Border Crossings ~ A trip to Chiriqui Panama!

Living in Costa Rica without residency status means that you have to leave the country every 90 days....or so we thought. 

United States and Canadian Citizen Entry Requirements:  U.S. and Canadian citizens may enter Costa Rica without a tourist visa and can stay up to
90 days
with a valid passport.

U.S. and Canadian citizens - regardless of their age (*) - need the following documents to enter Costa Rica:

    *     A valid passport with at least one blank visa page. The expiration date of your passport must be greater than 30 days from your date of entry to Costa Rica.

    *     A pre-paid airline ticket to exit Costa Rica and/or ticket either to return to your home country or to go to another country.

    *      If a U.S. or Canadian minor (under the age of 18) does not have his/her own passport, he or she must have a joint passport with one of his/her parents, legal guardian or the person traveling with him/her.

Overstay Fines Effective March 2010:  It is important that you depart on or before the last day you are authorized to be in Costa Rica on any given trip. This is based on the arrival date stamped in your passport at the Immigration port of entry. You will be allowed to stay in Costa Rica for 30, 60, or 90 days depending on your nationality. 

Any person that overstays his/her authorized time to be in the country, as allowed by the Immigration and Naturalization Services of Costa Rica, will be required to pay a penalty charge of $100.00 U.S. dollars for each month in country without authorization, or expulsion equivalent to triple the time of violation. Example: A three month overstay violation equals a $300 U.S. dollar fine or a 9 month expulsion from Costa Rica.

 And so we took a three day vacation to beautiful Panama to enjoy some shopping in David and a very interesting sightseeing drive through the mountains to the quaint town of Boquete and the base of the Volcan.  Some of our local friends needed to go also so we made it a foursome and headed out early in the morning.


All went well on the exit with a pleasurable 4 1/2 hour drive to the border and finding a very nice fully gated hotel in the border town of Paso Canoas to safely park our car.  You can of course take your car across the border, as we did on a previous trip to Panama, but the paper work can be a huge headache at the border if it is not suitable from "their" point of view and cause long delays.  Due to lack of planning to update our ownership papers for the crossing we elected to leave the car at the border and take a taxi to David and rent a car for our touring activities.

The hotel only wanted $4 per night to accommodate our car so we checked it in and loaded our travel bags into the taxi that the concierge so nicely called for us.  He dropped us off back at the border offices and we stamped out of Costa Rica and walked down to the next point to stamp in to Panama.  Here we had a slight delay when the serious worker behind the window requested our proof of exit from Panama.  We did have return airline tickets to the U.S. with confirmations in our email so we walked across the street to the Internet Store and rented a computer for 5 minutes to download and print our proof of exit.  Back on track in a few more minutes we were in a taxi ($25) and headed to the capital city of David!

David is a charming city with a beautiful town square and lots of historical buildings. We checked in to the downtown Hotel Puerta del Sol for only $38 per night,  strolled around town for a while, had some lunch and then headed out for a little shopping in the rental car we had for the next few days.  A nice dinner of Italian cuisine topped off with some nice wine ($13.95 all you could eat including wine) and we were ready to call it a night so that we could get an early start on a trip up into the mountains to the quaint town of Boquete.  Please click on the link below to read more about this amazing area filled with places to explore and learn more about the province of Chiriqui and also view our sideshow of photographs of our trip. 

Focus on Chiriqui

CLICK ON ARROW TO SCROLL THROUGH PHOTOS

Yes it was an amazing visit to Chiriqui but we can not stop there.  We do need to share with you the rebound of our border crossing which was not so pleasant....

 After a hearty breakfast in the hotel restaurant (one of the nicest in the city I might add) we called our taxi driver Ellio to meet us at the car rental to return our little red roller skate car ($33 per day) and drop us back off at the border.  

And that is when it got really interesting and NOT in a good way!

Little did we know that with the beginning of Carnaval March 5 - 8 that many locals take advantage of this vacation time to leave the country.  Yes, we were dropped off at the border with our bags and shopping in tow and rounded the corner to see what appeared to be a majority of the population of Panama standing in line to stamp out!  Oh dias mia!      . . . we were then told that the line to the window would include a 6 hour wait!  
That is when we saw our American friend, with bleached blonde Buddha style ponytail and beautiful wood hand carved walking cane,  that we met coming into Panama.  As he walked by we ran to catch up and ask him if we might have any hope of a faster process.  

A few minutes later we found ourselves in a crowded area just steps from the window with a great deal of pushing and shoving going on as the anxious crowd fought for their place in line to be processed through to begin their wonderful vacation in Costa Rica!  Our 6 hour wait was reduced to only 2 hours and we happily moved on to the Costa Rica side to stamp back in to our country of choice. 

....only to end up with a stamp that read 30 Days! 
What?  .....we are U.S. Citizens and the rulebook says we are allowed a 90 day stamp!

After taking our nice friend to enjoy a lunch of yummy fresh shrimp and listening to his many stories of the trials and tribulations of border crossing we realized that the person in the booth can pretty much do whatever they want and that this particular, always unhappy lady, was known for doling out 30 day stamps.  He also recommended that we not try to use our airline ticket as an exit strategy and always buy the $15 return bus ticket (1 each for Exit and Entry) that will never get used but does make the process easier.  Amazing how much money that bus company is making on tickets that are not really needed and never utilized.  Our friend also advised that if we pay him for his services that he can assure us of the duty schedule and make sure we stamp in when the grumpy girl is not on duty!  We were also told by him and others that you do not have to stay out of the country 3 days.  You can stamp out and back in in the same day but you cannot utilize the $500 duty free purchases allowed with a 72 hour departure.  And always check the calendar to find out if there are any carnivals or festivals going on that could create an unusually large crowd coming through the border.  Of course my easy answer to that would be to plan on going and STAY IN PANAMA for the Carnival.

And so the story goes....
In the meantime we have learned of other modes of exiting the country that may lend themselves to a much more pleasant experience.  See the links below of what may be our next trips out of Costa Rica to renew our Visa status.   

Take a River Cruise!   Enjoy this video 

                      Costa Rica Nicaragua Border Crossing Los Chiles 

a trip that some friends told us about .  They said it was a very enjoyable trip!


Nature Air offers two trips out of the country with very reasonable airfare:
                              
       Bocas Del Toro, Panama                          Manaagua, Nicaragua

Now . . . . 
Where are those papers on how to apply for permanent residency?

But that is a story for another day!   For now let's just go and enjoy the Pura Vida!