We slept late. We all slept late. It was glorious.
We had purchased some breakfast things at the Fresh Market the night before, so by the time we all got up after 10, we made a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, papaya, avocado, toast, and coffee.
The plan for today was a two-parter: get new cedulas for Cristina and the kids, and have dinner with Eduardo and his family.
Eduardo "knows a guy" who could help us get through the cedula process quicker. So he met us at the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones. Quick explanation: cedulas are Costa Rican IDs. If you are a Costa Rican citizen, your cedula is kind of like a mixture of a social security card and a driver's license. It's a plastic card with bar code and photo that you carry around with you (like a driver's license) that confirms your nationality for social services and voting (like a SS card). Because Cristina is a CR citizen, our kids have dual-citizenship. You can get a cedula when you are 13, so during our last trip in 2009, Sofia got hers but the other two kids weren't old enough. In 2016, Sofia's bag got stolen at a music festival, and her cedula was in there. So all three kids needed cedulas, and Cristina's had expired.
Normally, bureaucratic stuff like getting passports or cedulas takes a long time in Costa Rica, but Eduardo basically helped us cut in line, which felt kinda bad, but I won't lose any sleep over it. We opted not to renew their Costa Rican passports, because they coast $120 each, and we don't really use the CR passports. So it's not worht the expense. The cedulas are more useful, because many of the places you pay for here, like museums or tours, give CR citizens a much lower price. For example, we went to the Costa Rican National Museum while we waited for the cedulas to process, and Cirstina and the kids were 2000 colones each ($3.35-ish) and my entrance fee was $9.
We had been to that museum several times, but the kids didn't remember much of it, so it was time well spent. It has been upgraded too, so it's even nicer than I remember it. They still have several of the esferas de piedra, the stone spheres made by the indigenous people here many years ago. I wrote a book when Sofia was twelve set in CR that revolved around these spheres. For me, the highlight of the museum trip was brainstorming ideas for the next book with all three of the kids.
Eduardo and his wife headed off from the museum to get ready for dinner. After picking up the cedulas, we drove back to the Airbnb. We were all hungry, but didn't want too much food since we were going to dinner in a couple of hours, so we stopped at the Fresh Market and got some chips (and a couple of fruit drinks from Pupuseria Familiar).
We relaxed at the Airbnb, snacked a bit, then got freshened up and headed to Escazu to meet Eduardo and family at the Mirador Tiquicia. It's up a mountain, and this was the first test of how the Toyota Rush handled mountains. We made it up, but the car did not live up to its name. We won't win any speed races in that car. Patience will be required when we head to Irazu and Sierra de la Muerta.
The restaurant did have a beautiful view of the entire valley. Amazingly, it did not rain all day (at least where we were) and we could see all the way from Cartago to the mountains that block the view of the Pacific Ocean.
The restaurant attracts a tourist clientele, as evidenced by the two charter buses dropping off dozens of young tourists when we arrived. They have traditional dancers, but it costs extra, so we opted to sit in the "free" area. It still had a great view, but the service was definitely lacking, which annoyed Eduardo, who said this would be the last time he was going there. The food was average. Portions were a bit small. Cristina's arroz con pollo was bland. But the company was great and it was nice to reconnect with Eduardo. Again, he gave us lots of advice for our travels and offered to make some calls to help us with the activities we are aiming to do, like zip lining, horseback riding, etc.
We got back to the Airbnb and hit the sack.
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