Latin America Collection

Now that we had made the decision on the routing, there were many
items we needed to research. The reason for writing this guidebook is to,
perhaps, fill the void that we had encountered, and to assist others, such
as yourselves, in planning your drive south, for whatever reason and
destination you may have.

Our reason was that the doctors had told me I must go into full
retirement--which we could not afford in California. We would be living
on a fixed income of less than $800.00 per month, so we had to plan
accordingly.

In our research we found a very low air fare to Costa Rica during the
month of October, so we flew there to verify if we could really get by on
my monthly Social Security check. In a few years, my wife, Audrey, would
be able to add her Social Security to mine to make it a bit easier. So, we
had something to look forward to.

We found a lovely home in the mountains above San José, Costa Rica.
The owner would hold it for three months on a proposed 5-year lease--so
that matter was happily settled.

The next item on our agenda was to get information about moving to
Cost Rica. We had been warned that Costa Rican attorneys were the
transplanted "bandidos" of Mexico. We did not have any idea where to look
for a good one. We picked up the local Tico Times English language
newspaper, and found that there was a seminar for newcomers that would
give us the information we would need to make a decision on whether it
would be practical to move or not. At the seminar we found a seemingly
very good attorney at an acceptable price, who would get us our
"Pensionado" papers, and would clear our car and furniture through
customs. We also found out what would be required in the way of necessary
paperwork to move to Costa Rica or any other country you may select.

We started with our requirements, took our physical for tuberculosis
and AIDS, were fingerprinted for Interpol, and got started on our Pensionado
papers while we were there. The balance of the papers and documents were
mailed to our attorney via Federal Express as soon as we returned home.

Now, we figured that our research was over. We had made our decision.
The next thing to do was to get the rest of our paperwork together, and get
physically ready to move.