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Hey mediatica,
could you provide the name of your OBGYNO at CIMA please. We may be pregnant but its very early and I’m high risk due to family history. Thanks. Also, I’m not resident, but have a tico boyfriend, but not keen to get hitched. Has anyone come into the country 6 months pregnant and had issues with immigration or is there a way to get an extention without appearing in person?Hi, its all paved. However there are alot of one lane bridges though all of them have the CEDA or give way signs on them so you know easily if its your right of way. Banks are closed until Monday, but in La Virgen, Sarapaqui which is just south (up the hill to Arenal) there is a BCR ATM on the left by El Colono. It takes visa and M-Card for cash withdrawls. With this route, be sure to turn right at the fork in San Carlos where there is a big red and white tower, and look for brown signs with a smoking volcano on them. in Agua Zurcas there is another badly marked right turn from the main highway, but there is a little brown volcano sign. Good luck.
Scott you are a rock star. She would qualify for the presence test and doesn’t have a home in the US. Thanks!
thanks for the comments guys. I live out in the sticks and there are no PO Boxes available, but I do visit San Jose every 4 or 6 weeks and areocasillas tell me they can hold stuff until I arrive. Cheers, Alex
I recently visited some green designed buildings at a nature reserve in the UK. Some of their invoations were easy to incorporate into new homes, such as solar power, or a small wind turbine in your garden (if you live a bit more rural). Others made me think harder, a green roof with a succulent garden in 4 inches of shingle built onto the roof to reduce sun reflection on tin panels – cool, but you’d need to account for the weight of the area wet in your design. Easy to do though. Another cool thing they had were chains that ran down from roof gutters to underground water storage tanks that serviced the toilets and irrigation water needs thus reducing the cost of energy and chemicals to clean and filtrate the water. Perhaps we are not sufficiently tolerant of a sort of clean water in our toilet bowls, but an cool idea nevertheless. Certainly a large waterbutt screened to stop mosquitos living in it works sufficiently for my garden needs but now I’m thinking what else I can do to cut down on all that wastage. A compostable toilet isn’t out of the question in a rural setting. If you can’t redesign, consider the easiest option –> planting trees. Just plant one (preferably a native costa rican tree) and feel better that it is sucking up some carbon and helping the world a little, step by step. 🙂
UK Nature reserve Cley Marshes run by Norfolk Wildlife Trust: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/cley-marshes.htmlHey guys thanks for your comments. Its something I’ve been working with MINAE for over the past year in my region as we are located in the San Juan biological corridor and have been collaborating with 15 other conservation organizations to improve forest cover and conservation of biota in this area. I was hoping somebody out there had waded through the process and could offer support more than legal advise (sorry Scott, I’ll word my rambles better next time), its going to be an uphill struggle, especially with CAFTA at present. Thanks for your input rebaragon, you made good points. Pura vida.
There is a chain of health food shops throughout the country called macrobiotica. There are two little oriental markets around the back of the Asian resturant Tin jo. Er, directions are rough, forgive me, but head from avenida central towards Tin Jo Calle 11; Avenidas 6 y 8 (opposite the theatro luchini I think), and walk one block past the resturant and one or two blocks to your right. Sorry, only been once and had to trundel around those streets to find the place so I lost my orientation. The staff in Tin Jo know exactly where it is if you stop for lunch there and then go shoping they might save you a bundle of time. 🙂
You could also check the Costa Rican page on Craig’s list. I was surprised to find it the other day, and there are quite a few listings of people moving back to the US and selling off their stuff.
How do you go about getting the permanent exit stamp in a child’s passport? I was told (perhaps by a not very competent lawyer or one that wanted to make some future business for himself) that if I had a baby in Costa Rica, I would have to have my partners written and notirized approval each time I wanted to take our child out of the country?
Thanks for taking the time to clarify this stuff for me. If you are ever in the sarapaqui region come by for dinner 🙂 Cheers, Alex
Thanks for the positive responeses guys. I wasn’t sure that INS could help somebody who is not resident, but I’ll go ahead and email Juan and ask him. Cheers, Alex
Another option is to pay to volunteer for 2 weeks on a local project and then make an approach for a more long term position that would be free. What alot of projects do is pick up long term volunteers from the short-term fee paying group of people that help on the project. $$ from volunteers frequently pays for the long-term overhead for the project.
Hey Sam, thanks so much for the info. We are not in any hurry, so if anyone has another recommendation let me know. Its always good to shop around! Cheers, Alex
I move back and forth to Costa Rica from Panama and the US every few months and previously conducted research over several years, 9 months at a time, on a tourist visa, leaving every 90 days for 72 hrs. Crossing boarders by foot or bus I’ve been repeatedly sent back across the board to buy a bus ticket in the other direction but never had anything more serious than a lecture from the immigration officier and a waste of a few hours of my time. Flying from the US to San Jose airport I’ve been refused check in with Delta and Continental at the US airport when without a return ticket and have had to buy a fully refundable one on my credit card and cancel it later more than once. Delta seem very hot on this, whereas TACA/LACSA less so. I’ve also got through with an Student Travel Assoication (STA) one way ticket that has a fake return, they made for me for this purpose (Its a common issue for backpacking students). In Costa Rica I’ve frequently been asked for evidence of a return ticket – but this may be because I have many stamps in my passport. Also, sometimes they don’t ask. As yet I’ve not had to pay the cost of return as a deposit to immigration. Sometimes I fly with a real return – its less stressful that way! The bottom line is that it could go either way at any point in the chain of travel depending on the individual airline agent or immigration agent. I’m in the US on a visa, and I’d say entering Costa Rica is alot easier than entering the US when you are not a resident, but the more prepared you are the better your passage will be. Good luck.
4 friends of mine did the trip last year. They had little walkie talkie radios between the 2 cars – it helped alot at borders. They also had a small safe built into their cars below the rear passenger seat bolted to the chassy to keep passports and other documents safe from opportunistic theives. They paid to lock up their cars every night (they were carrying alot of stuff including a laptop and fancy camera gear) and someone in each car spoke fluent spanish. They used people at each boarder crossing to help with their papers. They also left a full copy of all of their documents with a family memeber and added the family memeber to their credit card accounts incase stuff was stolen and needed to be reissued while they were on the road. They took 3 weeks to Costa Rica and had an amazing experience – but at times a pretty stressful one. Boarder crossings were the worst, they asked for receipts for everything even $2.00 to reduce rip offs and used local currency where possible!
You do need special insurance for Mexico, but it cost little ($30), I think the AAA directed them to an agent (sorry can’t find the info). Good luck and remember everything is replaceable (passports included) except your life, so if you are stopped at gun point give up whatever they want even your car – Once had a guy rip off my fake Oneil sunglasses at gunpoint – evidently he was a big cheese and had left his house on a sunny day without any.
