It's done. As of this morning, we are licensed to drive in Costa Rica. Even better, the process turned out to be a lot simpler than we expected.
We boarded the Esquipulas to Palmares bus at 5:38 a.m., switched to the Palmares to San Jose bus less than five minutes before it pulled out, and exited at Hospital Mexico in Uruca about 45 minutes later.
Our instructions told us that the COSEVI building, where MOPT is located, would be right across from the Mercedes dealership - which was right across from the hospital. Well.... not quite. The road to the COSEVI building and the Mercedes dealership is right across the from hospital. The buildings themselves are actually about 3 km up that road - something we learned the way we learn most things in Costa Rica - by asking questions along the way and watching the body language that accompanies the response because we usually don't have a clue as to what the words are telling us.
When we arrived at MOPT at 7:45 we were directed to the last building in the back of the complex, where we found ourselves about 40 people back in the line that had probably started to form more than an hour earlier. The sky had been overcast and a brisk wind had been blowing all morning and right before the doors opened at 8:00 a light rain started to fall -- something that must happen often enough, because thankfully the entire walkway where the line formed was covered by a corrugated metal roof.
After a little more waiting, we were directed to the second floor where we produced our medical certificate from yesterday, our passports, and Arizona drivers licenses. Then our data was entered into a computer and we were given a slip of paper indicating that we each needed to pay 4,000 colones at the Banco de Costa Rica next door. A few minutes later we were back with our BCR receipt in hand and waited in another short line until we were called to have our photos taken and our index fingerprints recorded. At 9:30 we were handed our printed plastic Costa Rica drivers licenses.
My only complaint was that mine bears the worst picture I've ever taken, thanks to the damp breeze that turned my fine hair limp and straight ;( But if that's all I can complain about, given the horror stories we've heard about Tico bureaucracy, I can live with that small embarrassment.
Pura Vida
