On Friday Tom and I headed off to Limon to renew our drivers licenses. We got them initially three years ago in San Jose and it took forever and seemed really complicated. This time we thought it would be a breeze since renewing our residency in Limon in October had gone so well.
We got to the place in Moin, outside of Limon, at about 8:15 and first had to get a ‘physical’. 
The doctor was in an old school bus that was in bad shape.
I think it used to be a roaming bus for a dentist since the ceiling was all decorated with cartoon teeth 
The doctor took blood pressure readings and listened to our chests and gave a bit of advice and sent us on our way $80 poorer ($40 each).
We took the card he gave us saying that we had passed our physical and went to a small building to wait to be called. 
There were only a couple of people ahead of us and it was going fast so we were happy to think we would be back on the road to Puerto Viejo in a short time. Oops – wrong……….
Tom went in first and found out that because our drivers license had our passport number on it and not our cedula number, we would have to get a piece of paper from immigration saying that we really did have residency. We knew that the law had changed and brought our cedulas with us to show them. But even though we had our cedula with us, we still had to get the piece of paper. So we climbed back in the car and drove into Limon to the immigration office. Traffic was nuts since it was rush hour so it took a while to get back to Limon. 
Luckily there was no line at immigration and the person who helped me with my residency paperwork in October was the one to help us again. She knew exactly what we needed so printed off two copies, signed them and sent us on our way. So, fifteen minutes later we headed back to the drivers license office.
Once there it went very smoothly. There was some additional paperwork needed so it took more time for each of us but within 1/2 hour we were done and had new licenses good for six years. Yahoo!!
One day last week we had two new raptors hanging out in the yard. 
One – a Laughing Falcon – we had seen before but could not get a good picture of. This time we did. The other bird is a Black Hawk Eagle and it was gorgeous!! Tom got a couple of great shots. It evidently eats other large birds like Toucans and 
Chachalacas as well monkeys and large rodents. It was wonderful to see but I’m glad it didn’t stick around and eat all my animal and bird friends
Other than that, it has been an uneventful couple of weeks. I’ve been working longer days at my job and Tom has been spending most of his time working on the house. Even though it is only four years old, living in this climate takes it’s toll and there is always some kind of upkeep to be done. The weather has been unbelievably gorgeous but we have had some rain which we are glad about.
Now it is time to go hang out on the back deck and pretend I am like my sloth friend who was sleeping on her back in a tree in our yard yesterday. It’s a tough life……………
Costa Rica Dog Lover 