We finally decided to take a nice romantic vacation together. Sure, we've had plenty of travel time in the last few years, including trips to Atlanta, California, and various spots here in Guanacaste, but not just the two of us and not for the sole purpose of relaxing. And thus it was born, our Romantic Weekend at Villa Caletas. Villa Caletas is about half an hour north of Jaco and a few hours south of Tamarindo in the mountains along the pacific. Steve learned of the hotel several months ago while on a business trip with friends Mark and Donny, and had made a mental note that it would be a great place to take his lovely wife sometime. Sometime turned out to be the end of April.
Beautiful grounds with lush vegetation, decorative sculptures, hidden fountains, an infinity edge pool with plants and tree roots literally growing into the water while the edge dropped off over a 1,000ft cliff, an amphitheater bar with views for miles and a luxuriously appointed room all came together to make for a great escape. We dined, we listened to Jocelyn's new iPod (early birthday present), we got spa treatments, slept lots, lounged indolently in our room and enjoyed coffee on our ocean view balcony. Good stuff.
Since we were very close to San Jose we went ahead and spent a night there as well. I'm not even going to compare the lodging experience. At least our new room also had a bit of a view. As usual we had a list of things to do in San Jose that we knew we absolutely could not complete. Top three on Steve's list were 1) Close pending real estate deal 2) Close pending car transaction and 3) Renew driver's license.
The RE deal went great, the car deal was messed up by the idiot lawyer in charge and still pending. That left renewing our driver's licenses.
Here is a more-or-less unbiased account of that process.
Walked out of the hotel past the overpriced vulturelike taxi cabs sitting in front to catch an honest cabby on the street. Said cabby whisked us off to the MOPT (like the DMV, sorta) where we entered a huge building full of a long snaking line of people. Since we had no idea of what we needed to do, Steve scouted around to find something that resembled rules or instructions for license renewal. Didn't' find 'em. But he did talk to some folks in line who informed him that all we really needed was the old license (check!), a medical report (uh-oh!), and about $20. We must have still been brain addled from our lovely spa treatments because neither of us had thought to stop at the bank to refill our empty wallets (the spa treatments may have contributed to that problem as well). So step one was trot off to find the ATM and refill. That accomplished, we headed back to the MOPT. Along the way we stopped in at a clinic that advertised medical exams. It is worthy to note that approximately 75% of the storefronts in a two-block radius of the MOPT also offer medical exams.
The medical exam cost 3,000 colones each (about $8) and took less than 5 minutes. After incisive questions like "What month and year is it?" and "Are you a habitual drug abuser?" the doctor moved on to the important stuff- confirming that we aren't completely blind and that we could lift our arms to at least chest level and turn our heads both left AND right. She also checked that we did, in fact, have hearts and that they did, in fact, beat.
All in all, I can't honestly say that the exam makes me feel any better about the rest of the drivers on the road, but I guess that it is a heck of a lot more complete than what I had to do to renew my California drivers license online.
So with medical certificates in hand, and money in our wallets we headed back to what turned out to be only about an hour of waiting in line. Not nearly as bad as we had feared. The first line ends with us sitting in front of a nice lady who confirms our phone number and address and informs Steve that he owes ten bucks for an unpaid traffic ticket (guilty, as charged). Then we wait in line again for the bank (which is the same bank to which we walked for money, only it is inside the MOPT building and does not give out money, only takes it). That line was quick. After paying our 10,000 colones (about $21) we went to wait in line #3. This line was much nicer in that it had uncomfortable plastic chairs instead of standing uncomfortably on bare concrete. Within 15 minutes we were sitting for our picture and not more than five minutes later the machine spit out a brand-spankin-new drivers license. Nifty. And the best part? We don't have to renew this license for another five years.

Labels: Costa Rica, travel