Day Two - Costa Rica

We all had a restless nights sleep. Both Saige and Alan have a bit of jet lag, (mainly because they are the ones that are napping during the day!!) and Alan is also having trouble sleeping because he is a little worried about some pain he has in his groin area. He had a vasectomy 3 weeks ago, and 2 days before we were due to leave for Costa Rica, Saige kicked him (accidentally) in the groin and he has been in pain ever since. This is the kind of worry that keeps him up at night!

In the morning, Saige was sick and groggy, and threw up at the breakfast table (after eating a bowl of cereal and a banana) She was much better after that, and didn’t repeat her performance for the rest of the day. So we packed up all our belongings, thanks the staff at Hotel Brilla Sol and we were on our way back into San Jose.

We were fully prepared for our correct exits this time as we had timed how long it had taken us to get home yesterday. Unfortunately, it was peak hour in San Jose, so traffic was at a standstill and our timings went out the window. Luckily we could see the Migration department from the freeway, so we roughly knew where to exit. Turns out I jumped the gun and told Alan to exit too quickly, as I didn’t want to miss it this time, but we were able to find the correct way fairly easily. We got to the migration department at around 9:30am and we had plenty of time to get our visas. Or so we thought.

Once at the visa desk we were redirected to Porta 3 from a non-English speaking woman. Through this door we tried to talk to the lady at the desk, but couldn’t convey what we needed. Thankfully there was a security guard who could speak English, so he kindly translated for us. The lady at the desk told us straight out that an extension of our tourist visa was impossible, and that nothing could be done. The security guard knew better, and took us back to the visa desk where he explained that we needed an ‘Estancia’ visa to be able to work in Costa Rica. The lady at the desk finally agreed that it could be done, so we were taken to yet another department. Our supporting documents from the production company, which were in Spanish were taken and read, and through another English speaking Tico (Costa Rican man) who translated, we were told that our documents were not official, as they had been signed without a witness. To make them official, we had to go across town to the Department of Foreign affairs to see Paula who we had been in contact with while still in Australia. So instead of driving, we wisely decided to take a taxi. The taxi from hell. As well as showing us how he could swerve, break, accelerate and honk, the driver also threw in a tour of the city. Despite his speed, he still managed to take twice as long and charge us twice the fee as the taxi we took back. Though we did get to see a lot of down town San Jose; a cramped, busy and very ramshackle area with lots of corrugated iron, punctuated with wire and steel bars. Although we hadn’t read that crime was a huge issue in Costa Rica, it appears that everyone is trying to keep someone else out.

Once we got to the department of Foreign Affairs, we waited to see Paula and when we finally did, she told us the she couldn’t make the documents official as they had already been signed. They would need to go to the Costa Rican Consulate in Singapore (since the Costa Rican consulate in Australia had just closed down) and be verified, then go to the Australian consulate, then to Costa Rica! It was going to be a very complicated process, and she offered us the alternative of leaving the county for a day, or even just winging it (since it was only going to be 3 weeks over our 3 month visa) and we should be fine. So we decided that we would have to go to Panama for a day or two – what a bummer!!

But again, we had wasted half a day with no result! We got a taxi back to the migration department (where our car was) and got started on our trip to Osa.

We were very prepared for our 8 hour trip – no food or water in the car save some muesli bars we’d kept from the Qantas flight. Once we were well clear of San Jose we stopped for supplies at a small grocery store on the side of the road.  We had a few nervous moments attempting to cross between the trucks thundering past, but managed to get what we needed including some leche (milk) for the girls.  

After a few hours of travel we decided it would be best to find a place to stay for the night, and make the rest of the journey on the unpredictable roads the following day. We stopped at a small town called Quepos on the west coast, and checked into the Best Western Hotel. Here we were able to use their free wi-fi to contact family via skype and let them know where we were and that we were all ok.