Surviving Costa Rica

by Jesse Bishop

It was 2:30 a.m. and my wife and I had been in bed for a while when suddenly our dog Sun Tzu started barking, using a totally different vocabulary than usual. Never at my best when awoken at that hour, it took me a few seconds to realize something was amiss.

By that time Susan had donned her bathrobe and walked into the living room to discover the front door open and the dog outside still barking like crazy at three well-dressed figures nonchalantly strolling away with what turned out to be my keys and wallet.

“Jesse, we’ve been robbed!” she screamed. I ran outside hoping that the sight of a naked fat gringo might shame them into returning the items, but they had already disappeared into the night.

By now the adrenaline had replaced my normal self-medicated anesthesia and I jumped into the car and made a check of the neighborhood while Susan called the police.

After a short, hectic, futile search I returned to assess the damage. First thing I did was cancel the credit cards.  The Costa Rican cards were cancelled almost immediately and I was told there had been no recent activity, not too surprising as they had only been ripped off twenty minutes before and it was still the dead of night. Of course the American card was trickier, having to explain my situation to the agent in the Philippines whose English was pretty strange to say the least.

About this time the police actually showed up!!!!!!! The thieves’ trail was now about thirty minutes old but the Fuerza Publica guys gave it their best shot while a couple stayed at the house making out a report that I could pick up the next day.

Here’s what happened, and I have myself totally to blame ‘cos I violated all the basic rules of the game. Over the years we’ve invested a lot of money trying to make the house harder to rob than our neighbors, installing rejas on all the windows (the decorative bars that you see on most Costa Rican homes), double-bolted locks on all the doors and the aforementioned Shar Pei, who apparently took a vicious kick in the neck while performing in the line of duty. He’s since recovered. The weakest link in this security chain is yours truly. Sometimes when I’m locking up at night in my usual self-medicated state I do something real stupid. In this case I left my keys (to everything) and apparently my wallet too out on the kitchen counter, maybe nine or ten feet from the window. Having been the victim and not the perpetrator I can only surmise that they must have used a flashlight through an open (heavily barred) window and, upon spotting the keys, they stole my neighbor’s pool cleaning pole, attached some barbed wire to the end, slit the window screen and plucked the keys off the counter, after which they entered through the front door and grabbed what they ended up with, at which time the dog rained on their parade and they split.

Incidentally, while they were picking up the pole they also rampaged through the construction workers’ barracks across the street stealing all their food.

Damage assessment: A split window screen, never easy to replace as you need to deconstruct the whole window. A stolen wallet with way too much money in it due to a now-postponed trip to San José the next day, the credit cards that would take several weeks to replace, and both my Costa Rican and Texas driver’s licenses, and of course my keys. Keys to all the massive locks on the doors and to both the cars and the respective keys to the clubs we use on the steering wheel.

Now began the recovery phase.

First call the next morning was to one of the busiest guys in Guanacaste, our hero Darwin the locksmith. The Big D, in spite of his hectic schedule was over that morning and changed all the locks.

Next was a visit to the Police Office to pick up a copy of the crime report. This would enable me to get a duplicate of my driver’s license. The officer there told me I could get a duplicate at the BCR in Santa Cruz, which was also where I could check into having the cars’ keys changed, so off I went, licenseless, to the Municipalidad, hoping I didn’t run into any transitos.

I got to the bank and was pointed to the window that read “Driver’s License” which I found out was only for Costa Ricans and I’d have to go to the COSEVI office in Liberia for mine.

The next stop was at a well-regarded local locksmith (cerrajaria) where the jefe gave me a $220 estimate to replace the Daihatsu keys, explaining it was a new model and a very hard and time-consuming operation which he couldn’t get to till the next day. Down the street was the dealership so I stopped in for another estimate. This time I was told that both doors and the ignition needed their own keys, and the ignition part needed to be ordered from Japan and wouldn’t be there until December. Oh yeah, and it’d be about $240. They could get to it the next week. After going to six different Auto Parts Stores I was able to find two new clubs for the cars and made plans to go to Liberia the next day.

Since the thieves still had keys to the cars I stayed up most of that night in a very paranoid state. Of course nothing happened.  Early next morning, still without a license, I drove very carefully to the COSEVI office on the outskirts of Liberia. Less than fifteen minutes later I was back on my way into Liberia with a brand new license identical to the old. I drove to Cerrajaria Mora, a place I’d used before, where he told me he could get it done that afternoon for about fifty dollars!

A healthy dose of fatalism is always necessary if you’re gonna try to survive Costa Rica. It was just our turn and I made it easy for them. Since our break-in there have been numerous others in Tamarindo, providing the police sleepless nights and locksmiths and security companies with a growth industry.