And Now, For the Rest of the Story

After standing along the highway for about half an hour the police were ready to take the two criminals to the police station. Steve and I were supposed to go there too and give a report of what had happened. Thankfully the police with whom we were riding took us home first, and I was able to change. They then drove all over creation trying to find the police station (the police that we were with were from a different district and were too embarrassed to radio for directions). I’m guessing that we probably arrived at the police station at about 4:30.

We thought that we might just have to give a report and then we could be on our way. Simple, right? Guess again! I don’t think that anything having to do with the Costa Rican government is quick or painless. For some reason the officer who took our report had to write it out by hand. Or, should I say that she had to right THEM out by hand. The next time that I have to go to a police station I think that I will take my laptop and teach them how to us the copy and paste features. Then again, I don’t know if my laptop could even be hooked up to their archaic printer. Anyway, I had to give my information. Steve had to give his information. The police had to give their version of what happened. They had to fill out on official report on the robber and how the whole episode went down. Then they had to fill out the exact same report for the driver (enter copy and paste). They no doubt had to fill out a report of what both the bad guys had to say. Are you getting the picture?

After all the reports had been filled out, we were told that we would have to go to some court house a ways away to give more reports. But of course they had to wait for an official transport vehicle to come and take us and the criminals to the courthouse. So, we waited and waited and waited some more. After a while we asked if would could go outside and were given permission to stand out front with the robber (who was handcuffed to a gate) and the driver (who was handcuffed to a motorcycle). The robber kept his jacket pulled up over his head so that we couldn’t see him; he must have forgotten that we had been with him for about a half an hour along the road. The driver was only 17 (did I forget to mention that he didn’t have a license) and got really bored. I heard him complaining to a policeman that he had missed his supper.

Our transport, AKA a pickup truck, finally showed up at 8:30. If you do the math, that is about 4 hours after we first got to the station. Of course the efficient police force didn’t want to waste gas, so they got the bright idea to send five policeman, two Americans, and two robbers in a little Mazda extended cab. At least Steve and I got to sit inside; the bad guys were just handcuffed hooks in the bed of the truck.

By the time we finally got to the courthouse Steve and I decided that we really needed to call our wives to let them know what was going on. The last that they had heard from us was our goodbyes as we jumped into a police car around 4:00. But we were told that we couldn’t use the “only available phone” (I have my doubts) because it was in the same general vicinity of the criminals and we might actually see them. Never mind that we had seen them during the robbery, along the highway, at the police station, and then sat 4 inches from them (through a glass window of course) on the way to the courthouse.

Well, to make a way-too-long story a little shorter, we had to wait to call our wives until the officials got done doing whatever it was that they did with the robbers. By the time that we could actually call home it was about 10:00 and our poor wives were worried sick. We finally got done giving our reports at the courthouse (basically the exact same report that we had given at the police station [enter copy and paste again]), and then had a wild ride back home. Don’t ask me why the cops down here have to fly like crazy no matter what the occasion. We were going full tilt, running a red light our two with lights flashing. And oh yes, on the way back the two policemen who had sat in the bed with the robbers on the way to the courthouse got to sit inside and the two Americans had to sit in the bed. Steve saw a Costa Rican laughing at us; I was quite indignant. We finally made it home to our waiting wives at 11:45 PM.

The End