How We Almost Got Kicked Out of Costa Rica
What Digital Nomads, Expats and Others Should Know About Trying to Live in Tropical Paradise on a Shoestring Budget
What is a Border Run?
(continued from last week’s post, which you can read here.)
Now, for those who have never lived in a country like Costa Rica, a border run is one of the bureaucratic inconveniences that comes with living in a tropical paradise. Down here in Costa Rica you can eat fresh fish you catch yourself, pick mangos off a tree for free, and get your medications for the amount of money you find in your couch cushions. But in exchange you do have to put up with some inconveniences, chief among them is the border run.
Costa Rica puts a lot of money and communal resources into its infrastructure and social programs. They provide free health care and free education and public transportation. They replant trees to help everyone in the country and the world breath better. They make sure the jungles will last long enough to provide a living for the next generation. And they can’t afford and don’t want to give all of those benefits to tourists and expats and foreign free-loaders without a price.
There is a very simple solution to this problem. You, the expat, are not allowed to live in the country longer than three months unless you become a resident or a citizen. And to prevent you from living here, illegally, there is a simple solution. Once every three months you must get your passport stamped to show you have left the country.
For at least five minutes.
Less time, if the lines at the border are short.
It is a stupid rule. Purely bureaucratic, designed to inconvenience tourists and … well, we don’t know what. But Costa Rica is serious about enforcing it. If you don’t do it, you can be deported.
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When we arrived at the airport on our first flight down to Central America, before we could even check our bags, the woman at the counter asked us for proof of our return flight.
“Come again?” We asked.
“You can’t stay in Costa Rica longer than three months,” she explained. “Before they let you in, they need to see proof of your return flight out.”
This came as a huge surprise to us. We knew about the border run but we assumed we would just take a bus to Panama or Nicaragua when the time came. Or we would come back to the US for Christmas. We hadn’t planned to buy airline tickets three months in advance. But those were the rules, and we were already packed, carrying our suitcases and our cats, arriving at LAX around 9 pm for the red eye flight, so what could we do but jump online and order the cheapest return tickets we could find for the end of December. They wouldn’t let us into the country without knowing our plan for getting out.
(Picture of me, safe and happy in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, before our first border run.)
What is the Real Reason for the Border Run?
Over the years the husband and I have speculated about the real reason for why Costa Rica does this. Is it to encourage long-term tourists to become residents? Is it to keep those who run the borders employed? Is it a way of getting money from the processing of paper? If they just wanted our money we would gladly send in a check, rather than have to do the border run every 90 days. But we didn’t have that option.
We arrived in Costa Rica in the middle of September, 2019. Our first Border Run took us back to the US for the holidays, which was convenient. By the time our second border run came around, it was March 2020, and the pandemic had hit in full force, and the border was closed. The government, in its practical wisdom, paused this requirement that tourists cross over. Those who were in Costa Rica were in. Those who were out, were out, regardless of immigration status. No one was required or allowed to cross the borders and expats staying in the country illegally like those little parasitic plants on the big generous trees of the country, got to stay in the big generous arms of Costa Rica without leaving while everyone hunkered down and waited for a cure. So for the first two years of our stay, that’s what we did. Hunkered down, lived our lives with the monkeys and macaws, walked along the beach, and got to know our town.
Then, in May of 2021, Costa Rica not only opened the border, it also mandated crossing again, but this time there was a bonus requirement. This time, you had to get a covid test before you could cross, and you had to get something called Covid Insurance in case you got Covid while traveling. Plus, leaving Costa Rica and entering again, you still had to show an airline ticket or a bus ticket out of the country to prove you weren’t staying forever. This drove the cost of a border crossing up by about $250 per person, or, to put in perspective, the cost of a month’s worth of rent.
In other words, we were suddenly screwed.
And had no idea what to do.
“Isn’t there someone we can bribe?” I asked.
But Costa Rica is not that kind of a place.
Or, if it is, we are not the kind of people to know about it.
There is no online guide to bribing officials down here, just as there is little online information about anything else online.
How to Get the News in Costa Rica
Something they don’t tell you about CR, that you have to learn on your own, is that information does not travel by internet the way it does in the US. It travels mainly by word of mouth. Looking up information on Google was useless.
In fact the way we even found out about the border run was that we had gone to La Coq restaurant for a quick falafel at the end of May. I remember it well. It was the beginning of rainy season. Outside the sun was turning a forest full of Guanacaste trees pink and black with silhouettes. A family of monkeys slept in the branches of one tree that stretched itself over the main road of town. Across the way at Coconutz the returning tourists were listening to American Hair Bands from the 80’s.
Steve, the owner of the restaurant, who had a Canadian friendliness and the bon amie attitude of a man who works in hospitality, brought us our falafel and fries, set it down on the table in front of us and asked, oh so casually, if we had done our border run yet. And just like that, our entire world came crashing down around us, along with the remnants of whatever was left in our bank account. My face, even full of its tropical tan, suddenly became white, as me and the husband both asked, in terror, “What do you mean, border run?”
Why it Sucks to Be a Poor American, Even in Costa Rica
Now, most expats who come down to Costa Rica have what they call “extra money.” A border run isn’t a big deal, especially when you live so close to Nicaragua, as we do in Play del Coco.
Most of our friends, in fact, pay 90$ each to get on a private shuttle that will take them over the border and back in a single morning.
“But going to Nicaragua can be wonderful,” people assured us. “You can go to Granada, the oldest city in Central America. You can see the volcanoes, or boat on the lake. You can shop at the market and buy liquor without taxes. It’s a fabulous way to spend the weekend, if you’re willing to spend a little money.” They told us.
We didn’t have a little money. After paying the cost of the covid test, the covid insurance, the covid masks, we had barely anything left. Forget about a $90 shuttle. We would have to take the bus.
This was particularly saddening for me because all my life I have wanted to see a volcano. In fact when our friends told us about their trips to Granada and their excursions to go see the neighboring Masay volcano, I forgot momentarily about all of the trouble of scraping together enough money for the practical means of travel, looked into my husband’s eyes, all starry and naive, and asked, “but couldn’t we just go a little farther across the border to see the volcano?”
As is so characteristic of my husband he sighed, showed me the numbers in the bank account, explained that no, we could not walk the rest of the way, or hitchhike to Granada, not in this heat, and promised me that we would go see the volcano another time, once we had the money. “But this time,” he said, trying to focus my attention, “we just need to make the trip to Los Penas to cross and get our passport stamped so we don’t get kicked out of the country for overstaying our welcome.”
So, on the last day of May 2021 we loaded up on guava stuffed pastries, plantain chips, and coconut water from the supermarket in Coco, got on the bus to Liberia, The Big City, and from there got on another bus to the Nicaraguan border. After four hours of waiting at bus stops, getting lost trying to find the correct route, jostling through a dozen small towns, making quick bathroom stops in unknown restrooms, at around 1 p.m. in the afternoon, we finally crossed over into a whole new country that we had never seen before.
Look very close and you can see the faint outline of the volcano in the distance of the border crossing at Los Penas.
Thank you for sharing your experiences in Costa Rica, I will save this article.
I appreciate the spirit you bring to poetry -- I think, WWTFH do?? (Well, now I do!!) :D All best lol ---