Meet the Gypsy Cab Nosara Crew.

In prior posts, we learned about Nosara’s history, how to travel there, what to bring, and what to anticipate. In this publication, we will tell you a little bit about ourselves, our company’s structure, and our employees, beginning with management and concluding with our most valuable asset, our driving forces.

We’re doing it the right way!

In Costa Rica, this size of business is called a “small business”. This business figure in Costa Rica is subject to a number of official regulations, such as municipal patents (Nicoya Municipality), which include an operating authorization from the Ministry of Health.

It is also a legal obligation to contribute to the Costa Rican Social Security system (Caja), as well as to the Treasury (Hacienda) of course.

In Costa Rica, regardless of how tiny the company is, rigorous compliance with the requirements of the law, as well as properly complying with the social limits established by a small business, is essential in order to give the consumer a service protected by the social order.

Our small business also has a Tourism Declaration under the auspices of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), and the vehicles we use for our operations must be approved by the Public Transport Board, which, along with the Ministry of Tourism, determines whether we are capable of providing this type of public service.

Business structure

After discussing the social and economic structure on which our business is based, we go on to what gives Gypsy Cab Nosara its life, as the service the customer receives, on his trip to and from Nosara.

Nadia Alfaro is in charge of Gypsy Cab Nosara´s administrative and operational management. She manages the operation and oversees the official processes.

ItotalWeb.com is in charge of website construction, bookings, and direct interaction with our customers, while Creatico is in charge of social media. The Grupo Meza y Asociados S.A. is in charge of our accounting and legal activities.

Finally, those who operate our cars, our drivers, are the ones who eventually give life to Gypsy Cab Nosara and the motor of our organization.

Odir Garcia, Jose Fonseca, Randall Gonzalez, Steven Ugarte, and Victor are among those involved.

In addition to our Gypsy Cab Nosara employees, we should mention the transportation micro-businesses with which we collaborate.

We strongly believe in collaboration and the phrase “Nosara work stays in Nosara,” thus we form economic relationships with small transportation businesses (usually they are family businesses in Nosara).

Luis Saiden and his wife Johanna from Guiones Transports, Albin and his wife Doris from Happy Cab, Alejandro and his wife Edith from Nosara Taxi Cab, our buddies Olman and Vanne from Green Ride Travel, Rodrigo Meza from Congo Transfers, Cristian from Nosara VIP, and Carlos Arguedas from Nosara First Class are among the cooperative micro-enterprises.

We want you to know a little bit about us and our team now that we’ve seen the structure, so we’ll see some biographical information about the people that make up Gypsy Cab Nosara.

Nadia Alfaro, (The Boss)

Nadia was born on December 8, the day of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, according to Catholic tradition. That is why her friends refer to her as “Maria.”

She remembers:

“The transportation business is inherited from my grandfather Julio Rivera who was the first taxi driver at the Juan Santamaria Airport to visualize that minibusses would be needed at the airport to transport families who came to visit Costa Rica. This is how, in the 1980s, by order of ex-president Daniel Oduber, 20 minibus plates were generated and delivered to the Juan Santamaria airport, little by little this modality is implemented in hotels and tourist centers and with its operation also come the regulations. of the ones, we talked about at the beginning of this document.”

Nadia was approximately 25 years old when she first drove a microbus with the license plate AB 973.

“I have known the tourism transport business since I had an idea.”

Nadia studied business administration and graduated from ULACIT with a degree in Organizational Behavior.

“I studied with the support of my grandparents who did not want this environment for me because they knew that it was very demanding: Working in tourism transport means not having schedules, days off, vacations, etc. However, this was what I knew and here I stayed, I think the most affected were my 2 children who at one point even accompanied me to pick up tourists at the airports.

I have the memory of my youngest son, when he was seven years old, helping me pick up some customers at the airport and telling me “mom, one day we’ll be the ones that our bags would be carried” Today he lives in Japan and someone has picked his bags several times.

My daughter, now finishing her veterinary degree, never tired of telling me she would never drive a minibus. For my part, I like my job very much, I get along well with the cars and with the calculations of distances, times, and volume of fuel traveled per KM.

For now, my children are grown up and they understand well that you have to love what you do and that you have to walk straight in this life and for me, that is enough. They, with the help of their grandparents and this company, knew how to get ahead in a different way and I can´t thank God enough for each of the experiences they had.”

Nadia explains how she got started in business:

“Starting Gypsy in Nosara was born out of the concern to find something better for my family. In San José, the informal workspace has become complicated and many times the disloyalty of the union makes the city land of cannibals and that exhausts everyday life, it is very difficult to compete like that. And on top of that, two failed marriages and raising children without parental support (Thank God for grandparents) place one in the obligation to generate more. The income was no longer enough to continue to stay at the San José airport and it gave reason and motivation to try their luck in Nosara.”

She informs us:

“Nosara has charm, and I’ve bathed in the Nosara River since I arrived.”  she said as a reference to the Nosara tale that you can see in one of our previous posts.

We’ve already begun from scratch three times in Nosara, and each time the outcomes have been better.”

She co-founded Gypsy Cab Nosara in 2012 by implementing her shared transportation concept with her partner Bernice Croasdille, with whom she eventually split ways. That’s why, after splitting from Gypsy Cab Nosara and creating an alliance with his Green Ride Travel buddies, Olman Quiros y Vanessa Alvarado, she relaunched with a new name: Green Ride Nosara in 2019.

“Also at this time, I had the opportunity to start covering the reception of the Living Hotel for hours which gave me his trust, and then comes the pandemic which hits us hard, we stayed during it doing errands for people that live here, and today the customers we used to serve, now call us to use us for transportation, and recommended us to his acquaintances for their transport to the airport.”

Then the opportunity to acquire Gypsy Cab Nosara (stopping the epidemic) arrived since the partner who left it was fatigued and the Pandemic hit her hard,  and we began again with two units, hand in hand and loyalty from our basic group: Jesus, Odir, Jose, Randall, and Adrian.

Three months later, Don Mario Andres from Skyline comes via his buddy David Fonseca and supports us, and the Nosara Beach Management group opens its doors to us, entrusts us with its clientele, and we begin working: Welcome to 2022!

“This is how I decided to stay in Nosara because I already have a relationship with this space and my way of life is different from what I knew, the energy in Nosara is something different. I could not compare the transportation of executive tourism in a hurry and hanging Wi-Fi, in a pond in the city, at 5 pm, to listening to whistles and seeing stressed and angry people outside, in the contrast to entering at the same time with passengers. full of energy from the illusion of surfing or practicing yoga, encountering the sunset as you pass south Guiones, and leaving north Guiones with the sound of “congos” and the smell of incense.”

Nadia concludes with a thought:

“The foreigner doesn’t know why he returns to Nosara, again and again, on every vacation, I don’t think he even knows why he decides to stay, and stay here and do his business in the end. I call it magic, it’s what makes Gypsy Cab Nosara continue to transport tourism to this place.”

Adrián Ramírez

He is 54 years old, has been in commerce for about 25 years, and is the owner of ItotalWeb.com. He is married with a child, lives in San José, and works from his home office in San José, where he oversees Gypsy Cab Nosara bookings.

In 1988, he enrolled at the University of Costa Rica to study Civil Engineering. He studied English at the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano from 1988 to 1991. He studied website design in 2007, and digital marketing and social media from 2010 to 2015. He studied photography in 2017 and is now ready to make films as a marketing tool.

From 1990 to 1995, he worked as an agent in a rent a car, as a receptionist at a few hotels, and as a vacation plans salesperson, and in 1995, he launched a digital printing business, which he still runs today, and manages to oversee up to ten workers at the past.

In 2017, he met Nadia and began working as a website designer for a group of taxi drivers from Juan Santamaría Airport, as well as assisting them with reservations.

“In 2017 I started working with Nadia with a group of airport taxi drivers, where we started a project that started very well but ended very badly, however, the relationship with Nadia was always the best, so I also worked with her on her Green Ride Nosara project in 2018, and after the Pandemic, in 2020 she asked me for help and we started working with Gypsy Cab Nosara, I made the website for her and I took care of the bookings.”

From 2020, he enhances his own functions with Nadia’s labor and assumes further responsibility inside Gypsy Cab Nosara.

“Working with Gypsy was very important to me as it allowed me to learn a lot about the tourist transport business as well as implement all my marketing knowledge in support of the Gypsy Cab Nosara web page as I loved the idea that Gypsy’s well-being is my personal well-being, but also the well-being of many people in Nosara who rely on the work Gypsy generates.”

Odir García Espinoza 

Odir is 32 years old and has been a Gypsy Cab Nosara employee for 8 years. He has a lovely family, with a wife and two children, and he is originally from Belen de Nicoya.

“I like living in Nicoya a lot because it is calm, I like soccer a lot and like working as a soccer referee, but I also like motocross and working on the field with cattle.”

He says of Gypsy:

“It is a recognized company, good in the workplace, work is calm, relaxed with very good staff, and where it is always about giving the best for the customer.“

He claims he wants to build his own house, acquire automobiles, and establish a little tourist business.

Jose Widman Fonseca Chavarria.

Jose is 44 years old and has been driving since the age of 18. He is divorced with three children and resides in Playas de Nosara, Guanacaste, despite being originally from the Puntarenas region.

My family is from Guanacaste, but for work reasons, they migrated to different places in Costa Rica at the time. I live in the Nosara area because I came to work in 1999, raised a family, and settled here.

He enjoys watching football, spending time with his friends and sharing with them, and spending time with his children.

“Currently, I don’t remember when I started with Gypsy, but I think it’s been more than 8 years to be an associate of such a prestigious company. I think that Gypsy is a company that is dedicated to the employee, and it is also a company that is committed to the Nosara community to help with different activities such as collecting donations in San Jose for the floods, clothes, food, etc… Also the service provided to the passenger is professional and pleasant.”

Working with Gypsy I have achieved peace of mind as there is no better pressure than to work in peace… Also, I have economic stability, and I have been able to develop myself as a person. And like my colleagues, they are excellent.

Randall A Gonzalez V

Don Randall has been driving for ten years and is 47 years old. He currently resides in Alajuela with his fiancée and their three children, and he has four more children from a previous marriage. He was born in Rio Segundo de Alajuela, around 2 kilometers from Juan Santamaria International Airport.

According to Don Randall, his entire family has resided in Rio Segundo since his great-grandpa.

At the same time, he runs a corporate uniform business, and he is working on a new large-format digital printing project. He enjoys riding his bike and spending as much time as possible with his family.

He began working with Gypsy in 2016, as the station manager at Juan Santamaria International Airport, from where he takes visitors across the country.

He says of Gypsy,

“…is a company focused on tourism transport that always strives to satisfy its customers. With Gypsy, I managed to get to know my country and more, because of the location of my work at Juan Santamaría Airport.”

Steven Ugarte Henríquez.

Steven is 43 years old, has been driving for 17 years, is divorced, and has four children. He resides in Nosara and claims to have been born in Barra Honda de Nicoya, Guanacaste, and that his entire family is from the region.

“I live in this area because it is very productive for tourism and it is very quiet for work and for my children. I practice football, ride a bike, and stuff like that.”

He began working at Gypsy Cab Nosara a few seasons ago and considers himself to have done well.

“I excelled working at Gypsy and I achieved a lot of stability in many things of work and customer service, I feel that I have had more and more benefits as time goes by working here.”

Conclusions

As you can see, the folks who will transport you to this lovely spot are honest, hardworking people who are committed to their families, their work, and their clients.

In subsequent posts, we’ll look at where to stay, where to eat, and what to do in Nosara. We will also discuss Nosara culture, current organizations, how to come live or work in Nosara, and much more.