Shopping in Costa Rica

I’m Back! Let me tell you how I acquired all of my new ‘stuff’. My boss knows a wholesale computer place in San Jose where we picked up my first computer. As you remember, it could sing and dance but had no internal microphone or web camera. I returned it and we were promised another one in a week. My boss made multiple phone calls and everything seemed to be in order. You see, the problem is not getting a computer, especially if you are willing to spend $200 more than you would in Canada, but rather getting an English keyboard. A Spanish keyboard would be absolutely impossible because keys are in different place and some commands are different. Anyway, we were assured that there was an English keyboard in stock and I was a happy camper.

The following week, yesterday, I believe, we went to San Jose to get my computer. At 9 am, even though we had been promised a computer days before, they told us to come back at three. At three sharp, we were sitting in the office waiting for the computer at the wholesalers and wouldn’t you know it. The computer was not there. After sitting staring at each other for 30 minutes, we decided to shake things up a bit and walk to the back room where they finally decided to get their act in gear and show us a computer, but as you can guess, it did not have the requisite microphones and so on. Fair enough, is this the only one you have I asked. Just then, another guy came by and said, in fact, here is another one. It had everything I wanted and then some, but guess what, it was too small for me but at that point, 4:30 I was willing to spend the money just to get out of there! My boss asked after about fifteen minutes of more useless chatter, are you sure there is not another one somewhere? Thirty minutes later she came back to tell us that low and behold, there was a model computer ( a Toshiba Satellite) that she would be willing to sell for $650. Hallelujah! I’ll take it, I said. She told us to come back in an hour when they would have Windows installed on it. Forget it, I told them, we will take it as is and just burn the software and I will install myself! Forty-five minutes later she returned to say they did not have any software and we could download from the Internet. ( wrong actually) but I agreed. At 5:30 I told the lady I would pay an extra $50 if she would just give me the computer within the next 15 minutes and I would pay immediately. She did not get the extra $50!!!!

You think that is bad? Let me tell you about the phone! We got a phone, not really a big deal, but not a small deal either. We went to an Office Depot type of place and you look at the phones but they will not let you take them to the cash register. You have to go to the cash register, wait in line for a bit till you are recognized and then they ask the guys to bring you the phone. That takes another fifteen minutes at least ( which is why there is always a line at the cash register!) Once you get it, you have to go over everything again and then, if you are lucky, they may let you buy it.

You think you are pretty smart, right, and that would be the end of the story, but how wrong you would be. Once you have a telephone, you then have to go to ICE, the national communications carrier to get a phone number. After waiting in line for three days in a row, we found out that there is about a three month waiting list to get a number. Luckily, they let me use my old number.

The story does not end. I bought the same camera as I bought in Toronto three years ago, a nifty little Cannon ( for about one third more than I paid three years ago) and walked out of the store on air…that is until I got home. It is kind of hard to take pictures without a chip to insert which they made no effort to sell me when I bought the new camera and if truth be told probably did not even know it needed one. We bought it in the same place as the phone?!??

Want to hear more? Didn’t think so. So, you want to visit Costa Rica?

Honestly, the moral of the story is that I should never never never lose anything again, especially not here. I do have to tell you though that when I go out to my beach in the morning the water is so clear you can see the sand at the bottom and all the fish in between, you never need a towel, the days are perfect at about 30 degrees and the stars are brighter at night then I have ever seen. As long as you do not ever have to buy anything, Costa Rica is great!