Losing Our Car and Eating at McDonald’s

Recently, we went to City Mall in Alajuela to pick up a few needed items at Office Depot. City Mall opened about three years or so ago, if memory serves me. It’s huge. Three levels of underground parking and I think maybe four levels of shops, services and a food court. Lots of North American style stores and brand names.

We parked in stall number 135 and went into the mall, wandered around looking for Office Depot, finally asking for directional assistance from people stationed around the mall just for that purpose. I needed bubble wrap and had forgot to translate it into Spanish. This is a fun part of living in a foreign country that uses a different language and your Spanish speaking skills are, well, lacking somewhat for some things - trying to describe what you want using gestures and facial expressions. The poor clerk went on the hunt for someone who could speak English. The fellow with English skills knew exactly what I wanted - he said the Spanish words for bubble wrap are “plástico de burbujas”.

Mission accomplished and, since it was near to lunch time, and because I had a craving for a McDonald’s cheese burger, we went to the food court and ordered cheese burgers, Cokes and fries. I made a pequeño ordering error in Spanish and we ended up with two cheese burgers each. Those cheese burgers are the best - small, not too much filling inside (beef patty, cheese slice, pickle and special sauce). I couldn’t eat both burgers so took one with me for a snack later in the day. Here’s one item on the Costa Rican McDonald’s menu, which I imagine isn’t available in Canada:

Then off we went to retrieve our vehicle and head for home. We went to the level where we thought we had parked our car - and stall number 135 was empty! We walked all over that level - no Subaru Forester. A word to the wise: remember your stall number, BUT also remember what level you are on. When you enter the underground parking, you are issued a ticket. When you leave and before you go to your car, you run the ticket through ticket machines located on each parking level and the amount you owe is displayed and you feed in your colones to pay for the parking. Then you feed that same ticket through another machine at the exit. But, each ticket has a time limit.

So we had done all that before looking for our vehicle but time was running out. We wandered through several levels. Have you ever seen that Seinfeld episode where Kramer can’t locate his car in an underground parking lot, Elaine has bought a live goldfish and, as time goes by, she fears for the life of the goldfish in the plastic bag? Well, that’s how I felt about my hamburger - what if it is getting too warm and I eat it at home and then get really sick?

Finally, we found our vehicle and headed home. Remember your stall number and your level!!!!

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - October 2018

As indicated in the following chart, visits to this blog were received from 17 different countries during October 2018:

The following is a summary of the weather for the month:

The overnight low temperatures, aggravated by accompanying high humidities, were quite chilly - at least in the area where we live. The daytime high temperatures were mitigated by clouds.

The day on which the maximum rainfall occurred (2.15 in / 5.46 cm) was a dark and dreary day of almost continuous drizzling rain - reminiscent of many days in the late fall and winter on the West Coast of Canada and Pacific Northwest in the USA. Nevertheless, there were many days with broken clouds and sunshine to accent the continuing green season.

New Tires

When we bought our Subaru almost a year ago, we knew that the rear tires would need replacing some time within the coming year. That “some time” came this week.

I had been shopping at the Maxi Pali store next to the Grecia mall and when I returned to the car, I saw that the left rear tire was flat. I know how to change a tire, but I couldn’t even lift the spare out of the wheel well. And who wants to change a tire anyway.

What to do, what to do. I called Lance and he suggested flagging down a red taxi and having the driver change the tire. This isn’t at all unusal here. Once we had an absolutely dead battery on a borrowed vehicle and Jorge came and removed the battery, took it to a shop he knew, and returned it the next day in working order.

So I waited until a taxi was dropping off a passenger and showed the driver my flat. He had it off and the spare on in ten minutes. I paid him for his time and efforts. He told me to drive directly to a gas station because the spare needed a bit of air. I did this, but the gas guy misunderstood me and also put air in the flat. Later that same day, we took our car to Llantas Algosa Ltda to have the flat looked at but it was holding air and they couldn’t find a problem with it. So it went back on and the spare came off.

The thought was that somebody had let the air out of the tire in the parking lot - this happens in tourist areas especially - and then they would offer to “help” and then steal something. Really highly unlikely in the Maxi Pali lot because there is a guard but I suppose it could happen.

I had to go out again the following day to Super Rosvil, parked, bought my groceries, returned to the vehicle and, yes, the tire was flat again. This time, three Rosvil managers came out to help me and the tire was changed in super fast time. They wouldn’t take any money and I must write and thank Super Rosvil for their employees’ immediate help.

Back to Llantas Algosa Ltda. The tire could not be repaired so we bought two new ones. Highly recommend Llantas Algosa - their speciality is tires, installation, alignment, etc. They have some high tech computer equipment for the alignments. Comfortable waiting room also. Nice people. The first time we were there they charged 1,000 colones to switch the tires (about $1.60 USD). 

Final cost for two new tires, plus installation, etc. - 76,000 colones ($122.00 USD).

First Year of Owning a Vehicle in Costa Rica - Vehicle Inspection

In Costa Rica, vehicle inspection is handled by a government agency generally referred to as "Riteve". As it seems, the inspection procedure turns out to be far more rigorous than we ever encountered in Canada. I expect the same is true for the U.S. For older vehicles, inspection can be an annual event.

The procedure involves not only checking exhaust emissions, tire tread wear, break lining wear, headlight alignment, do the blinkers work, but also checking under the hood, under the body, can the horn actually "honk", etc. What was different, at least compared to our past experience in Canada, was a bone rattling dynamic testing of the brakes.

The procedure is a step by step drive through procedure and you do the driving. You are expected to follow instructions in a very noisy environment. Unless you are absolutely fluent in Spanish or luckily get a Riteve technician who is fluent in English then you could have a problem. Normally, the whole procedure should take about 15 to 20 minutes.

In the absence of fluency, then for a nominal fee you should consider hiring a local mechanic to take your vehicle to Riteve, do the drive through, and report back to you on any deficiencies found by Riteve. Riteve does provide a report card (in Spanish). 

In December 2017, we purchased a used low mileage 2006 Subaru Forrester. Part of our due diligence dictated that we confirm it had passed on its last due date (and it had). The next due date was recent. We went online to Riteve and got an appointment. This was easily done (in English) HERE.

We FAILED! Riteve had four observations:

(1) Rear tires with mild tread wear but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).

(2) One clouded headlight cover burned by the sun but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).

(3) A "sunscreen adhesive" on the rear window but not requiring attention at the present time (not serious).

(4) One low beam headlight considered to be too low - a serious problem ("grave" in Spanish). FAILURE - NEEDS FIXING!

The "sunscreen adhesive" was actually a small "Baby On Board" sticker applied by the previous owner. We could easily scrape it off but decided to leave it in place. What bad guys would attack a vehicle if they thought a baby was on board? Possibly a naive thought - and not necessarily a good message for first responders.

We were given an initial three week deadline to return to Riteve and show that the low beam headlight problem had been fixed. We did so, but not before going through some hoops. 

First, we unsuccessfully looked for any advertised local service which could provide headlight alignment. Second, we turned to Facebook only to be advised by many that any competent mechanic could do the job. Not knowing who "any competent mechanic" might be, we went to an auto repair shop which had previously fixed a problem we had with vehicle air conditioning. They were very competent but not in the business of aligning headlights. They directed us to a shop which specialized in automotive electrical systems. While busy with other work, one person in that shop stepped aside, quickly checked the alignment of both headlights, fixed the one which was misaligned - and declined to accept any payment for the service - Taller Electromecánico y Baterías Bull.

We returned to Riteve and were cleared almost immediately when we got to the headlight testing station. But our exit was delayed because there were vehicles in the line ahead of us which seemed to be having some issues.

Eyes on Costa Rica - Update / October 12, 2018

Visits to this blog have now been recorded from 3740 towns, cities and other places located in 124 countries throughout the world. The most recent countries are Oman in Western Asia, Equatorial Guinea in Africa, and Zambia, also in Africa. Each is highlighted on the map below. While the vast majority of visits come from Canada, the U.S. and Costa Rica itself, it is clear that people from many other countries and many other places have their eyes on Costa Rica.

On the map, red dots (many of which are buried under other red dots) indicate places from where visits have occurred since September 29, 2016. Visits recorded before that date are not shown on the map.

In any given month, the number of countries from which visits to this blog are received is highly variable. The following chart identifies countries for the month of September 2018.

My video of "Landing at Juan Santamaría Airport, Costa Rica" has continued to attract interest not only through this blog where the video was first posted on August 26, 2017 but also directly through YouTube independently of the posting. In the first five to six months after the posting, the video was viewed about 1100 times. That number has now climbed to over 2590 views.

September Weather, 2018

A weather summary for the month of September in Hacienda El Paseo/Grecia during the period from the beginning of April to the end of September appears below.

In Costa Rica, September falls in the middle of the rainy or "green" season and is generally marked by more days with rain and lower daily high temperatures. On rainy days, at least in the area where we live, a day often (but not always) begins with a sunny morning. Around 11 am to 1 pm clouds begin to drift in holding the high temperature down. Then the rain starts and will typically continue for two or three hours.

The number of rainy days in September this year was the most we have encountered in any single month since moving to Hacienda El Paseo. Even though we were not here during earlier months (January, February, March), it is safe to say that there was no month which would have had more rainy days than September. The earlier months were all in the Costa Rican “dry” season.

The current rainy or green season should continue until late November or early December. Then begins the next dry season.