Marvin, our 'JC faithful' Tico contractor arrived 'mas o menos' on time as I was toying with my first bread purchase in 6 weeks from our passing 'panadero'. We had spoken the night before and agreed to meet this morning to go through the construction contract.
We head for Uvita, the nearest 'reasonably built up' village or commercial hotspot (relative) eventually locating a computer and printer in full working order so as to be able to print the draft and read through together over coffee. After some good humoured last minute haggling, inherant of Costa Rican culture, and some reasuring words about his team and start date of the 2nd January, we were all signed and heading back to Coronado. Amazingly it was lunchtime already, the last task of the day being to get to 'La Muni' to deliver what will be the 19th (and final) requirement stipulated by the amazingly overly beaurocratic 'local municipality'.
Having experienced an often bizarre plethora of contrasting social systems & tendencies on my travels, even the massively out-dated red tape of India and the complete lack of choice and creativity in Cuba, never left me as bemused as a typical day in Costa Rica, carrying out 'tramites'
It starts with the air con on full, extreme cold, freezing even the slightly larger people also waiting. Upon entering, one is encouraged to take a numbered ticket, supposedly indicating an order. After an hour of waiting however it becomes clear that this 'number order' is again 'mas o menos' (more or less), besides the machine above the desks clearly has one of the numbers stuck as it noisely ticks from 53 to 63, quite annoying for the person who had number 54 in their hand (me).
After some gentle humouring of the security guard in charge of keeping some kind of order (who quite unecesarily is armed up like Rambo) i am jumped to the front, just as the office closes, 7 signatures and 11 stamps later we. OFFICIALLY have the building permits. Happy Christmas PuraVidaEcolodge!!!
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