The Town Without Collateral

Where I live now, I’ve joined a DVD rental store. It’s in the back of a clothing and gift store, before you hit the house plants. Everything in Monteverde is more than one thing; like the bookstore that’s also an office supply store and also a laundromat and also a café. In order to join the DVD rental program, I simply had to give my name and phone number. No credit card required. And, I return the DVDs whenever I finish them. So, it’s like Netflix, on the honor system.

After work on Friday, three friends and I enjoyed an impromptu girl’s night out at a fantastic local restaurant where we ate unbelievable pizza (I know, I know, Chicago and New York friends- it’s good other places too), real wine (the box wine here will be its own blog entry) and a massive amount of dessert, half of which was on the house. When the bill came the owner was very apologetic that I couldn’t use my card because the machine was down. I said, “No problem, I’ll run to the ATM down the street.” And he said, I swear this is true, “No, please don’t, it’s raining, just pay me tomorrow.” I then said, “No, really, the ATM is so close.” He replied with, “Well, at least let me drive you because it’s raining.” The ATM was seriously twenty feet away. This really happened. High up on a mountain, in the middle of a cloud forest, in Central America.