8 Ways to Get Your Holiday Goodies into Costa Rica Easily or Safely

My post about how to receive packages in Costa Rica while avoiding having them snagged by Customs, which requires a trip to San José and a couple hours of bureacratic SNAFU to retrieve said package, continues to be one of my more popular articles.

Still, I often get asked the question: "Just how do you get stuff shipped into Costa Rica?"

Attack of the Drones - CC-SA-3.0

Unfortunately, Amazon drone delivery does not seem to be on the horizon anytime soon.

So, to supplement the original article, here is a list (probably incomplete) on the various methods that I've either used or have learned second-hand from others who have found them to be successful.

Feliz Día De Mamá in Costa Rica

August 15th is Mother's Day in Costa Rica. Here they celebrate it with style.

Unlike Father's Day, which is synchronized with the same day in the U.S., mothers in Costa Rica get their own special day, which falls on August 15th regardless of the day of the week. Costa Rica is unique in the world for celebrating Mom's Day on that date, which you can see on the map below signifying on which day per country mothers are celebrated across the globe.

Days around the world on which mothers are honored

Costa Rica Mother's Day is a bona fide national holiday, which means many stores, the banks and government offices including the post office are closed.


To help celebrate, I offer up these lyrics from "Gracias Mamá:"

Thank you Mother, for praying for me each night
Thank you Mother for being with me if I am sick
Thank you Mother for consoling me with your kisses
Even though you are not here with me, you are not far
You have given me and I will give you love eternally.

One Big Reason Cars Are So Expensive in Costa Rica

It's a good news, bad news story in La Nación today regarding the import duties for new and used cars brought into Costa Rica. The site is in Spanish, but here's my rough translation of the most pertinent part of the story:

"According to the tariffs that have applied until now, new and second-hand cars of no older than three years faced a consumption tax of 30 % , cars four or five years old 40%, and more than six years old 53%.

In the next 10 working days, new and second-hand cars up to six years old will face a consumption tax of 30 % and will have an entire tax load of 53 % while cars seven years and older will see a tarriff of 48%."

The good news is that this is supposed to be a "tax cut" though it probably doesn't feel like such great news for most folks who initially pay the tax, and those who are paying it indirectly in higher car prices. 

Anyone know the make and model?

Questions? Well, I have a few that maybe expats here with more expertise in these matters can answer:

• Is the 53% "entire tax load" really on all cars up to six years old or just new ones?
• What's in that difference between the basic tariff and the full load (23%)? 13% of it must be sales tax, right?
• Is there a "full load" figure for the older cars paying the 48% base tariff?
• Where the heck does all this money go? Let me rephrase that: where is the money supposed to go? I'd wager it's not going into better roads.

How to Mail Stuff to Costa Rica and Bypass the Customs Zoo at Zapote

Click Here for a more recent post on 8 Ways to Send Stuff to Costa Rica.

 

The question of how to ship things here to Costa Rica gets asked a lot on various forums. I just answered a query on Expat-Blog.com about this and felt like I was doing it for the umpteenth time, so thought I would post it here for later reference. I earnestly welcome any locals here to leave comments about their experiences or best methods for getting stuff into the country without too much hassle. 

  

Sharpie2 wrote:

I understand that bring a shipping container is prohibitive cost wise.

It seems that starting from scratch wouldn't be so cheap either.  I'd appreciate some comments and hearing about people's experiences about that.

Is is then possible to mail some things to yourself or someone else in Costa Rica or will all mail be opened?

My Reply:

Active member

From: San Isidro de El General

Registered: 2010-04-10

Posts: 36

Re: Mailing to Costa Rica

Well, it all depends on what you are trying to ship down here. If you're shipping a whole household, then a container is really the only way to go. There are also partial load services (see my blog post here: How To Have Christmas in May about two companies that do that). The drawback is that you'll probably wait 2-3 months to get your packages.

All mail will not be opened. In fact, probably none of it will be opened without you present, but that is not the main problem.

Why It Is Awkward for Costa Ricans to Say "No"

In a previous post, I wrote about a linguistic “Tiquismo,” regarding the particular Spanish phrasing of the time expression “now” and how it differs from, say, the Mexican version of “now” in both phrasing and meaning.

There is another, behavioral Tiquismo that I find interesting, which is their aversion to directly saying “no” to a request even if they know they cannot or will not fulfill it. Norteamericanos are not typically like that. It is not considered terribly impolite to refuse someone outright even if the request is reasonable. Using the word “because” in your refusal does smooth it over a bit though. Saying no straight to your face is a cultural norm. Here, not so much. 

Err, well, that is ...

Here is a case in point: Some months ago, Tamara and I stopped off at our local woodworker's shop to inquire about making some chairs. We had pictures from a magazine of the chair design we had in mind. We know this woodworker well. His son did all the woodwork in our house. Negro - his nickname and not a pejorative term, by the way - did a lot of work on my sister's house. He was interested enough in the work to drop what he was doing to discuss the details, while a co-worker looked on. 

He agreed that he could make the chair. Then it came to discussing the price. 

Tamara: “How much for one chair?”
Negro: “Well, probably such and such (amount of colones).”
Tamara: “What if we get two? Could we get a discount?”
Negro (with a pause for thought): “Yes that would be OK. Then it will be such and such (amount of colones).”

Now came the sticky part.

Feeding the Birds, Shopping Lumber and Community Activities in Costa Rica

Group of five Cusingas feeding on oranges and bananas

In addition to ripe bananas, my wife has taken to putting out orange halves in the trees to attract the birds. We continue to observe new species from day to day. The “toucans” I previously identified are specifically Cusingas or Fiery-throated Aracaris.

The price of fuel rose this week, about 9%. Diesel’s at 609 Col. per liter today (roughly $4/gallon), with gasoline another 15 Colones higher. When oil prices rise, the price of fuel here rises immediately in response, but when oil drops fuel prices come down very slowly. 

Since this is an import-oriented country, the price of oil affects everything, not just your fill-up at the gas station. Anything imported is sky high, whereas the price of local goods sold by individuals benefit from a lack of import taxes, lower transport and labor costs. Items at the weekly farmer’s market are real bargains. Even the organically grown produce is relatively cheap. Last week, we bought a large head of lettuce, a big bunch of arugula, and a bunch of cilantro, all organic, for $1.20 total.

Butterfly on the window of our rental house

We visited one of the local wood mills/lumber yards with our neighbor Luis this week to check out the kinds of wood available and the prices. The only wood familiar to me were some pines. One was called Oregon Pine, but upon more questioning, it appeared doubtful it was actually from Oregon. 

The yard carries local and imported woods (mostly from South America) in all sizes, both rough lumber and finished goods. The names of the woods are enticing: Manglia, Nacareno, Malina, Cedro Dulce and so on.