Housebound no more

One of my major worries in writing a blog in lieu of a journal was not updating it very often especially in light of how bad I am in keeping a journal in the first place. So my apologies to myself and everyone else.

It has been a busy ten days or so. We went through the experience of buying a car in a foreign land. There is a lot more to it than one would think. If you don't like the thought of car shopping in the states you would not have enjoyed the process we had to go through to get ours.

As soon as our friend Karoy heard that we were seriously wanting to get a car (we thought we could survive without one but we couldn't and it has already paid dividends) he was very much on the job. That same day he took us by an acquaintance's house to look at his car, an Isuzu Rodeo. The car was not at home. So he drove by another house who he knew was selling a car. It turns out it belonged to an ex-priest who gave up his calling to get married and then the two of them gave up their jobs to sell the equivalent of Nutra-system type products. Things were not working out for them career move wise, financially or socially so they want to move away and start anew. It was a nice car but I had was not ready to jump at the first car we saw especially since it was a Suzuki. Then he drove us around a nearby neighborhood looking for his boss' brother's house because he had a car for sale. Three times around the same "block" called the street of witches in the dead of night we still did not find it. As we decided to give up the car drove right past us. It was an older Ford Explorer so we continued on our way without looking back (sorry Amanda & Ricardo but I wouldn't want a Ford back home why would I want one here). Strike three.

The next day he brought his wife, Isue, over for an English lesson with Laurie. We looked through internet classified ads for used cars. It seemed that after hours of research the Suzuki might not be a bad little car after all. Just as they were about to leave we spotted an ad for a car in Heredia about two hours away. Karoy quickly called and it was still available. He asked if we wanted to go look at it that afternoon. We wanted to but we were in the middle of laundry, no one else was home and the others didn't have keys not to mention Karoy said we would have to take the bus back if we didn't buy the car. Karoy was in a hurry but he had his mind made up to help find us a car and he thought this might be a good one. We packed for what we knew would be a long day (every adventure with Karoy turns into a long day), wrote a note, asked the neighbors to hold our house keys and were out the door.

We had to pick up a mechanic Karoy knew, a Cuban, on the way about 20 minutes from the car dealership. We looked at the car, took a quick test drive, got the okay from the mechanic and struck a deal. So far so good. We had to then drop Karoy at his old workplace, take the mechanic back and stop at the bank to withdraw enough money to complete the transaction. We weren't even going to have to take the bus back. After a quick bite to eat (at Mc Donald’s of all places but Laurie was very hungry and it was too dangerous to cross the busy street to get to Taco Bell) we went to the bank. After waiting in line (sitting down then getting up and moving a seat then sitting back down every time we moved up) for 45 minutes, the teller told us that he couldn’t help us and we had to go to another line. It wasn’t our fault, the concierge sat us there after asking us what we needed and he said. “perfect” when we answered that we did indeed speak English. After a 20 minute wait, we found out that there is a limit to how much of our monwy we had access to. It turns out that it wasn’t enough.

All this time Karoy is late for work. When we picked up Karoy, sans money to buy the car, he informs us that the dealer’s lawyer was not available today anyways but if we put down a small deposit they would not only hold the car but would bring it to us the next day. We did indeed end up on the bus, and didn’t arrive home until after ten (there was a fatal accident two miles from our stop that blocked the road for to extend our day just that much longer). Karoy did not get fired so it was not all bad.

We heard that the dealer’s attorney would not be available for a few days so we struck out on our own. Actually Karoy asked around and got us a recommendation. This attorney also happened to be in San Juan for the day so we wandered to the office of a lawyer who had introduced himself to Laurie one day. He made a few calls including to Karoy and after some discussion hooked us up with another lawyer who lives three blocks away and set the meeting with the car dealer. The next day we met with the lawyer, signed the papers and were on our way with our “new” car (a 1998 Yoyota RAV4) it actually said Yoyota in the paperwork. You cannot purchase a car without using a lawyer; who acts as not only the go between the buyer and seller but as a government liaison to collect taxes and fees (including their own). We didn’t take a picture of the car so if you are curious google white 98 RAV4 and I am sure you will get a good idea of what we purchased.

This was actually going to be about our trip to Baldi Hot Springs but I got carried away I apologize once again. And thanks Karoy for all the help. It just may be worth it to you seeing as how now you won’t have to think you need to cart us around from place to place. Thanks for that too, we appreciate it.

One more quick aside. We were throwing the idea of moving to a new location with a more gringo-friendly climate and Karoy within an hour had made a few calls got a line on a place and three more numbers to call with places to rent. We have made no moves on that front as of yet (we would hate to lose our address as it is so catchy and easy to remember)