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That is probably a question for your notary lawyer. Do you have a copy of your old passport anywhere? – in your car, on your computer, at your bank? – anything with your picture and your old number on it to link your new passport to your old one because of your picture? I think you will, at the very least, need to know your old passport number. If you have that, it is possible that your swearing before the notary that the person with the old number and the new number are the same person will be enough. I went through this when I was required to get a new plate for my car and the CR title was under my name but with my old passport number. I still had my old passport in my purse.
I live in the San Isidro PZ area of Costa Rica. There have been some people experimenting with raising Alpacas in our area. They require a special enclosure as regular cattle fencing will not keep them in. Our neighbor was caring for a few for a while that belonged to a friend of his but he gave up on them because they were way more work for him than cattle.
Make sure you bring both you new and your old passport to Cost Rica. You can make the change at a National Registry office nearest to you. The National Registry will require you to get a notary (in Costa Rica, this is a lawyer with notary status) to write a sworn statement that the person with the old passport number is the same person as the one with the new passport number. You will pay the notary some money and take the documents back to the National Registry for recording.
When you go out of the country, the 90 days for your driver’s license does reset for another 90 days. Once you get your temporary residency, you can get a Costa Rican driver’s license. Your license from your home country must still be valid and not expired.
As long as people enjoy (or love) drinking coffee, I do not think it will ever go extinct. It is true that climate change may shift what areas coffee can successfully be grown due to present coffee growing areas becoming too hot or diseases becoming prevalent or too expensive to fight. However, 60 years is a long time. That is plenty of time for varieties of coffee to be adapted to the changing conditions and/or for coffee production to be moved to areas which may be too chilly right now. Technology is on our side to make sure this happens as long as there is a good market for coffee. Even wild coffee would have time to adapt to warmer temperatures and changing climate conditions or it will spread to areas more optimal for its growth via wildlife.
Farmers will not continue to grow crops that are not profitable. When there is no longer sufficient profit, farmers will turn to other crops such as cacao and others to concentrate their efforts. Coffee production in Costa Rica has diminished in the last 10 years or so due to cheaper competing prices in other countries. If those cheaper markets collapse due to climate conditions and disease, farmers in Costa Rica may return to growing coffee again in areas where conditions are suitable. One can not underestimate the power of nature.
[quote=”olsgaard”]Thank you very much.
It the use unlimited – or can I only download eg 3gb a month?[/quote] It is the 4g LTE service that is limited to 3gb per month. If that limit is reached, the service would revert to the slower 3g or 3g+ which is then unlimited for the rest of the month. That is the ICE service. Since you are fairly close to San Jose, it would seem reasonable to check into and compare all wireless service providers that offer service at your location.
Try this link: http://kolbi.cr/wps/portal/kolbi_dev/personas/telefonos/4g/mifi_e5573/!ut/p/z1/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfIjo8zizQMtHA093A18DNxcLQwcTV2NQkKCDAwtAs31w1EVWIR6mRo4Wjo7Gzgbhxp6-pvpRxGj3wAHcDQgTj8eBVH4jQ_Xj0K1wt3f3BLoAy_j0AAfUyOLEBP8CtzdjfArMDA3Q1eAJZAIObMgNzQ0wiDTM9NRUREAQRw2Ag!!/dz/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/#devicePlans Scroll down to see the Kolbi data plans for internet (data plans). It includes the modem (MiFi E5573) that you will need for WiFi (non-wired) internet service. It is a 4g moden/router. However, unless there have been upgrades to mobile towers located outside the city in the last few months, your data will be 3g which is what you most likely get with your current telephone signal. If you are picking up a signal from San Jose, you might be able to get 4g (lucky you!). As you can see, there are several prices with better speeds to match and some plans give you the MiFi free if you sign up for minimum of 2 years. If your Kolbi signal is very good, you might try the 9,900 colones plan where you get the modem free. The “velocidad hasta” is the 3g speed and to the right of that is the 4g speed. Someday, the towers in the countryside will be upgraded to 4g. My advise is to not pay for a higher speed unless the signal you are getting is at least at that level (trial and error on your part). You will need to go to ICE to get this set up. Just hope that they are not out of the modems. I bought my own unlocked one and brought it from the US because they were sold out of them at ICE in January. It was exactly the same model number. Get it at ICE before Christmas. After that, they will mostly likely be sold out. Download Google Translate on your phone to help you communicate with them in person if your Spanish is not good. Sometimes they have people who speak English there, but not always.
I think the best way is to make and receive US calls through your WiFi service.
You could get a Tico phone with a Tico number if you buy a phone there or bring an ICE compatible unlocked phone. We use a prepaid sim chip with our unlocked phone and that works out well for us since we do not spend a lot of time on the phone.
Through the internet, I use mostly WhatsApp on my phone. I call my Tico worker from the US every week and it costs neither one of us anything. He can also call me the same way. We just both need to have an internet connection at the time.
We can also send photos and short videos to each other. You can also use Skype with the internet. Skype to Skype is free and you can get a Skype number.
You can get a paid subscription with Skype to be able to call non-Skype (no internet) phones in Costa Rica. However, I find WhatsApp to be much clearer with much less dropping of calls.
Some people also use a Magic Jack with their internet and like it. I don’t have any personal experience with Magic Jack in Costa Rica but it might be something to consider.
I don’t think Verizon wireless works in Costa Rica unless you use your US roaming and that most certainly would prove to be very expensive.
If Rentista Residency is not an option for you, you have 2 options left:
1. as a perpetual tourist where you have to leave the country every 90 days to renew your visa or
2. Since you are a young couple, have another child while you are in Costa Rica. That child will be a citizen of Costa Rica and you will both then be eligible for permanent residency and allowed to work. Costa Rica does not want the parents of its citizens not able to work and support them.
You still have to apply for residency once the child is born but once you get it, your other children will be your dependents and thus residents also.
The child will also be eligible for dual citizenship because he/she will also be a US citizen (or a citizen of whatever country you are from).
Don’t listen to the Embassy. They don’t know what they are talking about. Within 10 days of your return flight, go to your CR vet and tell them you need the international Health certificate to fly your dog home. Take all of the paperwork that you got from the US plus the dog of course. The vet will use the information on that form to fill out the CR form. Make sure your CR vet knows how to do this. Most CR vets that speak English and have US and foreign clients know how to do this. The vet will either send or take the form to the Dept of Agriculture vet for his/her signature and the doc stamps. In San Isidro, there is now a Dept of Agriculture vet in the town and sometimes we get the paperwork back the same day or the next day. Several years ago, the vet had to send the paperwork to San Jose to be signed and so we made sure to allow 4 or 5 days until the flight. The original vet exam must be within 10 days of your flight. Your vet should be able to tell you how many days before your flight to schedule your appointment. The only thing additional that the vet will do (besides an exam to make sure the dog is in good health) will be a fecal check.
To clarify, in order for your pets to fly as “excess baggage” they must be booked on the same flight as you are flying. This eliminates shipping them as cargo, paying import fees and brokerage fees and going to a warehouse to pick them up; they come out when your luggage comes out. There will be airline fees for pets to fly as baggage or in the cabin unless they are service dogs. Service dogs fly on all airlines without crates in the cabin with the person they serve without charge although there may be size limits for larger dogs on some flights. Airlines vary in the fees they charge and whether they accept pets as excess baggage or cargo. Some do not fly pets in the belly of the plane but do accept pets small enough to carry on the plane in carriers. Some airlines have a limit on the number of pets flying as baggage or in the cabin so make these plans as early as possible. There are also temperature restrictions (high and low) that limit when pets can fly. Pets flying in the cabin are not subject to these temperature limitations.
The USDA is the ruling authority in this case and their requirements are only for rabies and Leptospirosis. The international Health Certificate that you will need is issued by the USDA. Here is a link to their latest information for dogs and cats (2012):
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/regulations/vs/iregs/animals/downloads/cs_pets_req.pdfWe take our two dogs back and forth from the US to Costa Rica every year. They are service dogs but the health certificate requirements are the same for them as for pet cats and dogs.
There is distemper and parvo in Costa Rica, however, so you might want to make sure your dogs are also protected from those diseases for your own peace of mind either by vaccination at least every 3 years after the age of three or by titering.
No that is not true. If you have residency (either temporary or permanent) and a valid driver’s license from another country, you can get a CR driver’s license. That license has an expiration date on it. If you only have a foreign driver’s license, it is only valid for 90 days. Then you need to go out of the country for the 90 days to start over. If you have applied for residency but have not gotten it yet, you still have to go out of the country every 90 days to re-validate your foreign driver’s license.
Do you have any idea what they charge for implants? My husband has a partial plate which he got from a dentist in San Isidro but it gives him so much trouble that he is considering a couple of implants. They are $1000 each in San Isidro – a budget breaker for us. I was just wondering if he might find better prices in San Jose.
