10:22 PM
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica
Cabinas Guarana
Being Shortchanged
After another delicious breakfast this morning at Bread and Chocolate, we came back to pack up and move to another hotel, Cabinas Guarana. We decided to try a different hotel here in Puerto Viejo, for use of the Internet and just to try some place different.
Despite the loud noises of construction and other people here at Casa Verde, I fell asleep in the hammock for about an hour, when Carrie came by to tell me that we needed to check out in 15 minutes.
This means I slept for a little over an hour. I was really surprised I slept that long in the hammock.
We packed up and moved our bags the 3 blocks to Cabinas Guarana. (The three blocks is dirt/gravel/rock roads, so it felt a bit longer than 3 blocks, especially with as hot and humid as it was today.) But, no big deal. Checked in to Cabinas Guarana, where the Internet speed is very fast (at least so far).
Met a guy today who calls himself Pedro… think it’s actually Peter because I heard someone else call him Peter. He’s from Canada, but lived in Thailand for 5 years, and now owns a shop here. He seems like a nice enough guy.
He offered us some friendly advice, and we got to chatting about needing to arrange transport to Bocas del Toro. He said he could do that for us, and told us where his shop was. It was all very low pressure. And I’m probably playing this up to be more than it actually is – just was a good reminder to me to keep my radar up for anything funny. In any case, we ended up going to his store, and arranging for transportation to Bocas del Toro, but had forgotten our passports and wanted to pay in Colones. So we asked him what the exchange rate was. 590 was his response.
This would be pretty good actually, if we were paying in US dollars… but since we would be paying in Colones, it works to his advantage. He’s basically charging us more than the going rate for Colones, because we’re paying in Colones. But the actual exchange is 567 today, and most places are at 575 or so. The difference between 575 and 590 is about US$.03. So even though he’s charging a bit more to accept local currency, it’s really not a big deal.
I went and got our passports (since we needed them in order to arrange transport), and got cash from the ATM. I went back to his shop to finish filling out the form and make payment. I reminded him I was paying in Colones. Carrie and I had figured out that at 590 Colones, the total for our transportation should be 33,040 Colones. ($28 *590 *2). Pedro/Peter came up with a total of 33,320. I asked him about it and he said that the going rate was 595.
I told him that just an hour earlier he had quoted 590 and even that seemed high. He said that his co-worker had been to the bank and the rate was 595, and that it would work out better for me this way. (Again, it would work out better if I was paying in dollars adjusted for Colones, but he was simply using a made up exchange rate as a way to charge me more.)

I asked him how it worked out better for me if I was paying in Colones and why he was charging me more…
He responded by saying that it was really only about (US) 40 cents anyway, but that he would charge me 33,040, not 33,320. I gave him 34,000 Colones.
The change he brought me back was 700 Colones.
I didn’t push the issue because after all, we’re only talking about US $0.50 or so.
But it’s the point of the thing, you know?
It just is a good reminder that often, people who are a little unscrupulous and trying to sell you something might use fuzzy logic to confuse points around things like exchange rates.
Now if he had been doing good business, and charged us the going rate today of 567 Colones, we would have paid only 31,752.
Let’s round that up to 31,800, which is what we could have paid if we had bought the service directly from the transport company or through a different reseller.
33,320 – 31,800 = 1520 Colones. 1520/567 = $2.68
This means that Pedro made an additional $2.68 on this transaction (plus whatever he makes for a finder’s fee by being the sales agent for getting us to Panama), simply by figuring his own exchange rate of 595.
It was just one of those situations where someone is doing something a little sketchy, and when you call them on it, they still push it. Ever been there?
(I actually did that to my parents a few times growing up, so maybe this is karmic retribution? It’s still bad business. I learned that the last time I tried something like this, I think about 9 years ago, when I was 21/22.)
Anyway, we were considering renting bikes and snorkel gear from him for the morning of the 24th before going to Panama, since the shuttle doesn’t leave until 2PM. Now, instead of actually buying more from him, we’re telling you about our negative experience of being shortchanged (in an admittedly very small way) on exchange rate.
I’m not trying to be vindictive or mean, and certainly it isn’t my idea of a good time to trash someone else’s livelihood. However, I would say that in lost opportunity, Pedro/Peter has lost a lot more than the $2-$3 (or so) he gained in this situation.
Pedro, if you read this, please comment below and share your side of the story as I would love to have my perception of this situation corrected if I’ve perceived any of this inaccurately.