More QuickPass info

Now that I've had a QuickPass for a few months, I can pass on a few "quirks" you ought to know about, in case you plan to get one yourself.

1. Supposedly, you can go to HSBC's website and type in your QuickPass' number, and it will show you all the transactions you've made and how much you have remaining on your pass. Good luck with that. Let me know if it actually works for you, because all I get is "no movements, no information." Yeah.
2. Sometimes you will find that the QuickPass doesn't work. It will say "QuickPass invalido" or "Vehiculo sin QuickPass." The first instance means you've run out of money, the second means it didn't read it properly. In the second instance, hand it to the person in the booth and they will type in the number, and if you have money left on your pass, you will be able to go through. In the first instance, if there is someone behind you, you can pay and they'll bitch at you; if there is no one behind you, they'll try to make you go in a pay lane, in which case you can bitch at them ("But I just charged it two days ago!" works for me) until they let you pay. Or you can back up and go in another lane, your choice.
3. Try to keep tabs on how much money you've got in there. It would be great if the HSBC site actually worked, but since it doesn't, this is a little difficult. If you use the electronic tolls frequently, top up frequently (personally I just throw some cash at it each paycheck; I really have no idea how much is left on it -- maybe that's something I ought to look into?).
4. Lots of idiots who don't have a QuickPass try to go through the QuickPass lane. Especially at rush hour, making the whole thing almost pointless. My advice is to hang back just a little until you see if the car/bus/truck in front of you actually goes through, then follow it. And if it doesn't go through, use another lane. If it's a bus, you can be about 95% sure they do not have a QuickPass, so avoid being behind those and use another lane.
5. Wave at all the other suckers in line as you breeze through the QuickPass lane during rush hour. This is the fun part. heh heh...
6. If you're using the Escazu tolls, know that the far left and far right QuickPass lanes are never open. I don't know why. It's really annoying. Heading toward San Jose from the direction of Santa Ana, make sure you get in the correct lane depending on where you're going next. If you're going to EPA or Escazu, use the far right lanes. If you're going to San Jose, the left lanes work best, but you can also use the third lane in from the right. I have actually seen someone cut across about 10 lanes of traffic (after using the far left lanes) to get off at the very next exit following the tolls. Yikes. Please don't be that person; it's so dangerous to you and everyone around you.
7. Speaking of many lanes of traffice, there are like a gazillion toll booths in each direction. Well, maybe 12, I don't know. Costa Rican road engineers have not figured out how to get these lanes to merge into each other and then into three lanes, so you basically have what we call the "wild, wild west" section between the toll booths and the three-lane highway, where there are no marks on the road whatsoever. Again, yikes. So be careful. I don't think I need to tell you what idiots people drive like here. I'm pretty sure there is no direct translation for "merge" from English to Spanish. ;-)
   
8. And after all these months of hassling with QuickPass, would I suggest getting one? If you use the tolls on a regular basis (I go into San Jose three or four times a week), I'd say hands down YES. The hassle of topping up seems relatively little compared to the hassle of digging around for change, waiting in lines, etc. If you have an HSBC near you with a drive through, that makes things even easier, although they can't tell you how much you have left on your pass at the drive through (you have to go in for that, and now you see why I have no idea how much money is on my QuickPass!). Also, you can use the QuickPass anywhere in the country that has QuickPass lanes, not just in San Jose. Now that there is a new highway to the beach, which I've heard gets pretty packed around the tolls during the weekends, this is another bonus to having one, even if you rarely go to the beach (personally, I can't stand going to the beach here, unless it's over in Manzanillo/Gandoca/Puerto Viejo area -- to hot and filthy).

That's all for now. I start working full-time on Monday (though it feels like I've already been doing that), so I'll probably have even less time to dedicate to this blog. So I'll sign off for a while, saying thanks for reading! I really do appreciate every comment, every page view I get! :-D

Learn Spanish for free!

A friend of mine shared this link with me, which I will share with you. He's learning Portuguese, and I'm thinking I'll try either that, or refresh my French, or maybe do something completely different and try Arabic (which I've always wanted to learn).

Foreign Service Institute Language Courses

I know at least a few of you out there read this blog because you're planning on moving down to Costa Rica (or thinking about it, at least). If so, I implore you to, if you don't already, learn some basic Spanish! You'll find life here a lot more pleasant, and you'll get ripped off a lot less (yep, the rumors are true: Gringos who can't communicate in Spanish are likely to get charged more). You might still get someone who tries to charge you more, but if you can communicate (and argue) your point in Spanish, well... you get what I'm saying?

One of the most annoying things anyone has ever said to me on the subject was back in college. A girl in one of my classes was planning on coming down here to Costa Rica for a year, like, you know, to surf and have fun and stuff? (That last bit needs to be said in Californian -- hee hee...) I was surprised, and asked her if she knew any Spanish. She said, "No, but like, doesn't everyone there speak English?" And then I was all, "Seriously?"

If you have any of these delusions as well, no, not everyone speaks English. Many people speak very basic English; some people speak English really well. But to go to a foreign country and expect people to speak your language is beyond rude -- learn their language, even if all you can manage before you get there is a few simple phrases. Trust me, it goes a long way!

And now you have one less excuse for doing so, as I've just given you a link to a whole Spanish course for free!

Woof, Woof!

The World Woof Tour 09 hits Costa Rica on November 21, and I hope you'll be there! (Click on the poster below for a larger image.)


The most important thing about the fair will be the pet adoption program, and there will also be fun things for people, auctions, contests with your pets, plus low-cost vaccine and spay/neuter clinics, etc. It's at Country Day School in Escazu, which is just a couple of blocks up from the Red Cross in downtown. Esposo and Mrs. P. will be providing deeelicious savory and sweet treats, so stop by and ask them, "Hey, are you esposo/Mrs. P.?" That would probably freak them out. Ha ha!

"The Snatchback"

Yesterday, while looking for something on a completely different subject, I came across this article in The Atlantic, about a guy who had to kidnap his son out of Costa Rica from his biological father. It's a bit long, but compelling, so I'll wait while you go ahead and read it.

Whistles. Twiddles thumbs.

Done? Good. Ok, there are some things about this story that just don't add up to me. The father, Jason, did not have custody of Andres when Andres and his mother, Helen, came to Costa Rica. In fact, Todd secured an injunction against Jason to retrieve his son. But the Siquirres police wouldn't take Andres out of the home, saying they didn't have that authority:

So Todd got an injunction from a San José court ordering Jason to surrender Andres, and he and Helen accompanied the Costa Rican police when they went to Jason’s office to deliver it. Jason still refused to relinquish Andres, and Todd says the police told him that they didn’t have the right under Costa Rican law to enter Jason’s home and take the boy.

I call bullshit. Now, to me, what Jason did is kidnapping. Sure, he's the biological father of Andres, but Andres was raised by Todd and Helen. They were his parents. Jason did not have custody of Andres. So how in the hell did the Siquirres police not do anything about it? Do you mean to tell me that if a child has been kidnapped, you know who did it, you go with the police to the kidnapper's door, and the kidnapper says, No, I'm not handing the kid over, the police can just walk away? Oh. Hell. No.

At that point, why didn't Todd and Helen get, at the very minimum, the PANI and/or the OIJ involved? Surely they both have the authority to remove the child from the home if the police are too pussy to do it. (And, as an aside, pretty much everywhere in Costa Rica, the police are next-to-worthless. If you really need something important done, go to the OIJ.) Instead, Todd spends a ridiculous sum of money ($25,000 iirc) to get his son out of the country. Granted, I'd do it too, if it were my son. I'd spend every last cent I had, and then go find more. But I think the whole surreptitious snatching Andres back could have been avoided if he'd have tried other avenues than simply the local police (not making any accusations here, but sounds like something else was going on there, you know what I mean?).

Well, at any rate, I'm glad it all ended well and that Andres is back with Todd in the U.S. To me, family is what you make it. Blood ain't always thicker than water.

(I'll grant that this story is fairly one-sided, from Todd and somewhat Helen's point of view. La Teja apparently also wrote an article about the case, but since they couldn't even be bothered to spell Todd's last name correctly, and in general seem to be more concerned with photographing women's big butts than anything else, that "paper" would be the last place I'd turn for reliable information. I also found this article from Ocala.com, but it's basically just a rehashing of The Atlantic's piece. Apparently no other newspaper in Costa Rica gave a shit, sadly.)

P.S. Mr. Hopson? I'm glad you got your son back, I truly am, but please don't call my country third-world. Sure, parts of it look like Appalacia, but the politically correct terms are "developing" and "developed" countries. Saying Costa Rica is third-world just makes you look like a rich asshole. Maybe you should visit some truly "third-world" countries before throwing terms like that around. Just sayin'.

Bam!

Night before last, about 1:00 in the morning, esposo and I were awoken by a blast that, I swear, seemed like a bomb being dropped nearby. The whole area lit up with white light and the explosion made the house shake. We both jumped out of bed, going, "What was that?!" But then nothing else happened, our son was soundly asleep, so we figured it was just some idiots shooting off fireworks too close, and went back to sleep.

Then, about an hour after that, we woke up to what sounded like a cherry bomb going off near our house. Again, we go through the "What was that!?" routine, figure it's nothing, and go back to sleep.

Around 3:00, we hear a zapping sound that is similar to what passed for science and technology in old black-and-white sci-fi movies. Or a bug zapper that was maybe a 5-foot-square box. Anyway, it was loud. And scary. We look out the window to see that, lo and behold, all that noise previously had been coming from a blown transformer on the electrical box across the street from our house. We know this now, because it's on fire.

Personally, I'd never seen an electrical pole on fire. Luckily down here in Costa Rica, cement is the material of choice for electrical poles, otherwise that thing would've lit up like a Halloween Christmas tree. As it was, wires were dropping from the box and remained on fire on the ground, while at the box, the fire was tearing up the connecting lines. (Strangely, though, we didn't have any loss of electricity.)

We called 911, and as esposo is explaining to the person on the other end that the electrical box is on fire, he (the operator) asks, "Is anything burning?" [slaps forehead] Even so, the fire department managed to get there within two minutes, although they did stop down the street first (clue: look for the electrical box on fire). [slaps forehead again] I was a little concerned that the whole thing might blow up; even so, esposo managed to take a photo of the whole affair before the fire department arrived:


Did you know electrical boxes had those light-up-in-the-dark code numbers on them? I never did, until I saw this picture.

Well, that was fun.