The art of not paying $200 for tea

Today I once again negotiated the price down to zero.

Well, sort of.

Sometime after waking up, I found myself in the main prasa of Ribeira Brava, where all the vans congregate to pick up pasengers for destinations across the São Nicolau-ian landscape. Not knowing which van was which, I asked the first dirver I saw where I could find something headed for the aiport. He promptly offered to take me there himself for 500 escudos — in other words, he gave me the opportunity to fork over an entire day's food allowance so that me and my backpack could have a 16-passenger space to ourselves. I kindly explained to him that there would be other passengers on the plane with me, and that since Ribeira Brava is the town closest to the aiport, there would surely be a van of them with a spare seat for me. I'm not sure what words he said in response, but his body language seemed to suggest that everyone else would actually be teleporting to the airport and I'd be wise to accept his charity van while I still could.

The next dudes I talked to were also drivers, but they were honest enough to a) acknowledge the existence of airport shuttles, and b) point me to the road where I could find them. On my way there I ran into a teacher I knew who confirmed both the road and the righteousness of my indignation at the 500-escudo price. Unfortunately, I'm still a little timid abotu flagging down vehicles taht may or may not be the right one, so I think I missed a few that I could have used... and the teacher, although still nearby, was not helping.

When the 500-escudo driver passed by in his still-empty van and offered to take me to the airport for the same silly price, I told him I'd keep waiting. He didn't say more, but as he drove off his body language seemed to suggest that he was pretty sure he could milk me for even more money later when I got desperate.

I started to worry that he might actually be right, but just then a father of the church (who was the spitting image of a Californian padre... nearly bald, brown robes, the whole nine yards) stopped by to talk to me and pointed to the right van when he saw it.

So I hopped on and went to the airport. On the way tehre, I asked teh merrily-dressed man next to me how much it would cost. He didn't know. So I waited to see what everyone else paid when they got off... but then nobody did. "Was this pre-arranged?" I asked myself. Was the driver doing them a favor? Was this his family? Before the answers to any of those questions became clear, he drove away. And there I was, at the airport, on time, for free.

If the price-gouging bozo driver had been there just then, my body language might have been something along the lines of, "Awwwwwwwwwww, snap!"