Monday
morning, May 31. Today is the day we
have to go find and buy a car. This is
our first major “must-do” item of moving to a new country. We have one day to find a car—that is pretty
much unheard of when you have a “car guy” for a husband.
via GIPHY
When
Ramie is buying a car, he researches and looks, and test-drives, and looks some
more, and tries to find the best deal.
He has been doing some online research for the last few weeks and has a
few ideas of what he wants, and we hired an American guy who started a business
to help people like us buy cars, so our hopes are high for today.
We
dropped Breeze off with the dog sitter.
It was a young guy operating out of his and his dad’s house. There were about 6 or 7 other dogs there, all
roaming around the fenced back yard, all of them were very excitable including
a puppy that jumped up on top of the table when we got there. Breeze was nervous, but we brought her back with
the rest of the pack and let her go. No
paperwork, nothing else needed, the guy just said that he usually only keeps
the dogs until 5pm but if we were late, that was ok too. No paperwork, no signing waivers, nothing
like dropping a dog off in the US.
Hopefully there were no issues, and hopefully she wasn’t so terrible
that he texted me back in an hour telling me to come get my dog!
At 9am
Chris picked us up to go looking for cars.
The first dealership had 4 that we were somewhat interested in, took
them all for a test drive and 2 were on the possible keepers list, a Toyota
Tacoma and a Toyota 4Runner. Ramie
really wants a truck, but the SUV would be nice too. During these test drives Chris explained a
lot to us about vehicles in Costa Rica, how the buying process works, what
vehicles are desirable and what makes them desirable, what holds their value
for resale, etc. We learned a lot in the
short time we have known him. Well, the
test drives are done at this dealership and we have a lot more to check out so
on we go.
At the
next dealership. The only one that was
even in the running for a test drive was an Isuzu SUV. This time, the owner of the dealership came
along with us. Ramie wasn’t impressed,
it didn’t have any power and definitely wasn’t going to be on the possibility
list. On the way back to the dealership,
the owner told us to take a turn, and low and behold there was a police
checkpoint set up. I will take a moment
to explain that currently, due to COVID, Costa Rica has put driving
restrictions in place where cars ending in an even plate number can only drive
on even days and odd numbers on odd days.
They are doing this because there was a huge outbreak here after Easter
and they think that by reducing cars on the road, that they will reduce traffic
accidents, which will then reduce the number of people needing hospital care so
they can focus on the COVID patients. These
restrictions started at the beginning of May and were scheduled to end at the
end of the month. At this point they are
extending them week by week as needed.
Well,
after the dealer saw the police checkpoint, he told Ramie to quickly turn the
other way instead to avoid the checkpoint.
While we were driving on the wrong day with the wrong license plate
number (we had an even number and it is an odd day), dealers do have permission
to continue test drives for their business, so there actually wasn’t anything
wrong with us test driving today. Ramie
turned down a very narrow road and instead of just continuing down the road, we
turned around to go back to the highway.
As we were headed back the way we came, a police officer was walking
toward us with his hand on his holstered gun, and there were two more officers
not far behind. Ramie stopped the car,
and the officer was saying something in Spanish (which neither Ramie nor I
speak or understand), so we were relying on the 2 Tico guys in the back to help
us out here.
We were told to shut the car off, get out and stand in a line on the sidewalk. They proceeded to talk directly to Ramie, who
as he says, probably had the most stupid look of “I don’t know what you’re
saying but I’m going to smile and nod in agreement”. Ramie then asked Chris and the salesman what
they were asking, and they told him they wanted identification. So, Ramie and I took out our passports and
handed them over. About this time a
motorcycle officer came speeding up and now we have 4 police officers standing
there around us. All of them speaking
Spanish really fast, I’m sure we had very confused looks on our faces! They then asked for Chris’s and the dealer’s
drivers licenses, who continued to speak fast Spanish, and then told Ramie to
get back in the car and drive it to the directly to the checkpoint. The other 3 of us had to walk (it was only a
couple of blocks). About this time the
motorcycle officer sped off and later I found out that Ramie received a police
escort to the check point. The
motorcycle officer stopped traffic and followed Ramie the whole way. I had no idea what was going on with this
whole ordeal, but as I walked over with Chris and the dealer, they explained
that nothing bad was going to happen.
Since we had maneuvered away so quickly, they thought that there must be
something sketchy going on and they have to check it out. Ramie got to the checkpoint with the car
before the rest of us did and he says that they were talking to him in Spanish
as well. He greeted them in the little
bit of Spanish he knows and just told them he didn’t understand and they would
have to wait for the rest of us to get there.
At least they were friendly to him!
When we were all at the police checkpoint, the dealer got his butt
chewed out (in Spanish, but we could get the gist of it) and he was basically
told, if there is a checkpoint and he’s legal to be operating, he should have
never tried to avoid it. Just a little
while earlier something very similar happened and the car had several lbs. of
cocaine in it. They often find drugs in
the cars that are trying to get away from the checkpoints. After this whole ordeal (which really only
lasted about 20-30 minutes) we were on our way back to the dealership. We had decided that even if we had kind of
liked that car, we probably wouldn’t have bought anything from this dealership
anyway. On to dealership number 3.
Here they
showed us 2 Toyota Hilux Diesel trucks.
This is what Ramie was really wanting.
We were hoping for diesel (better torque, good get up & go, plus
diesel is cheaper than gas here).
Unfortunately, after looking them over, we determined they were
overpriced for what they were, and passed on them without even test driving
them. Our 2 choices were the Tacoma
& 4Runner back at the first dealership.
At this point it was about 11:40. Dealerships and escrow companies
(where our money was being held to pay for the vehicle) close at noon for lunch
for 1-2 hours depending on the company.
If we hurried up and made our decision, we MIGHT be able to get the
process started before they left.
After
some discussion, we decided that the 4Runner SUV would be the better choice for
us. While the truck would have been
fantastic for hauling things, Chris assured us that here in Costa Rica they are
good at fitting a lot of stuff in vehicles that you wouldn’t think they could
fit it in to. He has seen couches and
refrigerators fit into an SUV like this.
Plus, this would be better for when we have guests come to visit us and
we have to chauffeur them around (yes, we put a high priority on YOUR comfort
as well!!
 |
2011 Toyota 4Runner SR5
|
Well, it
was noon by the time that we made our decision.
We went back to the first dealership and there was someone that was
working over the lunch hour, so he started on our paperwork right away.
We sent what we needed to, to the escrow
company and then we continued on to the lawyer who does the title
transfer.
Then back to the dealership
where the insurance guy came to meet us and sign us up for vehicle
insurance.
This wasn’t so bad; the
company Chris works for has this all figured out and set up to be pretty
simple.
The only thing that we were
waiting for was the money from the escrow company to show up in the dealers account and we were
done!
So now we
just waited for the money to be transferred.
And waited…
And
waited some more.
Chris
explained to us that for some reason the escrow companies seem to like to do
this (it wasn’t just our bad luck). Even
though everything is all there and ready to go (they have had our money for
over a week now) that they just wait and wait and wait. Sometimes, even if they have everything they
need by 1:00, they will wait until 20 minutes before the end of their day to
press the button for the transaction.
WTF?!?!
They have
OUR money, and OUR authorization to send it so we can take OUR car with us
today--- but they are just going to send it whenever THEY feel like it?!?! Welcome to Costa Rica!!......
It was
after 4:30 by the time the transfer finally came through. Once the money was in the dealership’s
account, we were free to go. All we had
for proof of ownership was a sketchy looking but legit bill of sale, the keys,
and the legal document from the lawyer, and away we go! Really, this is our proof. No title? Not pages of pages of paperwork?? Do we really
own this??? I guess we do, so let’s get out of here and head back to the hotel.
Oh yeah, our dog! We picked Breeze up from the dog sitter at a
little bit before 5. The guy’s dad
brought her out to me and he didn’t speak English, so I don’t know if she was
good or bad all day, and we headed back to the hotel. I guess we will never know if she found a Tico
dog friend.
Mission
Number 1 – Accomplished!
Oh- and
we have an ODD plate number, which means we can’t drive tomorrow June 1. We were supposed to drive to our rental house
which is about 3.5 hours away in Uvita tomorrow, but I guess we’ll be spending
an extra day at the hotel... Oh, and you know those COVID driving
restrictions—well, they just got a whole lot more complicated for June. Now, odd plates drive on even days and even
plates drive on odd days. It’s a good
thing this country is so beautiful, because they sure do seem to have a lot of
WTF moments. Hahahahaha
This is way to funny 🤣
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