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| Bulls on highway to Escazu |
The time arrived to renew my cedula, the Costa Rica residency card. We have gone through this process several times and it's fairly straightforward. However, during the past five years, a new regulation went into effect. Costa Rica updated the health care system from paper identification cards to connecting enrollment with the cedula. There is a website where you can check if you are in the system. I checked this before the appointment and my name was there so I thought everything was in order.
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| View from Office Depot |
The appointment was at Banco de Costa Rica in the Escazu Multiplaza. I haven't been there for more than a year and was looking forward to buying dark chocolate, something that still isn't sold in Santiago de Puriscal. We arrived in Escazu early to allow time for shopping. One of the stops was Pricesmart. I was very surprised to see they built a two-level parking lot adjacent to the store. This is a big improvement from the old lot.
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| New parking garage at Pricesmart |
After Pricesmart we went to the mall. John needed to go to a store elsewhere so I was on my own for about twenty minutes before the appointment. I expected to see a lot of vacancies due to shutdowns over the past year but everything looked the same except for masked people and what looked like facial recognition at the entrances and hand sanitizer everywhere.
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| Inside Pricesmart, Escazu |
The time arrived for my appointment. The wait was short inside the bank. I had all the documents ready to hand to the lady. She entered some information into the computer and then ran into a problem with the health insurance registration. My name was in the system, but it wasn't connected to John's account. We'll have to go to the local Puriscal office and get that done and then I'll make another appointment to renew the cedula.
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| Multiplaza, Escazu |
The cedula renewal appointment was a bust. I went outside the mall, removed my mask, and pulled a chocolate bar out of my pocket. The mask rule in Costa Rica is to wear them inside public spaces. There were many people outside on the sidewalk waiting for rides and I noted I was the only one not wearing a mask. No one bothered me about that. I enjoyed the candy bar and people watched until John returned.
