Young is the man in charge and he can be reached at +506-2246-3509.  He certainly would be a good place to start for gathering more detailed information than I can give in this post. His email is: jey08442[at]aol.com.

I don’t push advertising on the main web site or Blog, but I do put up a few ads to sort of cover some of the costs. It is always fun, though, to see just who visits The REAL Costa Rica during the month.

The Real Costa Rica gets a bit less than 60,000 new visitors every month making it one of the most popular Costa Rica web sites on the Internet.

Here is a summary of the basic stats!

Interested? Read on!

More Boys or Gurls?

More men than women. This is not too surprising as I think more men visit Costa Rica for various reasons… maybe the nightlife?

Old or Young?

This does surprise me! I would have thought I had more readers in the over 50 category! Only 26%.

Ethnic Mix

Another surprise! Far more Latinos than I would have imagined! I wonder why? Further… how do they know who is Latino and who is not??

Got Kids?

Odd! I would have thought that as the demographics show younger ages, there would be more kids. This sort of indicates I am getting a lot of tourist traffic.

Got $$$?

Absolutely no surprise. Ya gotta have $$$ to live, move or visit Costa Rica.

And finally… Got Education?

Bit higher percentage of college grads (57%

What to do when you are bored?

Stats can be seen in real time too. When I get bored or caught on a long call, I go here. There, I can watch people visit the RCR web site in real time, see where they come from, what browser they are using, and if they used a searh engine… which one they used and what were they searching for!

Now what does all this mean?

Nuttin’! Just me fooling around today.

Coming soon! How’s your dongle?

We live in the central valley not far from San Jose  so we are not troubled by snakes or wild animals. We do get the occasional scorpion (venomous but not life threatening), the occasional tarantula, but not much more. Killer bees live here, of course, and once in a while there are news reports about an attack… seldom fatal. The poison darts frogs of Costa Rica are quite famous and we can see them all the time near the river on my wife’s property in Limon Province, but they are not found in the central valley. Folks living near the beaches or in other truly tropical areas have told me of brushing against or handling certain varieties of caterpillars that can cause amazingly serious and painful injuries.

Here though, and right in our back yard, we get toads.  Big fat fellows that emit a serious poison through their skin when threatened. I must say I completely underestimated the danger of this reptile, and my lack of understanding almost cost the life of our dog, Piro. She would be dead if not for our parrot (lora). a yellow naped Amazon.

If this story interests you, read on!

The Bird (top left – whose real name is QuiQui) and the dog (bottom right) are fast friends. This was not always so as there was some dispute as to who was going to be alpha in the pet hierarchy. Those of you familiar with parrots know them as pretty fearless critters, and ours falls into that category quite nicely.  The Dog learned this the hard way having had her nose tweaked numerous times when she tried to assert herself. The Bird, who is quite capable of flight, prefers to walk. As walking places her nicely on the Dog’s terrain, turf wars were inevitable. It took the Dog and the Cats a very short while to learn who was alpha insofar as the floor was concerned.  The cats give her wide birth and the Dog is her sidekick covering her like a bodyguard.  This procession never fails to amuse me.

As mentioned, the Bird is quite fond of the Dog and it was this weird relationship that saved the Dog’s live a couple of weeks ago.

The Bird was in her outdoor cage and the Dog was roaming the back yard. We were all indoors doing whatever when QuiQui starts screaming. Those of you who know or have parrots know that when they let loose… they really let loose and can be heard for miles. As the bedroom is not miles from the back yard, we jumped out of our skins at the racket and ran outside to see what was the issue.

Piro had found and decided to chow down on one of the large toads I mentioned above.  The result was almost immediate and had not the Bird sent out the alert, it would have surely been fatal. Piro started running in circles, out of control as the poison entered her system via her gums. My wife and Carlos attempted to give her milk with lemon juice, later determined not to be a useful, and also used water to flush her mouth, later determined to be the correct thing, but still relatively useless.

We all piled into the car for the 1 KM trip to the vet hoping that she would be there. At this point, Piro was totally out of control, suffering spine bending contractions, similar to epileptic seizures of the grand mal variety.

We arrived minutes later, and thankfully, the vet was there. She grabbed Piro and placed her on the operating table. Piro’s heart rate was out of control and she bagan an IV, not a simple task on a dog suffering whole body contractions and whipping around like crazy. We  saw no improvement and the vet, without my wife seeing this, shook her head. No chance.

Still, she gave us small hope saying if she survived another 5-10 minutes….

She did, but the contractions were absolutely unchanged. There were no outward signs of improvement. It did not look good.

Carlos and I had to leave, but Maria Luisa decided to stay with Piro, promising to call when she either improved or…

Five hour later we got the call. Piro was alive and we went to pick her up. She was alive, but completely sedated from the drugs.

We made a bed for her indoors when we returned, but she did not move a muscle for 7-8 hours. When she did wake up, we discovered that she was completely deaf and blind. This was apparently normal because of the massive amount of drugs given her, but at the time, we did not know this.  It was heartbreaking.

Two days later, she regained her vision and hearing, but her coordination was gone.  She could not even negotiate a single six inch step. We had no idea what to expect and the vet, who I think was surprised she made it this far, could only suggest we wait to see how she progressed, but gave some hope that she might well recover completely.

She did!

It took two more weeks, but she made a 100% recovery.

Folks often ask about the vets here, and I have always said my experiences have been very good. Clearly, our vet did wonderful work, never leaving Piro’s side for almost 5 hours.

As we were leaving her office with Piro, I went to settle up the bill. I am not sure what I was expecting.  Veterinary care is less expensive her, but 5 hours? Drugs?

She told me the bill was 20,000 colones (about $40.00).  I said that was impossible, totally forgetting that my comment would be taken as trying to negotiate a better price. It was, and she looked embarrassed.  I looked more embarrassed as I explained it was far too little for the work, and not too much.  After “bargaining” she accepted 40,000 colones, and that was a battle.

Nice story huh?  Happy ending!

I told her last week that I planned to Blog this story.  She asked for confidentiality.  Please do not ask me for her name and office location.  She has a small practice and does not want/need new clients at this time.

That will soon change as the Costa Rica Central Bank, Banco Central de Costa Rica, does a complete do-over of the country’s national currency.

Changes to all bills (including the existing currency!) are drastic. Changes will include not only the standard anti-counterfeiting techniques standard on the Euro and the new US bank notes, but also two new denominations; the 20,000 and 50,000 colon bills. That is a Godsend!  Additionally,  the new bills will come in different widths… from 125 mm to 160 mm… truly important for the visually challenged.

If this topic interests you and you would like a peek at the new bills, read on!

First, the new bills are quite beautiful! All sport vivid new colors and designs, the requisite famous historical person, and now, some of the flora and fauna of Costa Rica.

Below are the new bills, front and back.  The front of the 2,000 colon note is under redesign and the one shown may have slight variations when actually produced.

All are 67mm high

Click any image to enlarge.

Front and back (below) of new 1,000 colon (un mil) note.
Width is 145 mm
Braulio Carrillo Colin

——-

Front and back (below) of new 2,000 colon (dos mil) note.
Width is 132 mm
Mauro Fernández Acuña

—–

Front and back (below) of new 5,000 colon (cinco mil) note.
Width is 139 mm
Alfredo González Flores

—-

Front and back (below) of new 10,000 colon (diez mil) note.
Width is 145 mm
José Figueres Ferrer

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Front and back (below) of new 20,000 colon (veinte mil) note.
Width is 153 mm
María Isabel Carvajal “Carmen Lyra”

—-

Front and back (below) of new 50,000 colon (cincuenta mil) note.
Width is 160 mm
Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno

]]> http://blog.therealcostarica.com/2010/06/06/easy-money/feed/ 3 http://blog.therealcostarica.com/2010/03/26/ice-pulls-a-fast-one-and-tim-switches-to-3g-big-time/ http://blog.therealcostarica.com/2010/03/26/ice-pulls-a-fast-one-and-tim-switches-to-3g-big-time/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:41:35 +0000 Tim http://blog.therealcostarica.com/?p=1063 OK… I give up!

As many folks know, I have been a staunch proponent of the old TDMA cell phones for… well forever! They worked and worked well.  Real workhorses. I hated the GSM phones and I still do.  However, my wifey switched to the new 3G system a few weeks ago, and I was so impressed (we actually had cell phone service in my office between San Jose and the SJO airport!) that I went out and bought one for me.

Now, after testing it and playing with it, I am ready to endorse the new 3G system. I did not order the Internet option as 1. is it too expensive and 2. My Ipod Touch does a far better job and has full wireless. Still… the 3G service is far better than the old GSM system.

If this topic interest you… read on!So what did ICE do now?  Basically, they have been shutting off service arbitrarily to a lot TDMA users.  A LOT! As some of you know, one of my businesses here in Costa Rica rents cell phones to tourists and to long term clients. I have been doing this for about 7 years and we have a large customer base and a lot of cell phones, mostly  TDMA because they work!

Saying that, you can imagine how I felt this past two weeks when our dear, and hopefully soon to be departed, monopoly started playing fast and loose with my TDMA customers!  I was truly honked! Obviously we called ICE and were told, “Huh?  We are having no problems.” ICE sure had better get their customer service s__t together before their competition comes in or it will be bye-bye ICE.

Incredible, La Nacion sure heard about their shenanigans as they wrote at least two articles discussing the service cuts and saying that a lot of people have filed denuncias (like law suits) against ICE.  Not surprising… there are still over 250,000 TDMA customers!

My suspicion is that ICE is having these “issues” to force TDMA users to switch to 3G long before 2011, the year they said TDMA will finally be shut down. My other suspicion is that they will never shut down TDMA as those new 3G phones are very expensive and to make a quarter of a million people (mostly Ticos who cannot just run out and buy a new phone when they want) switch would present a financial hardship to them.

However, their tactic worked with me…

Obviously, I could not sit by while my paying customers had no cell service…. so…. this week I bought all new 3G phones for my business, and that kind folks, was not cheap deal.

I guess I can now advertise that we are the only 100% 3G cell phone rental business in Costa Rica.  The new phones all sport bluetooth and 2 megapixel cameras.

It better work.  Those damned phones cost me a fortune!

As some of these were sent more than 5 weeks ago, I do appreciate your patience. I am just bombarded with email, especially now that readership in The REAL Costa Rica and this Blog is exceeding 63,000 new visits per month.

If this interests you, please read on.

Why have you stopped writing about the new traffic laws?

Because every few minutes the *&^(*^ government is changing their minds.  They have reduced many of the fines by as much as 66%.  The biggies have not changed (drunk driving, reckless driving, etc).  They have written a new law, but now there is pressure on the presidency to veto it! Despite the high fines, it appears the new (OK the old new laws of March 1) are quite popular.  Complicating all of this is that the transitos (traffic police) do not seem to be enforcing much of anything except the biggies. Basically, I just got tired or writing one thing only to have it change the next day.  Once the new new law has passed, I’ll probably update the info.

Car inspection was due by March 1. It did not pass. Repairs have been made; I have another appointment with riteve on March 26.
If I drive the car now and get stopped, can I be fined?  I have proof of the first inspection and upcoming one in the car.

Well here is a surprise!  It will depend entirely on the mood of the traffic officer who stops you.  He certainly can ticket you. Now whether he will???

What would be a good business to open in Costa Rica where I could hire local Costa Ricans to work it?  Retail or tourism would meet my needs.  Such as an inbound tour operator.  I am very experienced in this area.

There is probably no business more difficult to start here than anything connected with tourism. That includes hotels, B & B’s, travel agencies  or tours.  Marketing those businesses is nearly impossible without a huge advertising budget as there are only about 20,000 other companies here and in many other countries all competing for the Costa Rica tourist buck.  Good luck.

We’re on our way, driving!!!  Blake’s always wanted to do the PanAm highway thing, so we’re doing it.
…I’m planning on blogging our trip.  The link is here.   I’ve linked your website in several prominent places….thought you might be interested.      We’ll be in the San Jose area occasionally….hope to see you there.

I added this email so my readers who are interested can follow their adventure.  I get emails all the time about driving to Costa Rica via the Pan American Highway, so here is your chance to follow these folks!

For some reason there seems to be a problem with the website The REAL Costa Rica. When you hover over the links bar on the left (residency law, for example) it may or may not open the next drop-down box. But even if it does or doesn’t, you can’t access any other links without refreshing the page. I’m using IE8, and it has worked in the past. The only difference is that now I have Windows 7 instead of XP.

I actually have been receiving this question more and more since Vista and Windows 7 came out.

The issue is probably your PC.

VISTA and Windows 7 are memory hogs and really need a minimum of 512 MB of memory to work properly. One GB is preferred regardless of what Microsoft may tell you.  If you have less, you will experience these issues on many web sites using advanced scripting for menus.  In fact, your whole systems will operate slowly, especially if you have multiple programs/browser windows running.  If you do have sufficient memory, then the issue is very possible just that you are using an older PC running an old/slow microprocessor .

I read the article on gay and lesbian travel but what about interracial couples traveling in Costa Rica?  Is there an open prejudice in any area of the country?

Not really, at least none that I have ever heard of. In general, there is far less prejudice here of any type, though of course it may exist.  There are a lot of interracial couples living here and nobody seems to pay much attention. If anyone wants to comment on their personal experiences, please do so!

I am really a bit upset.  I wrote to you in January (copy attached) and just received a reply from (name withheld) yesterday! I suppose she is an employee?  That is 45 days.  If you cannot promptly answer people when they write to you, why do you even give that option?

Fair question!  When I first published the RCR web site, I received maybe 6-10 emails per month, and I answered all of them personally.

Then, about the time George Bush became president (maybe a year later), that number increased to about 10 per week and I answered all those emails personally.   W was none too popular!  Many of these people wanted to leave the USA and move to Costa Rica.

Then, just less than a year ago, the number of emails began to increase enormously with more and more people asking about getting out of the USA.  This was about six months after Obama became president.  It appears that he is far more unpopular than Bush ever was, and from the emails I receive, people are willing to do just about anything to just get away from the USA.  Very strange.  I guess things are very bad up there.

In any case, I am now receiving several hundred emails per week from all age groups and all political affiliations. Everyone seems to be scared of what is happening or what is coming and they want to get out of the USA ASAP.  Therefore, I have had to hire a person to reply to all those emails.  She just cannot handle the load and it can take weeks to get your reply. I am sorry that you had to wait, but the situation in the US seems to be just out of control.  NOTE: DO NOT make comments that I am anti Obama.  I am not… nor am I pro Obama.  I live here, and I do not have to deal with whatever is happening up there. I am just reporting a phenomena.

My wife and I are considering retirement in CR in a couple of years.  She is an excellent figurative sculptor, and would like to continue being creative.  She would like to sell her artwork on her own, or perhaps through a gallery, and may want to teach sculpting classes as well.

Artists are an exception to the work rule.  She can work her doing sculpting and sell her goods via a gallery.  As for teaching, I think not. There are many fine sculptors here so I am guessing that teaching would be questionably legal.  To be sure, check with Costa Rica immigration.

Remember though, she must have some form of legal residency in order to live here at all.

OK BLOG fans… that is it for today.  Thanks for being here.

I normally only read La Nacion or some other Spanish language newspapers as they tend to get it right… and as I suspected, the information reported was not quite accurate.  The actual number of tickets was far less.  By 4 PM yesterday,  218 tickets had been handed out nationwide.

These tickets were for:

Using mobile phones without a hands free device or failure to use seat belts. (¢ 220,050  or $400.00)  (Yeah!!)

Driving in San José in violation of vehicle plate restrictions (¢ 29,340 -   $53.00)

Driving with polarized (darkened) rear window (¢ 117,360 – $213.00) and finally,

two people who were caught driving without a driver’s license (¢ 293,400 – $533.00 ) and whose cars were impounded on the spot. Wow!

Also, La Nacion staffers apparently did a bit of reconnoitering around the country and found that many transit officials had apparently not even been on duty, prompting the response “Promise Fulfilled” by Joselito Ureña, secretary of the Unión Nacional de Técnicos y Profesionales en Tránsito the transit officers union.  Interestingly…. Those officers did give out tickets  were officers who were working directly  under the supervision of Marin Germain, transit director aka the big cheese. Guess that confirms who is the real boss.

So the verdict?  None of the big cheeses (transit bosses nor the diputados) are thrilled about the officers not obeying orders and  handing out those tickets…  still it would be wise to keep your foot under control, not talk on your cell phone,  use your seat belts and generally be good little boys and girls!

In fact I have re-written this post about 3 times, the last time being Friday when they decided not to enforce some laws requiring everyone carry fire extinguishers, those reflective triangle thingies, and a couple of other items (like child seats)  that they probably should have left in! I was running out of time… but my guardian angel told me to wait until Sunday…

So I did wait, only to learn last night that the least likely group of all (that would be the transit police officers union) voted overwhelmingly to not enforce the new laws, but will enforce really tough drunk driving laws and those regarding reckless driving!  Sadly, those are the laws the courts are ignoring with only eleven convictions in over a year. I am thinking now that the police officers (that would be the group with the brains) should perhaps trade places with the diputados!

Interested?  Read on!

Sometimes Costa Rica is kinda like that old fairy tale about the king has no clothes. Everyone sees something is not going to work well, but they plunge ahead.  Oh… yeah!  I guess the USA is about the same, with pols trying to force the stupid, hugely expensive. and almost universally hated Obamacare, down the throats of voters who already know how dumb it is… HA!  And you thought Costa Rica was a better option! But I digress!

So immediately, the transit chief starts making noises (probably correctly) that officers who do not enforce these new laws will be  derelict in their duties.  The diputados, not to be outdone by management, join in the hue and cry for enforcement.  Should be interesting!

OK, so what is the big deal and why won’t the new laws work?

Basically, they are overkill. Costa Rica drivers are arguably the world’s worst. I have driven in a lot of countries, but drivers here just scare me to death. Therefore, new laws are a good idea… right?

Yeah…  unless you make the fines  so large that they can come close to the salary of the police office whose job it is to enforce them.

Oh… and before I begin, there is also a point system.  Once you get 50 points, you lose your license for two years.

Let’s look at a few: (If you want to know how much in US dollars, the formula is colones/550 = $$$  Example: 165,000 colones = about $300.00

Red light / U Turn – 165,000 colones – 20 points ($300.00 – now you do the math!)

Taxi or bus drivers who are rude to passengers 90,800 colones (no points)  (not a joke)

Talking on a cell phone while driving - 165,000 colones – 20 points (castration would be better!)

Taxis that fail to use the meter (la maria) - 90,800 colones (no points)

Driving without a license – 227,000 colones ($410.00)  – 25 points – HUH?

Bribing a police officer – 227,000 colones – 20 points

OK so why am I on a rant?

These fines, for many Costa Ricans, can represent all or close the monthly income of some families!   The last time I checked, a rookie police officer only made perhaps $250,000 colones (around $450.00)  per month.

Now what do you suppose will happen when that officer stops someone to issue a $300.00 traffic ticket? Or maybe a drunk driving citation that costs the driver 293,000 colones ($530.00) plus loss of license, car and jail time?

To put this into perspective, it would be like someone in the USA, earning $60,000 per year, having to pay about $4,000.00 for blowing a red light.

Now, the police officers union is also thinking that trying to ticket a driver who may not only lose his license but may be unable to feed his family or pay his mortgage just might tend to cause a conflict.  Gee… ya think?  The actual wording (translated) is that “officers could be exposed to dangerous situations.  Now you wags could argue that that is their job… but clearly, the officers do not relish these types of confrontations.

Oh… and did I forget to mention? When you go to court, you are asked about your income and if it is larger, these fines can get larger! Ahhh, and as these fines are tied to a base number, they will rise automatically every year. Just gets better and better.

Now…. raise your hand if you think any of this may affect tourists? Tourists won’t care about the points, but they can get tagged with the fines…even after they leave the country if renting a car…  and they won’t fight it. There are many, many stories about bribes being solicted and/or offered.  Most are true.  The nice thing is that tourists won’t report an officer for bribery either way.  They will just pay up and move on!

Another goofy think is that all new and (as I understand it) first time renewals of drivers licenses will now require a psychological exam! Cost will be about $30.00 and INS, your friendly local monopolistic insurance company will not be assisting. This means first time and maybe first renewal of licenses will cost a whopping 85,000 colones!

Life goes on.  The law will be in effect for most of you who will be reading this with your Monday morning coffee.  I have no idea if it will be enforced…. Be well, be careful out there… and pura vida!

The long awaited (30+ years) highway from San Jose to Caldera opened a couple of weeks ago. I had a hunch that anything that long in the making would draw the curious and traffic would be a disaster.  Turns out that I called it, and the touted 45-60 minute trip to the Port of Caldera (Puerto Caldera), Costa Rica’s only commercial and cruise terminal on the Pacific coast, took up to three hours for much of last week

Not so yesterday!

Yesterday, I thought it might be worth a chance, so my wife Maria Luisa, my sister Pamela and I jumped on the new highway and found ourselves pretty much alone with pretty minimal traffic.  Better yet, we were in Orotina in 45 minutes and in  Caldera in 60.  Another 15 minutes put us in Puntarenas and walking on the beach. this is a big deal to expats and Ticos and will certainly have a positive commercial effect in all those locations.

Thirty years or not, this was worth the wait.  Interested?  Read on!

Before the completion of this highway, the alternative was to take the Pan American Highway (aka Route 1, or the InterAmericana, etc) northwest to the Atenas/Jaco cutoff in La Garita, then deal with horrendous traffic to the beach… or, you could continue a bit further on Route 1 and get off around Puntarenas.    Either way, you were in for a nasty time having to  follow trucks moving at 8 mph through winding, but admittedly beautiful, mountain roads.  You were looking at a minimum of 2 hours, or  more likely longer, to get to Jaco or Puntarenas.  Two hours of breathing exhaust, and that was if you were leaving from the San Jose airport.  From downtown San Jose you’d need to add an (optimistic) thirty minutes more. You can see how this will make things a lot better for anyone wanting to get to the the beach quickly and comfortably.

The drive is pretty spectacular too.  The new bridge over the Rio Grande is quite beautiful and the mountain views are worth the trip.

Cost?

This trip is not cheap, and by Costa Rica toll standards, it is a fortune.  There are three toll booths (peajes) en route,  The first and third are 490 colones each and the second is 640 colones. This is a bit under $3.00, cheap by most US standards, but huge by Costa Rica standards. Still, with gas prices at ridiculous levels and the time saving, I am guessing this is not going to deter anyone.

I picked yesterday as I thought that many Ticos might choose to hang around their homes in preparation for today’s presidential elections. Lucky guess!

Road conditions

The road is in beautiful shape as you might expect from something two weeks old. It is generally two lanes wide (one in each direction) though it widens to an additional lane going uphill (for use in passing slow traffic). Now saying that, Costa Rica drivers may be the worst drivers in the world. Patience is a word few Ticos (and some really dumb tourists) understand when behind the wheel of a car.  Illegal passing on all highways (autopistas) is a primary cause of many incredibly violent and needless accidents every week.

Yesterday, I traveled at the 80 kmh speed limit (about 55 MPH) as I was not at all in a hurry and wanted to take it all in.  I was passed by no less than TEN cars traveling at an estimated 120 kmh minimum and at least twice more by semis at the same speed.  All but one of these required crossing a double yellow line.  There was no police presence at all except two on motorcycles chatting under a bridge and I suppose getting out of the sun

This illegal passing thing places everyone in real danger, and while the trip down was a piece o’ cake, the drive back, took nearly two hours because of a really  bad head-on collision (see photo above right), doubtless caused by illegal passing.

Planning

Why only two lanes? Now there is a question.

I love Costa Rica, but honestly, the concept of planning seems to evade the Costa Rican government(s). One might argue that planning for this highway began long before there were so many cars and so many tourists, but to me, that dog won’t hunt. Traffic to and from Caldera certainly could have been predicted ten to fifteen years ago allowing for widening of this toll road. Granted, widening roads here in Costa Rica that wind through mountains and cross many rivers would clearly be a major expense… still,  if they were not planning to enforce the driving laws, then the real cost of reckless driving will must include numerous lost lives.

Another example:  To reach the toll road to Caldera from say the San Jose airport, the most direct route (but maybe not the fastest) would be to access the toll road using the Lindora highway that runs between Panasonic and Santa Ana. The problem here is that there are at least 6-8 new high rise office buildings, several dozen new stores, strip malls and supermarkets, every fast food outlet known to man, a zillion new restaurants  and several hundred new condos and houses lining Lindora which remains not 6 inches wider than it was ten years ago when it was almost all farm land.

That means that the (perhaps) 1.5 mile drive from Panasonic to the toll road can easily take 40 minutes.  Yesterday, it took 15 minutes and the traffic was not all that bad. Still, they are continuing to all new construction almost daily.   Oh well!

Anyway… we had a fine time walking along the beach in Puntarenas and stopping at the many dozens of kiosks selling jewelry, souvenirs,  and clothing.  It was warm (high 80′s) but there was a fine breeze making it all tolerable.  I also got nice brownie points for buying my wife new earrings and a pair of shorts. Life is good!

The question is always something like this: “I have heard I cannot fly to Costs Rica using a one-way ticket.”

My answer is, as always, “No, you can NOT unless you are a citizen of Costa Rica or have in your possession a valid and current residency ID card (cedula) proving that you live here. If you try, you will almost assuredly not be permitted to board the plane. If you do make it on board, you may well get caught at THIS end by immigration. Airlines are required to verify that any person attempting to fly and using a one way ticket is, in fact, a legal resident of Costa Rica. Most airlines (read that as all) try to follow the procedure religiously as they are faced not only with large potential fines, but also for paying for the return flight for the passenger when he is refused entry in Costa Rica.

Now please, before you start composing your comment telling me that you, your friend, your friend’s girlfriend and her auntie, etc flew here on a one-way ticket with no issue, please remember my “job” on this blog and in the RCR Web Site is to deal with facts, not luck or urban legend.

Read on if you wish!

First? What is the big deal?  Why require a round trip ticket for non residents?

Simple!  Like most countries, including the USA, (and actually many grandparents entertaining their grandkids), Costa Rica wants you to come and visit… and then go home.

In my various companies and in the various work I do, I come in constant contact with folks wanting to move here, moving here, returning here, etc. as well as numerous tourists.  I see this refusal thing at least once per month!  Further, I see a lot of folks refused entry who do not have at least six months remaining on their passports before it expires.

The most recent example was last week when two friends (ages 75+), flying US Air, were refused passage at the Phoenix airport. They were required to buy return tickets (at the last minute attractive price of $1,100.00) in order to continue their flight. They were told they could easily get a refund in Costa Rica losing only $50.00 cancellation fee for each ticket.  As a side, that did not go well.  US Air apparently is only open in downtown San Jose one day per week, and cancellations cannot be made at the San Jose airport.  Oh well.  They actually knew this, but forgot in the rush of moving and packing and all the last minute crappola involved in relocating to Costa Rica.

Anyway, while you might get lucky and NOT get stopped, the inconvenience, possibility of missing your flight/connections, maybe not having big $$$ for that last minute return flight, not to mention trying to get your money back… well it is just not worth the risk.

Before you fly here:

1. Make SURE you have a least six months remaining before your passport expires. they may let it pass with only ninety days, but I do not recommend taking the chance.

and

2. If trying to use a one way ticket, remember that you must prove that you are a legal resident or citizen of Costa Rica. That does NOT mean that you have applied for or are in process of obtaining residency.  It means you have that ID card in your grubby little hand!

OK~ Now you have been warned.  Any questions?