Reason Number Gazillion

That would be "Reason Number Gazillion Why I Like Costa Rica So Much".

This morning I decided to walk from our house to Maxi Pali (a grocery store), a distance of roughly two kilometers and thankfully all downhill. I needed to buy a few items, the weather was superb for walking (cool with breezes), and I would benefit from the exercise.

I walked down to ruta 3 (the old oxcart road to the pacific coast, now paved of course) and turned right. I had put about 300 meters under my shoes when one of our red Atenas taxis drove past and beeped. This is not unusual, because we use the taxis all the time and know many of the drivers. I waved and walked on.

This taxi stopped ahead of me and I realized he was waiting for me. The driver was Carlos Luis Hidalgo, a lovely gentleman with beautiful manners. One time I met him and his wife in a store and he interrupted his shopping time to drive me home - he offered, I had not asked.

He indicated I should sit in the front passenger seat and the reason became clear when he stopped further up the road to pick up the passengers who had called him. Carlos dropped me off in front of Maxi Pali and indicated I should call him when I was ready to go home. He wouldn't accept any money - told me to put my purse away.

I called Carlos for my trip home - his telephone number is 60-90-81-24. On the way home, we discussed the weather - how cold it has been at night recently, the beautiful blue sky today, and I learned the word for arrow (from the road markings) - "flecha" - and the words for reverse are "marcha atras" (there should be an accent over the "a" but I can't get the Spanish keyboard to come up). "Reverse" came up when he was backing up to our gate.

These are just simple daily occurrences but demonstrate the richness of life here in our little town of Atenas.