I may have mentioned that the town of Paso Canoas, the border crossing for Costa Rica and Panamá on the Pan American highway, is our closest large shopping area. It is chaotic, dirty and always very hot there. The stores sit right on the border so that you enter one door in Costa Rica and can exit another door into Panamá. All stores except US dollars. Many of the products are manufactured in Panamá (especially food) or are Chinese imports. The small appliances and household goods are acceptable quality and very inexpensive compared to items purchased in Costa Rican stores like Pali (a subsidiary of Walmart.) I found this blog which has a good take on shopping in Paso along with crossing the border to update a tourist visa. Even though we have an "Expediente" document that states we are in the process of applying for residency, we still need to cross into Panamá to update our visa.
On Tuesday, we renewed our 90 day visa for Costa Rica. It went much smoother than we expected. We had read the blog above and spoke to friends about their experiences. M prepared us with laminated photocopies of our "Expediente" and various other documents that were all placed them in a manila file folder. One friend said that when the immigration agents see the "file folder" that they know you are serious.
So we parked the car in a "Parqueo" (parking garage that charges $2 per hour). Walked up along the street to the Pan American Highway that is lined with parked transport trucks waiting to cross into Panamá, cars driving through town, taxis waiting for fares, pedestrians weaving through traffic. There are no lines on the highway for traffic lanes, no sidewalks either. First you pay an $8 exit tax at an office across the highway from the Migration office. Then carefully cross the highway where fortunately the trucks and cars move very slowly so it is not too dangerous. The Costa Rican Migration office is outside under a metal roof with cracked cement flooring and rusted metal gates. The officer takes our passports and scans them, stamps it with an exit stamp. Next stop Panamá, we walked a block, weaving in between huge transport trucks that are entering and exiting Panamá to a shiny building where the Panamanian Immigration officers scanned our finger prints, our passport, took our photo, stamped our passport to enter Panamá. It used to be that you had to stay in Panamá for 3 days before re-entering Costa Rica. Many friends said that instead, you wait a couple of hours, then reverse the process.
We walked around the usual stores where we shop, had Chinese food for lunch (so-so.) Then we walked back to the shiny Panamá border building to the exit window, had our finger prints scanned, our photo taken and our passport stamped. It was after 1:30 pm and 95 degrees in the sun, we weaved through the transport trucks and taxis and people, and dust back to the Costa Rican Migration to re-enter the country. The officer took 2 seconds to look at our Expediente, stamped our passports and we are good to go for another 90 days!
We make a trip to La Frontera aka Paso Canoas every 2 weeks. Since we buy most of our fruit and veggies from Victor & Allian and get eggs and goat milk from Jorge, our shopping list consists of staples like cheese, garbanzo beans and chips. We buy a lot of garbanzo beans to make hummus and when the chips run out, we make chips from our homegrown plantains. Often we make soft goat cheese from Jorge's goat milk but we really like the Edam cheese, Vonko that we buy at City Mall. One of our favorite stops is Distribuidora Internacional
Anthony, S.A. aka Anthony. It is where we buy our booze. The store sells all sorts of electronic products and imported alcohol. Some of our regular purchases are Brazilian vodka ($4/liter), Chilean red & white wines for $4/750 ml) and our latest score, 1800 Tequila Reposado (750ml) for $12! We also purchase a large bottle of rum for Jorge. He makes a Costa Rican beverage call Rompope with his goat milk, sugar and powdered Aveeno. It is a delicious, creamy drink like Egg Nog. It is a lovely way to enjoy dessert and is mighty fine in morning coffee.
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