American Criminals?
Been rather busy with regular busy-ness here. Things fixed like the gate, the car, the stereo, the fan in our bedroom and other things, finally that run to Price Smart and the butcher in the big city, and dealing with aduana to pay the import taxes, the impuesto, on my N99 masks from Great Britain. Plus the fruit stand had huge bags of tomatoes for two bucks and I am now the proud possessor of 14 jars of home made spaghetti sauce. I've been busy.
But this evening I started watching a squabble that's been going on for days on some of the local ex pat boards, and I've been chuckling. Why? Well, they're sort of proving the words on one of my Tico friends here who says that America isn't sending their best people to live here, they are send criminals. Sounds familiar? Yes, our dear president said the same thing about Mexico and Central America.
Are they sending only criminals? I don't think so. We're not criminals. Most of my friends here are not criminals. I think you have Americans moving here who are perhaps more risk takers than the average citizen, hence some small skirting of the laws sometimes. Picking up and moving across the globe is not an endeavor for the faint of heart.
Don't let them fool you. Ticos also flout a million tiny laws here. I don't. I'm too nervous and guilty to break the law. Comes from a lifetime going to Catholic school with nuns. As a good Jewish friend of mine says "Catholics rent their guilt, Jews own it." We'd both make terrible criminals. Hell I was nervous driving that purple Chitty Chitty Bang Bang friend's car to Nicoya to get worked out to pass inspection with an expired sticker and I was just driving it to the inspection station after hitting the repair shop across the street. Can you imagine the torments of guilt I'd have if I tried to do something like rob a bank? I get hives just thinking about the guilt.
Now I did recently say I was going to flout the drivers license law if C.R. refused to extend our drivers licenses, yes. But I'm not sure I would have. I'm walking distance to the pharmacy and grocery store. Feel too guilty and worried otherwise.
So what's the squabbling over? A local lady I know popped up to talk trash about one of the local rental car agencies. She spun a tale where she innocently did nothing wrong that ended with the rental car guys all flipping birds at her and calling her naughty names.
I know all the guys working in that particular rental agency, and I cannot for the life of me imagine any of them doing anything remotely like that unless severely provoked. A little probing of the tale and the tale teller and something of a different sort spilled out.
Turns out that the lady in question tried to present an expired drivers license and an expired passport to the rental agency. She got stroppy with them when they refused to rent her a car on expired papers. I can't blame there, just like so many things here involving tourism there are some strict rules about invalid documents.
The other problem was the fact they needed a credit card to put an insurance hold on of a thousand dollars. Yes, when you come to Costa Rica on vacation and try to pick up a rental care that thousand dollar hold to cover damages is standard, along with anywhere from twenty to forty bucks a day for mandatory insurance on the car. Pleas always check out financial obligations before you travel. Most travel places do not warn you of these things.
Expired drivers license. Expired passport. No credit card. Three strikes and you are out. People started trying to explain to the lady that them's the breaks, the rules, before she went into a long screechy rant about COVID and being stuck here three years because of COVID means she could not renew those things.
Correct me if I am wrong but the borders between here and the U.S. weren't closed until mid March 2020. I know because I made a last second border run to keep my drivers license valid.
This is why planning and not assuming is a better way to go. You can get your passport renewed at the embassy here in San Jose. Most states let you renew your license via the internet or by mail. Credit card companies will send your new cards here to C.R.
I don't think we have a higher percentage of criminal Americans here, but I do think there is a mix of those risk takers with those who are sort of holding onto some sort of crazy entitlement for being an American here, thinking that the dolares talks and their bullshit walks. Not quite how it works.
Made one good discovery this week at Price Smart. They offer one of the highest exchange rates from dollars to colonies I've ever seen. We used our dollar account this time after viewing the store exchange rate. Hollering for a dollar here, and saving money.
That's the other thing about assuming your entitlement works here, not planning, not taking care of business. It can cost you big bucks. She ended up having to take a pirata to her long distance destination because it was too late to book a bus ticket or one of the seats on the commuter planes.
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