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First things first. The coffee. Costa Rican coffee in a Costa Rican tree house? About as ideal as a morning can be.
Your java stupor might even make you willing to let Pops take a bunch of photos.
Until he persists and you must persist in making the photo session difficult.
But it's all so nice out, you forgive him.
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Since he knows how difficult he's been, he packs you on a rackety bus that costs two Colones each (about 75 cents) to go to the beach in Manuel Antonio. You hurkety-jerk along, but you don't mind because this is the bus the locals take and far more interesting than the tidy, tourist options.
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The bus lets you off at a road-side market full of colors and happy expectations. Suddenly, you don't mind being a tourist. You buy a sarong for the beach and walk down the way to the sandy shore.
Where Pops is determined in how he will spend his time.
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And I cheer and applaud him from my chair in the sand. I wave and smile and then go back to reading a book and drinking coconut water from a old man who walks the beaches calling, "Frush-a Cocanuta Wata." If you give him a little nod, he'll pull the cooler off of his shoulder, pull out a shaved coconut, give a hack or two with his startlingly large machete, and pop in a straw.
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When your hair is matted with sea water and you are sticky with sand and sunscreen, you find a little place to eat and remark over how tiring doing very little can be.
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And then Pops remembers how magnificent he was on the surf board and exults from his chair.
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And you laugh.
And are grateful once again.