We have been waiting for a parcel from
Washington (the West one) for about two weeks.
Melaney ordered four bottles of Calcium/magnesium/vitamin D
tablets. We need them for our legs. In putting a tracer on the parcel, we found
that it was in Costa Rica.
We
headed out for the Airport. Mel had phoned and found out that the customs
offices were 1000 meters from the airport terminal, and one didn’t have to go
to the terminal, but bypass it, and go around toward the back of the terminal
building.
We
found a location that looked promising, but we had to go through a ticketed
gate to get to the parking there. I
waited in the car. She ran into the
building, and was back at the car in two and a half minutes. We were at the wrong building, we should be
across the street. In leaving the
parking gate, the girl charged us 1400 Calones.
That is about two dollars and 80 cents, for two and a half minutes. There was no exception. She paid it.
We drove around the other side of the buildings, and found a spot in the
shade. She parked on the street, and
went into the building. About 45 minutes
later she came back to the car and said there would be a wait, but there was a
cafeteria and bathrooms handy in the building.
We
walked about a block, through a parking area for the big transport trucks, and
towards a bank of stairs. These were
huge construction type steel stairs. I
climbed them slowly, one at a time. My
back and hips and knees won’t take that kind of punishment very easily any
more. Mel helped me the best that she
could. We got to the top of the stairs,
through the doors, down long wire mesh hallways, though other doors, found the
washroom then carried on and down the stairs to the floor that the customs
offices are on.
After
waiting for a long time, Melaney was able to talk to a man in a separate room
(the door was kept locked, and only one person at a time could enter.) When she came out she was wearing a pinned on
badge which made her look official, and she sat beside me to wait some
more. We went to the cafeteria and had a
drink, then came back to the waiting room.
At least that was air conditioned, so it was relatively comfortable, and
the seats were moderately padded.
By
this time, we had been in and around this office for a couple of hours. Then we were told that the person she was
waiting for, the customs official, wouldn’t be in till around 1:30. We waited some more. Groups were gathering.
Mel
saw two heavy women go down to the office door of the customs official she was
waiting to talk with. The mother sat on
the stairs, and the girl stood by the railing.
After about another hour, Mel decided to go down with the group at the
doorway. As fate would have it, the girl
spoke English. She had been raised in Scotland for some years, and spoke
with a slight Scottish but mostly Spanish accent.
In
the meantime, I was sitting in the same spot.
I
was getting concerned that the time would run out. I didn’t have any idea how long the offices
would remain open. By this time, we had been away from home about six
hours. Then the girls came on a gallop
in front of me, Mel turned her head and told me to stay where I was, the girls
and a few other people were off through a side door.
I
found out later that the customs officer was held up in the other building in
meetings, and the girls and a few others went over there on foot to try to catch
her in another office. In the meantime,
the heavy girls' mother was sitting beside me and I found out that she could
speak English, so we conversed. (She is the Dean of a local University--Mel) One man
who spoke only Spanish came to sit by her on the other side, and she told me he
said the girls were about third in the line to see the customs agent.
It
was only two minutes to four. I feared
the office that I was in was going to close at four. I said to my seating companion that they
would have to close the doors around me, that I had now waited over five hours,
and was not going to move until Melaney could get back to me.
She
appeared. I was very relieved, but then
was informed that the building I was in was open until 5:30. She motioned for us to go, and I was dreading
the long halls and the two flights of stairs.
Mel wondered if there wasn’t a closer door to the street, and I told her
I had watched many people go to the exit just a few feet from where we were
seated all afternoon. There were three
stairs. Mel enquired as we passed a desk
if the door led to the parking lot. The
girl just shrugged her shoulders. She
didn’t have any idea what the question was.
We
didn’t have the parcel. Melaney had seen
it in the room with the locked door. She said she would explain when we got to
the car.
Out
the exit door, and believe it or not, the car wasn’t more than thirty feet
away. I was very relieved that we didn’t
have to do the tour walk with all the steel stairs. When we got into the car,
Melaney said that the customs agent had told her she had to get a permission certificate
from the minister of health in San
Jose to import the pills that were in the
package. It was just exasperating. They could have told us that four hours
earlier.
It
was approaching late afternoon, and the daylight is unforgiving. We always want to be home before dark. We had an adventure on the way. Mel recognized a quick turn to get off the
main highway toward Poas. She braked and
pulled right quickly and a big truck which had really been tailgating blew a
blast on the air horn……We drove along in apparently the correct direction for a
while, then somehow took a wrong turn and I could tell by the names on the
front of the approaching buses we weren’t going in the right direction. At one point we were going against traffic
towards the highway and I saw a group of traffic police across the median, and
one was waiving wildly, indicating we were approaching the highway in the wrong
direction. We made a U turn, and a truck
let us in. We went back the way we were
coming from and finally found a marker that we recognized and got to the right
road. Once I saw some familiar
landscapes, I felt better. We arrived at
home just before five. By 5:30 it’s
dark. By 6:00 it is pitch dark.
Gigi
had been left all day, and she was barking through the window. She was so excited to finally see us.
The
package story will continue tomorrow……..
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