How do I get Amazon deliveries?

So recently, I had someone who is considering moving to Costa Rica reach out to me and ask about logistics. One of the first questions was 'Can I get Amazon deliveries in Costa Rica?' And it got me thinking-- I've been In this country for 7 months, that's not a lot of time but it feels like a lifetime ago that I was trying to navigate super complicated but incredibly mundane things like how do I get mail and can I even get Amazon deliveries here.

So I figured if she and I had that question, it would probably be on the top of someone else's burning list of questions. I thought we would take today's blog post and talk about that. The short answer is yes you can. The long answer is it's a little complicated and you better make sure you want it because you can't send it back.

The first thing we need to talk about is getting mail in Costa Rica. There are three things about getting mail here that are important for the sake of this conversation: the way mail is handled in this country, mailing addresses, and customs and import taxes.

There are like small little hamlets on the way down the coast after leaving Puerto Viejo , they're not quite towns per se, or really even villages, but as you leave town proper, you also leave the concept of neighborhood behind. As such, houses do not cluster on streets that are connected. And that means mostly dirt roads that are carved off the main road leading into jungle and small compounds of houses. These dirt roads do not have names and the houses don't have numbers. That makes mailing addresses very different. Oftentimes, you will find an address that is something like 100 m from the gorge, last left before bridge, yellow house with white plant in front. It could be that house is no longer yellow and there won't be a white plant. When the address was first created, it was accurate...but time makes fools of us all. The house may be blue now and there might be a red flower plant in front but the original address remains the same.

Example Costa Rican house

The second thing of note is the Costa Rican post office does not operate the way the American system does. I can't speak to any other system. But when I got here, I expected the same general system. That was not correct. The first thing I noticed was the reduced hours. My post office is only open about 4 days a week. They open mid-morning, close for lunch, and then close at 5:00. The second thing is that the post office does not deliver mail. You can get post office box, they are reasonably priced and that's how you can get letters delivered.

The third important detail for this conversation is customs and import taxes. It is, for whatever reason, incredibly expensive to bring things in through typical channels like UPS, FedEx, even the United States postal service. Prohibitively so. I will give you an example. When we were packing up to move I really had no idea what was going to be readily available and what I needed to bring to make life convenient. So we had some suitcases that we brought with us and anything that I could not fit but I considered very necessary went into six small boxes. These were things like tiny screwdrivers for electronics, rechargeable batteries, sun hats, extra bathing suits, some of my daughter's toys and art supplies, etc. These six boxes were 12 x12x16 and each weighed no more than 25 lb. We left them with a friend who is going to mail them to us. She started with one box and the shipping came out to $967 for only that one box. Needless to say, it was cheaper to pay the cost of a plane ticket and to buy 2 suitcases to get all of those things down. Additionally, everything is taxed by weight, and there is a rather long list of prohibited items as well. But this post is about Amazon so now let's get to the good stuff.

Because of all of the above details, in order to get something shipped to you and delivered accurately, the most cost effective method I have found is using a third party shipper. And there's a lot of them. Turns out there's a whole industry of companies that have offices in multiple countries to assist in moving cargo from one place to another. So here's how it works...I have a third-party shipper who has an office in Miami, which is a major hub between Costa Rica and the United States. Through them, I have a post office box in Miami. This is the address that I use for Amazon and any other deliveries that I need to get. Therefore I am not paying international shipping through the retail company.

So I order something through Amazon and the third party company receives it, opens the boxes to make sure nothing is prohibited and consolidates into as few boxes as possible. From there, it's sent to their own offices in Costa Rica, after passing customs and inspection. When it makes its way through the customs office, I will get an invoice from the third party company with customs and import fees. Once I pay my company those fees, they will release my boxes to a courier. After that, they make their way from San Jose down to the Caribbean side and finally to my house. Once a week, the same courier visits and brings me any packages that have come through that week. It really is quite an efficient if not quick system. From the time I order the item on Amazon until its in my hand takes anywhere from 2 1/2 to 4 weeks.

Like I said, not a quick system but it's doable. Customs and import fees will tack on anywhere from 50% to 75% of the original cost of the item. But for some things that I cannot get easily here, it's absolutely necessary. There are some things that I had no problem giving up but other things I cannot live without. For example, my hair is dry and as such I need really good products. I cannot find American quality hair products here. I have a leave-in conditioner that I cannot live without. Once a month I pay to have that shipped along with my texturizing cream. When Halloween rolled around, I wanted the familiarity and comfort of American candy. It's not easily found here, so I sprung for a 5 lb bag of candy to be shipped in so that we could have our Reese's peanut butter cups. At 5 lb bag was $47 from Amazon because they jacked up the price for Halloween. Customs and import added an additional $30 on it. So I'm paying roughly $75 for a bag of candy. It's not pretty and I'm certainly not proud of plunking down that much money for comfort candy. But sometimes you gotta

do what you gotta do.

Let me know if any of this makes sense or if you still have any questions. Navigating things like this when I first got here was a little overwhelming and really confusing. Drop any questions in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

Thanks for reading.