The Trip to Miami – The Epilogue (by Cindy)

This is the fourth and last installment of our four-part series on our trip to Miami.

The entire reason we went to Miami in the first place was because we needed to be able to retain driving privileges in Costa Rica, as non-residents, to beat the March 2^nd tourist and driving deadline.

As a reminder, if you are not a Costa Rican resident, and if you have not applied for residency, you must leave the country every 90 days, no matter what. If you are not yet a resident, but have applied for residency, you are not required to leave, unless you want to be able to drive in the country. If you want to drive, you are treated as a tourist for driving purposes and still must leave every 90 days.  Before COVID, expats living in the country would do border runs every 90 days to meet the requirement.

With COVID, and the resulting border closures in 2020, tourist and driving deadlines had been extended until March 2,2021. It appeared that the government wasn’t going to extend tourist and driving extensions again, since the air and sea borders were open. We felt the need to do our border run so we were safe when March 2^nd rolled around and ended up flying to Miami.  Our border run was successfully completed on February 28^th, beating the deadline by just a couple of days.

So, what happened on March 2^nd?

Tuesday, March 2^nd, we weren’t thinking much about the tourist and driving deadline. We had done our border run and were “safe” to continue driving.  We have Spanish class on Tuesday mornings, so went about our usual pre-class morning routine – sipping coffee on our patio while enjoying the birds and our sliver of ocean view, while catching up on the US news online.  

We heard a familiar ding from our phones a little before 8:00.  A fellow classmate sent us a message. To us it just looked like a picture of an hourglass. John asked me, “what is this?” I didn’t know, but it was evident as soon as he checked Facebook.

Outlier Legal, a law firm that supports expats in Costa Rica, had posted an update Monday night. Breaking news – Costa Rica’s Board of Tourism made a last-minute announcement. They had extended the March 2^nd date to June 2, 2021! 

On the surface it was disheartening news, because of all the stress and cost to make that border run to Miami over the weekend. Well, at least we had capitalized on the trip to buy salt. Now fate was just using it to rub it in our wounds.

We soon received an email from the US Embassy in Costa Rica that also informed us of the extension and detailed all the caveats.

Unlike the last tourist extensions, with this extension tourists were now required to purchase a medical insurance policy to cover COVID-19 related medical treatment and quarantine lodging for the duration of their stay, or until June 2^nd.  Further, tourists were required to send in proof of the insurance to a special email address. If you didn’t purchase the insurance and send in proof, you could be deported from Costa Rica and banned from reentry for up to 5 years!

We have medical insurance, but the type of policy that they now required wouldn’t be covered by our regular insurance. However, it was exactly the type of policy we had purchased for our reentry to Costa Rica after our border run and had already submitted, otherwise they wouldn’t have let us back in the country. We don’t think we would have been able to purchase the cheaper insurance policy that we did buy, since it was travel insurance. The insurance company we bought the policy from specifically stated that you couldn’t purchase the insurance if your trip had already started. Technically, our “trip” started on January 3, 2020. We were well over a year into our trip.  When we had checked on buying insurance from the Costa Rican insurance company for our (almost) border run in November 2020, it was much more expensive, almost $2000 for both of us. Our actual Miami trip, including the less expensive insurance was half that. That made us feel better.

Still, we had put ourselves into the 90-day tourist cycle. The official tourist extension was until June 2^nd. Would there possibly be another tourist extension?  The US Embassy email didn’t specifically state it.  The Outlier Legal site postings poised the Costa Rican Immigration Department’s official resolution as an extension of tourist entry stamps “one last time.”  Based on our border run, our 90 days ends on May 28^th. We would only have had a little over a month more, if we had waited and not done the border run.

One other bit of happy news – we were now allowed to drive 7 days of week, as of March 1^st! (That is, unless you were in San José proper, where old anti-congestion restrictions were now back in force. We never drove in San José proper, so that didn’t affect us.) Yay!

What about the tourist driving extension?

The tourist extension didn’t address driving. In Costa Rica the tourist extension and driving extensions are issued by two different government entities. In the past, the dates had eventually linked up, although the driving extension was usually issued later.

If we had not done our border run Miami trip, as of March 2^nd, we technically would be driving illegally when we drove past March 2^nd. Again, not a good thing. However, we thought that since the tourist date had been extended to June 1^st, surely the driving extension would be also.

On Thursday, March 4^th, Outlier Legal posted the update from the MOPT, the government entity that controls the tourist driving extension. Admittedly, it was a surprise.

There was an extension, but it only applied to permanent residents, temporary residents, refugees, and another special category. It did NOT apply to tourists!  The post was extremely specific – “If you are a tourist or a person with an application in progress at the Immigration Department, this [extension] does not apply to you.”  OK, we got the message – this extension didn’t apply to us.

Outcome?

Our gambles on the quirky resolutions for tourist and driving extensions paid off, as far as our driving privileges were concerned. In November, when we didn’t take the trip, the Costa Rican government did ultimately grant the driving extension to tourists. In March, when we did take the trip, the Costa Rican government did not grant driving extensions to tourists. For once, it felt like we played it right!

When we relay stories of all of the driving restrictions, curfews, etc., to people outside of Costa Rica, many ask, is all of this really worth it? A lot of this was the government’s way of attempting to prevent the spread of COVID in Costa Rica, while also trying to balance the predicament that many of us who had not yet received residency were in, due to the slower pace of processing applications, due to COVID.

There are difficult circumstances world-wide, but Thursday, a week after our stressful COVID test debacle, John and I found ourselves taking a long afternoon walk along three connected beaches less than a 10 minute-drive from our house.  There’s a reason why contestants on Wheel of Fortune are excited when they win a trip to Costa Rica. Yes, it’s worth it!

And Finally …

We now have “regular” salt!  We did need a saltshaker. Fortunately, one of our friends had a salt and pepper shaker set that he wasn’t using, so he gave it to us.  So, there’s that…