You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover

Or a Customs Agent!

This installment of What an Adventure! was written by my husband, Mark.

I have been a nature lover since I was a kid. When I was little, we had a pop-up camper called the “Scamper” that my dad towed behind our station wagon (with the wooden side panels). For my parents, this was a great way to save money on family vacations. Cramming all seven of us into the Scamper and eating camp food was a lot cheaper than renting hotel rooms and eating in restaurants. For me, it meant that every summer trip involved campgrounds - which I loved. Later, my parents bought a cabin on a lake in Kentucky. I spent nearly every warm weekend at the lake immersed in nature.

Buying a hotel in the middle of a rainforest in Costa Rica felt like a dream come true for a nature lover like me. Around that same time, I even bought a book called Nature – Conduct of Life by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Don’t judge a book by its cover!

I foolishly thought that a book titled Nature would be about nature. Unfortunately, this book is mostly a philosophical exploration of the nature of man, and I really struggled to get through it. My struggle was rewarded near the end of the book when I came across a single nugget of wisdom that I really loved. I mean, I loved it a lot. I loved it so much that I decided it should be cast in bronze and hung up at the hotel.  I’m not kidding.

You know those bronze historic markers on the side of 2-lane highways that you always speed past? I decided Emerson’s nugget should look like one of those. I found the company in the U.S. that makes those signs and asked them if they could make one for me. It was going to be crazy expensive to have it cast and shipped to Costa Rica, but I thought it was worth it. Marlo thought it was a waste of money, but she let me do it anyway. I placed the order.

Six weeks later, we received a notice from the Costa Rica Aduanas (the national customs agency) saying that they had my bronze sign in Puntarenas. The notice said I needed to come to Puntarenas to pick it up. By that time, we had been in Costa Rica long enough to know that the Costa Rican government loves documentation and requires extensive paperwork for even the most basic transaction.

I went to our hotel manager and said: “AJ, can you call the Puntarenas Aduanas office and find out exactly what documentation I will need to pick up the sign? I don’t want to drive 3 hours to their office and find out I was supposed to bring some stupid piece of paper that I don’t have.” AJ made the call and told me exactly what I was supposed to bring.

I made the 3-hour drive to Puntarenas full of optimism. Along the way, I practiced the Spanish phrases that I thought I might need. When I arrived at the Aduanas office, I was surprised to see I was the only “customer” and there was only one agent (foreshadowing alert – no witnesses). I walked up to his desk, greeted him in Spanish, then asked if I could speak with him in English. “Solo Español” came his response. 

OK, I thought, time to break out the Spanish phrases I had practiced. I told him why I was there and gave him all the documentation AJ had told me I would need. He typed some information into his computer and printed out some forms. As he reviewed my documents, he took a deep breath, let out a long heavy sigh, and started slowly shaking his head. Never a good sign in a government office.

“The sign you purchased has a value over $500.” He explained in Spanish. “There is a different process for that.”

“Oh, ok, what do I have to do?” I tentatively asked.

“You have to go to the Aduanas office in Paso Canoas, hire an official customs agent who will help you with the import application, submit the application, pay the import tax, wait 4-6 weeks for approval, and then come back to this office to pick up the sign.”

I was stunned and hoped I had misunderstood some of the Spanish. Paso Canoas is a 6-hour drive from Puntarenas. I repeated back to the agent everything I had understood in my best broken Spanish. He nodded along and said I had understood everything perfectly.

As I hung my head in disappointment, the agent lowered his voice to almost a whisper and said to me in perfect English,

“There is another way.”

“Another way?” I perked up – now responding in English. “What’s the other way??”

“If you can pay the $200 import tax in cash right now, you can take the sign.” He said.

“I can take it right now? You have the sign here, right?” I asked for clarification.

“Yes, if you can pay the $200 in cash, I can go in the back and get the sign for you now.” He confirmed.

“Let’s do it that way!” I exclaimed opening my wallet. I happened to have $80 in U.S. cash and almost exactly $120 in Costa Rican Colones – what a miracle. I handed everything that was in my wallet over to him. He reached below his desk and pulled out a small wooden box, opened the lid, and deposited the money into the box. He then put the small wooden box back under his desk.

I didn’t ask him and I didn’t want to know what happens to the money that goes into that small wooden box.

Then he handed back to me all the forms and documentation I brought and said “I don’t need any of this. Where is your car?” I told him I was parked outside the building. He told me he would meet me at my car in a few minutes with the sign.

As I stood waiting beside the car, my mind started to wander. Did I just get scammed? What do I do if this guy never comes out with the sign? Am I about to get arrested? I remembered Marlo’s one condition for this whole adventure – we can’t go to Costa Rican jail.

Just then, my friend, the bilingual customs agent, came out carrying the sign. He smiled, placed it carefully into the trunk of the car, shook my hand, and gave me the customary Pura Vida!

Before I left, I had to have a look at the sign. I carefully opened the packaging, and it looked amazing. I read the inscription before driving back to the hotel:

“The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded, - the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and the cheerful relation – these are the essentials, - these, and the wish to serve, -to add somewhat to the well-being of men.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

As a newly minted hotelier, that last part really resonated with me: “…the wish to serve, - to add somewhat to the well-being of men.” That’s what you do in the hotel business. You serve, and you try to add to the well-being of your guests. We hung the sign in a prominent location where all the guests and staff could see it, but I don’t think it ever hit anyone the way it hit me.

The very expensive bronze sign @Mark Leaman