Week 12: Ray’s Big Birthday and Crossing the Border

We had a very busy week with Ray’s 14th birthday, which included a “Sport’s Day” at the school. Initially this day was scheduled for a week ago, but with all of the rain and flooding, was canceled. Lucky for Ray it was rescheduled for his birthday which means he only had classes for about a half day! Both Ray and John played in games during the day; John played soccer and Ray played in both a JV and then a Varsity basketball game. John’s team lost their game 2-1, but both of Ray’s teams won by only a basket-very exciting! Ray scored 13 points in the Varsity game which included the winning basket!

Later we were able to go out to celebrate Ray’s birthday at one of his favorite pizza restaurants. Our waiter brought him a nice dessert (we RARELY have chocolate here). Ray also got his old-school Sony tape walkman and Beastie Boys shirt that he wanted!

Crossing the Border to Nicaragua

Since we only have a 90 day tourist Visa, we have to leave Costa Rica every 90 days in order to return with a new “stamp” that says we can stay here for another 90 days (again, as tourists). This is fairly common practice for people living in this area; there are many companies that will provide this transportation to and from the border, but it costs about $45 a person. We decided to try it on our own.

Here is John’s take on the day:

This morning we left at 8:15 and drove to Liberia and picked up our friend Edgar to show us the directions to Nicaragua. We started going up and saw a lot of trucks near the border. It was 2 hours away from our house. Edgar said those trucks have to stay there to get checked there by border control and it would take maybe up to two weeks. We got to the border and got out of the car to walk across the border. We had to have people look at our passports and get stamps and pay them money. We got to Nicaragua and it was a whole different place. There were lots of people selling things. We met another guy, George, who helped us go around the border of Nicaragua. We had to pay more money and get more stamps. It took an hour or so to get all of the stamps done. So, we pretty much had to leave Costa Rica, to go to Nicaragua, to go right back to Costa Rica!

Other interesting notes:

Medicine here is sold by the pill. At grocery stores you can find SOME medications that are sold in a small dose in a box, but for the most part medicine is sold at a pharmacy by the pill and pharmacies are found everywhere. Ibuprofen (which you cannot find at a grocery store or Walmart) costs about 35-40 cents a pill, although the pills are a dose that includes 2 pills in one.
Even Margaritaville has infiltrated our little area! Margaritville purchased one of our local hotels/restaurants on the beach and has been working the past two months to revamp the facility and open in December when the busy season starts.
Below is a view of the boys’ school. We forget how beautiful the surrounding area is-this aerial view really captures it!