Never Curse Fate - Again!

With all appropriate papers in hand (passports, copy of utility bill from Hotel Roma to show where we’re living, the temporary “orden patronal” from ARCR, and the very official blank piece of paper obtained at ARCR, the “papel oficio,” along with the “timbre fiscal of 25 colones,” obtained at ARCR) we headed out by taxi to San Rafael to the “estacion de la guardia rural de San Rafael Heredia. This was the next step in getting registered in the public medical system.

We had made plans with Nidia at Hotel Roma that she would call them at 1:30 to let them know what we were coming for, and that we would arrive there at 2:00. When we arrived, the guard at the desk spent several minutes or more looking and relooking at all of our papers and somehow (he spoke no English and I really could not understand any of his Spanish) communicated to us that we should return tomorrow morning after 8:30 because the secretary, pointing to a metal desk with an ancient Underwood typewriter, who types the paper that we need is not there today. Found out later that Nidia had found this out when she called but had no way to reach us to tell us not to go. It was o.k. Now we know where the Estacion de la Guardia is, a plain and ugly concrete block building hidden behind a concrete block wall with chickens running around the mud-filled yard.
We walked around and saw the beautiful church and really liked this small, neat, clean town. Wide streets. Not much traffic. Nice school next to the park by the church. A nice man who was doing some work on the outside of the church (it appeared to be freshly painted) saw us gawking and asked us if we like it. We told him it was gorgeous. He seemed very proud of it, and a few minutes later came running after us with a very nice full color glossy booklet that had been printed a few years ago for the centennial of the church! The sky was getting ready to open up, so we had coffee at the nice big soda on the corner and watched the world go by for a little while, before catching a taxi back to Hotel Roma. Never curse fate. If the secretary had been there, we probably would have spent some time at the police station (Guardia?) getting our papers, and by then it would have been raining, so we would have missed our walk around this charming little town. We might never have seen the beautiful church, talked to the nice man who was working so proudly on it. We might never have discovered the corner neighborhood café with its great-smelling lunches being prepared behind the counter. I could live here!