If you’re like me and your phone is your life, then a piece of advice: get to know your cab driver. You will eventually leave your phone, camera or billfold behind.

As soon as I made it into the hostel, I realized that I didn’t have my phone and calculated it could only have fallen out in the shuttle van or at the first hotel passengers were dropped off at. When asked who my driver was, I couldn’t think of anything other than “he’s from Brazil.” I can never remember a name, though I never forget a face or a place.

“Half my drivers are from Brazil, sweetie.”

Lovely. We had just been chatting it up, as I was the last passenger to be dropped off, and I racked my brain for other identifying information. “He has a family and decided to be a driver recently … he used to be a computer engineer.”

“Oh, that must be Fernandez - only got two guys who were into computers. I’ll give him a call.”

And that’s how I got my phone back.