Journal

Mel talked to the moto guy and he is not going to come down here after all, so we don’t don’t know what we’re going to do.

Alaine and I biked into town for an ATEC meeting with Mel and Willis.  It’s our three month evaluation.  Things seem to be going well: we got a raise! Willis looked over our documents that we need for residency and made some suggestions for changes.  We stayed late at ATEC getting ready to be gone for a few days.

It rained on us on the way home.  We had dinner with Mel and Sarah and then came home and packed for a trip to San José.  Alaine has a friend there and another friend that is visiting fron the States.

I woke up around 2:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep.  We caught the 5am bus to Limón.  We were short on cash, so we went to find an ATM near the bus station so we could buy a ticket to San José.  The second one we found accepted our card and then we headed back to the station.

While I was buying the tickets some kid was asking Alaine if we had gotten lost because he had seen us get off the bus and walk away and come back.  It made us a little uneasy that someone had been paying attention to our movements.  We boarded the bus and made it to San José without incident.  We didn’t have a plan when we got there except to call Alaine’s friend Curt.  It took a few tries, but she got through and we agreed that he would pick us up at 2pm.  It was only 10:30, so we decided to wander around and do some shopping.  We were looking for a CD player to replace Selva’s which was stolen from her friend’s house (but which we also had been using).  I also needed some new sandals since I lost half of my other pair.  We ran into Selva on the street and she decided to help us with our shopping.  We found me some shoes, which I bought, and we found a CD player that we thought we might want, but decided to keep looking.  We were walking past the Central Market, having just bought some candied peanuts, when I heard Alaine call my name.  I turned around and she was about 20 feet behind me with a panicked look on her face and looking in a direction at at a right angle to where I was standing.  I thought she had lost us so I called to her, but she told me someone had stolen her purse.  She pointed out a woman across the street whom I ran in front of and stopped but she denied taking the purse and Alaine wasn’t sure she had the right person.  Selva found a policeman on the corner and we reported it.  He said most likely the thief would just toss the passport somewhere out of sight, and told us we had to go to the police station and report it.

Selva led us to the police station and they told us to go the the OIJ, which is the investigative branch.  We finally found that in an unmarked building and there was a room with 20 people and only one person to help them.  We took a number but it looked like we would be there all day.  I went to call ATEC to get Alaine’s passport number because there was a copy there, but there was no answer and I remembered that ATEC is closed from 12 to 1 on Saturday.  I went back to the OIJ and waited with Alaine and Selva and shortly a second employee showed up.  Somehow our number was called next and we talked to the woman.  She said we didn’t need to do anything there and should just go to the U.S. embassy.  It was getting close to time to meet Curt, and we were hungry.  We decided the embassy could wait until Monday.  We called Curt and asked if he could pick us up at the resaurant/bar where we were going to eat and he said that would be fine but he would pick us up an hour late.

We ordered beers and food in the restaurant that Selva had brought us to.  We noticed that people were making out in the booths on the back wall.  This was in the middle of the afternoon.  We wondered what kind of place this was.  The food was good and the beer was cold.  Curt showed up just as we walked out to the street to look for him.  He was driving a big luxury SUV (funny that I don’t even know what make it was — I don’t care about cars anymore) and he introduced us to his wife, Beatriz, and Alaine’s friend, Bill, and Bill’s girlfriend, Kim.  We put our gear in the back and squeezed into the back seat with Bill and Kim.  Curt drove us up to see the new house he is building out of concrete block.  It looks like it will be nice.  Then we went to find a place for Bill, Kim, Alaine and I to stay for the night.  We stopped at a cabina near the place Curt and Bea are renting while they get their house built.  The owner wasn’t there but we called her on Bea’s cell-phone and agreed on a price for a 2 bedroom cabin.

We went to Curt’s after that and met Bea’s mother who is visiting from Colombia.  Bea made capuccino in a blender and it was really good.  She showed Alaine and Kim how to do it.  Bill took a nap and the rest of us just hung out in the living room.  Curt is a fan of a show on HBO called “Band of Brothers” which is about the WW II soldiers.  We watched that.  It was good, but too gory for Alaine.

The six of us went by our cabina and dropped off our stuff, then headed to a restaurant for dinner.  Alaine and I were tired and had headaches, but we didn’t want to be party-poopers so we went along to a dance club with the group.  Curt and Bea danced a lot and Bill and Kim danced a little.  Alaine and I didn’t dance at all.  We hung out in the bar drinking bottled water and wondering if the fish in the tank had a low life-expectancy because of the loud noise.  Some time after midnight we made it back to the cabin and fell gratefully into bed.

Alaine and I slept until about 8:30.  We got up and wanted to walk to the store so we asked the caretaker of the place if there was one nearby.  He said no, but a lady who also worked there was about to drive to the store and we could get a ride with her.  She took us to a big supermarket in Heredia which reminded me of stores in Houston, then to a feria with super-cheap fruits and vegetables.  We would have bought a bunch of stuff but we didn’t want to have to carry it around with us for two days.  When we got back to the cabina it was almost time for Curt to pick us up so we barely had time to eat the food we had bought. 

Curt took us back to his rented place and Bea made us a traditonal Colombian breakfast: arepas, which are like thick tortillas with melted cheese on top, scrambled eggs with veggies mixed in, and fresh fruit.  After eating we just hung out and talked for a while and then headed out to visit some friends of theirs.  When we got there they weren’t home so we went to the house Curt is building and he took Bill, Kim, Alaine and me on a long hike around the property.  We went down to a creek near the house and sat for a bit first.  Bill swung on a vine.  Kim was going to swing too, but there was a spider on the vine so she wouldn’t.  Alaine picked up some kind of …


… seed-pod that had fine little stickers that got in her hand but didn’t hurt.  We walked up the creek a little then crossed to a field where Curt picked us some berries that were delicious.  We walked over to where a gringa is building a huge house.  Alaine cut herself on barbed wire.  We returned to Curt’s house by the road.

We all went out to a pizza place for dinner, then back to Curt’s rented house for a while and then to the cabina for dessert.  After Curt and Bea left, the four of us played fan-tan until we couldn’t stay awake anymore, which wasn’t long.

We all got up early and ate breakfast in the cabin. Curt picked us up at 7:15 and dropped Alaine and I in Heredia to catch the bus to San José. It was rush hour and it took us a long time to get there. The bus stopped almost in front of the Hotel Talamanca, which is ironic because the part of Costa Rica where we live is called Talamanca. We went into the hotel and asked where the U.S. embassy is and the woman at the desk said it was very far and we would have to take a taxi. It took about 20 minutes in the taxi. There was a long line outside the embassy, but it was for Ticos (Costa Ricans) who wanted to take some kind of test to work for the U.S. government. We were able to go ahead. They had tight security: they searched our bags and we couldn’t bring in our camera or binoculars. We found our way to the right counter took a number and waited a few minutes. Alaine went to the window and got the forms she needed and filled them out while I went to call ATEC and find out her passport number and date of issue. She went and had her picture taken outside the door of the main building and then went in to the cashier. He said we needed $60 dollars cash for the passport and we didn’t have enough so I left to go the ATM across the street and get cash. The machine didn’t work so I asked directions to another one and ran/walked there and got the money because it was getting late and we had an appointment with a lawyer about our residency. We paid and they said she could pick up her temporary passport tomorrow. It is only good for 6 months and they said she can only renew it in the U.S. because she didn’t have her birth certificate with her. I hope they are wrong about that; I think she should be able to renew it here if she brings her birth certificate to the embassy next time.

We grabbed a taxi in front of the embassy and went across town in heavy traffic and were 5 minutes late for our appointment. We got the details from the lawyer about all we would need to do and how much it would cost to get residency. It sounds like a lot of work and expense, but the lawyer is pretty confident that we can do it. We went to lunch at a Chinese place nearby and then got a taxi to a hotel in the center of town and checked in. We had a lot to do, but we were tired so we decided to lie down for 5 minutes. An hour later we woke up. We went across the street to the RACSA building, which is the national Internet company, and transferred money from savings and checked email.

We got a taxi to the Honda dealer to pick up the license plates for the new motos, but they didn’t have them. They gave me a paper plate for Mel’s, and nothing for ATEC’s. They said they could send the plates to the dealer in Guapiles when they come in at the end of the week. We have to take the motos there anyway for the 500 km check-up. We caught a taxi back to town and went to buy the CD player that we had looked at earlier in the day. We dropped it off at the hotel and started walking around looking for a place to eat. We finally settled on a Mexican food place that had beers with bocas for 800 colones ($2.28) so we just had the bocas for dinner. The food was OK. We were tired by then so we headed back to the hotel and to bed.

We got up around 7 and and went looking for breakfast. Nothing much was open yet, but we found a bakery that had coffee and pastries and yogurt. After we ate Alaine took a taxi to the embassy to pick up her passport. I went to the ATM for cash and tried to buy the plastic for the laminating machine but they still didn’t have it. I went to the supermarket and walked down all the aisles twice to see what they had available. I didn’t buy too much, though. I got some spices that are hard to find around here and some cookies and candy for treats. I walked back to the hotel and started packing until it was time to meet Alaine back at the place where we ate breakfast. We walked back to the hotel, checked out, and walked to the bus stop.

We bought our tickets and I ordered a real breakfast from one of the counters there. We got back to to Puerto Viejo in the afternoon and were pretty tired. We did what we needed to get ready for tommorrow and then caught the bus home. We went to bed early but Selva had friends over and they were noisy so it was hard to sleep.