Swimming Hole

In the small downtown of Playa Del Coco there is a quaint hotel/restaurant that has a pool and welcomes the public to use it for a small fee of ordering something off the menu.  We spent a very nice afternoon there basking in the sun, cooling off in the pool, and chatting it up with people on the loungers.

Local Beach Bar

We stopped for a beer at this busy beach bar.  There was no place to sit, so a table was brought from the back, and set up on the beach for us.  We even received a free loaf of freshly baked banana bread to take home!

                                       
I am not sure why there is a goat in the volleyball court of the beach bar.  But, it was tied up so it couldn't bother, or butt the patrons!

Collecting Seeds

A Tico, an affectionate term for a Costa Rican, showed us a seed pod when we were on the beach one day.  He opened it up and ate the pulpy substance that clung to the seeds.  To me, it was similiar in texture and flavour to a date.  A few days later when we were sitting in that same area on the beach we could hear all the seed pods falling to the ground.  At first we thought it was the wind knocking them off but when we paid a bit more attention we discovered it was a family harvesting and collecting them.

 The family collected many bags of seed pods.  They looked like me coming home from the grocery store!!  We have no idea what they do with them.  I will have to find out.

                                         
                                            This guy shook the pods off the branches.

Sunday Market

Every Sunday there is a small market set up across the street from our accommodations.  Nothing too special, but good for a snoop.

Our Neighbourhood

The area we staying in is called Los Palmas.  It is a newly developed residential area that is full of Canadians, Americans, and Europeans.  You will find houses, apartments, villas, condos, hotels, small shops, restaurants, and a grocery store.  Las Palmas is located across the road from the beach.  This is the same area we stayed with our kids when we drove down with our motor home in 1995-96.  We camped in a shady area under the trees on the beach, picked mangoes off the trees, watched the large iguanas climb trees and chase each other, while our children played.  We can't pinpoint the exact location of our previous stay because there are a few more houses on the beach, and it is too far in the past to recall accurately, but we are sure we have discovered the approximate area. 

 A trail to the beach, similar to an area where we would have stayed with our motorhome, minus the fence. 

                                         No lack of howler monkeys!

Cheap Chairs

We bought some beach chairs that needed a bit of work!  We bought one from the consignment guy who is across the street from us, and one from a hardware store.  The consignment chair had screws that poked your thighs that Hoss was able to fix with the use of our host's tools, and the new chair from the hardware store lasted about 10 minutes before breaking!  We were able to return it and pay the difference for a better quality chair.  Both chairs will be sold to the consignment store before we leave.

Villa Italia

Hoss researched the restaurants in the the area and had a couple of places in mind for Italian food.  Our small apartment came with bicycles so we snooped out Playa Del Coco on two wheels man powered.  We checked out some places we read about.... another grocery store, a large fruit stand which we had seen preciously, a golf course which wasn't a golf course... but was a timeshare office...we went running like hell from there, talked to a guy who drove down from Minnesota and had all the same boarder crossing stories we have from when we traveled in our motorhome in 1995-96.  Nothing has changed...there is still all the same hassles, and corruption!  We also looked for the  restaurant called Villa Italia.  After riding down a dusty dirt road in a residential area with the help of google maps, we almost gave up when we spied a small sign for the place we were looking for.  It was enclosed with a wall, as most residential homes are, and locked up tight, so we peered through the gate to see whatever there was to see....which wasn't much.  There stood what looked to be a home, walkway, shrubbery, flowers, all the fixings for a neat, tidy home, and there was also parking for four vehicles.  As we were leaving, a vehicle drove up, with a young woman driving and children in the backseat.  We chatted a bit and discovered she was the chef.  We made a dinner reservation for that evening.  Before we arrived, I was expecting a tasty home cooked meal from this woman's family kitchen, with a few small tables out in the yard.  I was shocked when we entered the restaurant!!  The lighting, the atmosphere, the table settings, our waiter, was all so very elegant!  The meal was to die for!!  And there she was, the young woman we spoke to earlier in the day, behind the half glass wall that divided the restaurant from the her kitchen, in her chef uniform distinguishing herself from the other kitchen cooks!  What a fabulous meal and restaurant.  It is rated Number 1 in the area!