The People of Costa Rica, an example

Wilson is a Tico. Born and raised in Costa Rica. He speaks very good English and has a beautiful wife and 2 1/2 year old son. He works hard and had built up a good clientel. It's obvious he likes what he does and he is very good at it. This is an example of the kindness of a Costa Rican.
When he picked us up at the airport back in June he was right on time and very attentive to our needs. Our needs weren't much but we had just flown in on the red eye and we were now in a new country and the shock was hitting us at 5:30 in the morning. He wheels out our luggage, which was a lot (check out the picture of our first Costa Rica blog), to his van. He's chatty and asking us if we'd like to stop anywhere for food, groceries, etc. No, we just want to get to where we are staying and re-group. He get's us to the B&B giving us tons of history and showing us points of interest, an unlike a lot of the drivers in CR he drives careful and slow. It feels good not to be gripped on those roads as we have been in the past. The next day he picks us up again and we have a wonderful but long drive to our place at the beach. The entire drive he is making sure we are comfortable and cool enough. We stop for lunch and we get fresh fruit at a fruit stand and we stop for groceries. He knows everyone and seems well liked. We get to the casita and unload every piece of luggage from the van including his suitcase, by accident. He drove away and gets about 20 min on the road and realizes his suitcase is missing from the van, drives all the way back to the casita and gets his suitcase, APOLOGIZING TO US!!! It was our fault for grabbing it in the first place.
As we are in his van we are asking him how to go about getting a phone for the summer. He says he has a spare one since he got a new one the previous week. He hands us his spare phone and says we can use it if we pay for our calls. No problemo. We're thinking, "Man, this guy is trusting." We tell him we'll take care of the phone and if anything happens to it of course we'll pay for it. He gives us all of the information and we now have a phone. COOL! The phone didn't last long. We used it twice before I got it wet. It was nice and dry in my backpack and the rain soaked it and it never worked. I emailed him to tell him about his phone feeling aweful. He emailed back and we agreed I'd pay him the $70 he paid for it. That was the deal. Well, now it's time to leave Costa Rica and we call Wilson to set up a ride. He was available and he met us at our house at 10a.m. We were so happy to see him, gave hugs all around and loaded up in his van. We were chatty and he had so many questions to ask us and we told him stories about our summer. He was genuinely interested. We spoke of the phone and he felt horrible about charging us the $70 for the phone but hey, that was the deal. He then says he is going to drive to a cell phone store that he knows of and see of it can be repaired. We stop at the store and he and Jack go in and us girls waited in the van and watched the chaos with the people and traffic outside. About 20 min later they came back to the van smiling and Wilson tells me the phone is fixed and we just owe him $6 for a new charger. He was so happy and I was ready to just give him the $70. He totally went out of his way to double check. He was so uncomfortable to take that money from us.
We get to the B&B and say goodbuy and I am sad to see him leave. About an hour later Wilson drives up the driveway and I'm thinking, "OMG. We left something in the van and he had to drive all the way back here. Or, we took something from the van, again, and he had to drive all the way back here." Nope. He FLIPPING HAD A PRESENT FOR US!!! He had purchased 3 bags of wonderful Costa Rican coffee for us and came back to give it to us. It was so nice of him and my mouth was just dropped as he drove away for one last time.
If anyone is ever going to Costa Rica please, please contact me. You need to hire Wilson as your driver. He is honest, nice, cute and a good guy.