Wild Goose Chase

After talking with a number of local folks here we kept hearing about this place called “Chase”, how great it was and that you could find anything you wanted.  The deal is that it is located in Panama.  So yesterday we took off with some friends and started down the long bumpy road.

We kind of knew where it was but not the exact location and thought it was at the end of the road (18Km worth).  Driving at top speed of 10km/hr you can imagine how long it took to get there.  Once we got there we asked if anyone knew where “Chase” was.  Yes they said, go back about 10 km and it’s on the right.  Great, back to the car and down the bumpy road.

Well, when we got there we were really shocked at what we saw.  Nothing like any one had told us about.  A crowded store with clothes a few TV’s.  There was no beer or wine or any such thing since that was the main reason for the trip.  Only came back with some cheap christmas lights.

                                                The road

                     The Bus that almost ran us off the road

     The Soda where we should had turned left in the first place

The boat dock with Panama across the river.

Saw this on the way home, a Mal in the back of the truck.

I doubt we will be visiting Chase again any time soon, not until some body can verify that the goods are there.

Joyful Holidays

As part of the Holiday sprit, ICE (pronounced E-Say, the country’s monopoly for power and communications) has come up with a friendly reminder for your cell phone.  Just so you don’t go and blow all of that Christmas bonus on presents, a call to your phone is automatically made to remind you to pay your phone bill.   I paid ours 5 days ago and I got 5 calls this morning reminding me to pay mine.  I wonder how many I would get if I hadn’t paid.  Maybe it works a bit too well.  Besides I can’t imagine a Tico letting something so close and dear like their cell phones to be turned off.  Isn’t that a human right that should be brought before the supreme court?  How dare they even think of such a thing.  For sure the cell phone has changed everyone's lives, it is probably the one big techno deal that will go down in history.

The holidays here are warming up and we are glad of that.  It’s been even chilly at times with all the rain and cloud cover, aka Pacific Northwest, but blue sky is right around the corner, along with all of the new wave of tourists.  The raining season has been really hard on Costa Rica this year, eliminating dozens of bridges, closing many roads (many of which are still closed) making it hard or impossible to get to your favorite traveling destination.  But if it wasn’t for the influx of the tourists a lot of things would not be fixed or mended, so we are thankful for something’s here.

I just can’t wait to sink my teeth into my Christmas chicken, unlike our Thanksgiving chicken, this time I hope to do it beer can style just like back home.  At $70 for a 16 pound turkey at Pricesmart (aka Costco) we will have to wait for Santa to bring us one.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining we love it here and wouldn’t change a thing, well maybe our diet and some expectations.

When it Rains

When it rains, it pours.  In the last three days we have had 10 inches of rain from this low pressure system.  Today it is not raining yet so I went down to the beach to take a look and see if we still had a road to drive on.  Luckily we do, the beach on the other hand is filled with debris from the rivers.  Huge trees and old trees fill the sand.

 

It will probably take a week for the ocean to clean all of this up.  It is amazing how things change within just a few days.  With the ground already saturated, I hope the rain stays away for a while so things can dry out a bit.

Tropical Low

What happens when a tropical low pressure sits off the coast?  Well, it rains!  It has been raining since Monday evening and so far we have around 6 inches of rain fallen and it is still coming this way!  Good things it is 75 degrees other wise we would have around 5 feet of snow on the ground! 

The other good thing is we really don’t need to go anywhere right now so we are staying put until this passes over.  That could be a couple of days or so.  Needless to say, we are in for a green Christmas, not a white one.

Travels to San Jose

We took off to San Jose on Sunday.  As soon as we pulled out of the drive it started raining.  I mean it really started to rain!   The road to San Jose goes through a big national park and has been known for landslides, which ends up closing the road for hours to clear.  As we got the the bottom of the hill to start our descent into the hills, many people were stopped and waving at us.  I thought how nice is that, they really do like gringos.  A couple of seconds later we turned around and asked someone if the road was closed.  Sure enough, a big landslide had just happened

.

So we head back in the same direction to take the only other road to get to San Jose, which is a small two lane road that twists and turns through the mountains.  The trip that usually takes about 3 to 4 hours took almost 6 hours by the time we arrived at our hotel.

Going down route 32.

Coffee Fields

Turrialba

Cartago

Heading home thru San Jose

Tico house ready for Santa

Store front

New street signs in Puerto Viejo, go figure......

I think we are done for now!

One of the main reasons for our trip back to the US was to pick up all of our documents needed for residency. Once we arrived back, we met with ARCR who will handle the process. We had most of the documents we needed except for a letter from Social Security and fingerprinting. So last Monday we were in San Jose to finish up some of the paperwork for residency.  First thing in the morning we went to the US Embassy to get a letter from Social Security confirming my monthly amount (to meet the requirements of the new law).  We got there around 8:20 AM and were on our way to Casa Canada by 8:50 AM.  Once we got there and presented them with our letter, we then left to go get finger printed for an Interpol search on us to make sure we are not wanted by any other country.  We got there around 930 AM and were headed back to Casa Canada by 10:30 AM. 

Once there, we met with our lawyer who had us sign our application and pronounced  us done with all of the paperwork.  He will submit our application (as soon as the documents are translated into Spanish) and once Immigration has received our documents, they will provide us with a File Number which will enable us to stay in country (without having to leave every 90 days to renew our visa).  After reading all the horror stories from other people who have gone through the process I was expecting it to be more of a hassle.

The only thing left to do is get my driver’s license (maybe next month).

24/7

Granted I am not awake 24/7, but living here is like watching the Discovery Channel, 24/7.  Our living room is our TV that we watch most of the day (without any political ads for people who can not keep any of the promises they have made in public) seeing new things and wondering sometimes if it isn’t all a dream.  We have only really watched about 10 hours of real TV over the past three months.  As we prepare ourselves to head back to the northern frozen tundra to collect our important paperwork, I am sure that once we return and get thrown into the Costa Rican governmental process we will be wishing we still could be back home (Puerto) dreaming. 

We know that this will be a long haul, many trips to and from San Jose, but I am sure that in the end it will have many more rewards than not going through the process to obtain residency which will allow us a lot more freedom to move about the country and see some of the places we have yet to see.