Costa Rica Street Signs and Addresses. “ We don’t need no stinking street sign!”

I had to laugh the other day when the Wall Street Journal wrote an article on how Costa Rican's find addresses – a country where street names or addresses are fictional. Any expat will tell you, "It is a challenge, hassle, and at most time’s pure frustration to find any home, residents, or business."

Costa Ricans use the infamous Landmark System (based on distances). Wall Street Journal called it, "quirky and costly address system."

Costa Rican addresses are expressed in relation to the closest community landmark. In colonial times, that was the church or town hall. Today it could be some junk-food joint, bank, or auto repair shop.

For example: The address for the office of Rodolfo Sancho, the public works director in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, is "75 meters west of the general cemetery." Okay, that sounds good to a resident of San Jose, but what “general (no-named) cemetery” to a resident of Jaco or to a tourist? And that’s just the start since rarely there is NADA house or apartment numbers, so now you are standing in front of an apartment complex or gated community with a shaking head of WTF; where do I go now?

I remember getting directions to my friend’s house in Santa Ana, “Get on the main drag in Santa Ana, turn right at the Banco Nacional, go to the top of the street, turn left, the house is the one with the iron gates catty corner from the house with the huge wall around it."

Well in that neighborhood every house has fricken black iron gates. And every fricken corner has several houses with a wall around it. WTF! We ended up asking a Tica, “Dónde está la casa de Gringo Jim?” and we were pointed to the green house with the iron gates. Typical, laughable and understandable.

Even the president of the country Laura Chinchilla, admits,  "If you asked me the name of the street [in front of the Casa Presidencial, a nondescript gray block in the Zapote neighborhood] I couldn't tell you."

According to Carlos Nájera, who manages the country’s post offices, "Costa Rica loses $720 million a year in lost revenue and other costs," as a result. That’s a hell of a lot of money for a country the about size of West Virginia.

So it is quite understandable why almost a quarter of the mail in Costa Rica is returned undeliverable. Personally I think it is around 90%. LOL!

So I guess the big question is why hasn't government established an address system? The four reasons are typical Tico logic:

1.  Costa Ricans assumed you know your neighbors, local shops, and landmarks old and new, so why change? Or the old cliché, if it works, why fix it? And who cares about tourists and expats.
2. Economy is growing at an alarming rate. New urban developments are popping up overnight, along with businesses. The post office can't keep up with the neverending landmark reference points.
3. Costa Rica receives about 28 million letters and packages mailed each year and are sorted by hand. Modern equipment isn't capable of reading the Landmark System addresses. LOL again!
4. And lastly – everyone knows government is not the most productive – in other words, seven years ago Costa Rica's government decided to create a nationwide street-naming and signage program and set a budget of $1 million gringo dollars … has it happened?  And now the budget is $2 million, a fraction of what it would cost. I rest my laughable case on this.

However, probably the biggest reason why it has to change, the current system has a major safety risk.

This is the QR code for the Google Map location for San Jose's Central Market - scan it and see

So what would be a quick (laughable) and reasonable cost fix?

I read an article about [a quick fix] using QR barcodes and GPS from Micunche.  Costa Rica Post Office could sell QR address labels, just like stamps.  Interesting. Local post offices could then data base all of the QR barcodes into some Cloud system and hyperlinked with a TinyURL. This would also provide an online revenue as consumers can access and download “their” address or pay to receive labels, rubber stamp, etc.

Lets face the fact - GPS do not always work in Costa Rica

The other was to set up a GPS grid system; addresses would use GPS latitude/longitude numbers.  For instance, the address of Mercado Central in San Jose would be 9.996577,-84.117815 – cut and paste this into Google map and bingo you have the location of the Market.

However, the problem with this is a no brainer, human error and way to many numbers – make a typo and your letter may show up in Africa and/or you’re driving ends up fronting a river.

So what is the answer? Well, this author has none –  it's just part of the idiosyncrasy of Costa Ricans and I pity the poor Costa Rican postman.

Calypso Cruises