For those who are just coming upon this post, I would suggest reading Pt 1 before diving into this chapter, which is part two. Part 1 can be found here Pt 1
This is my account of my daughter, Poett and our first years in Costa Rica (1975-1980).
I left off where Poett was on the road to conversion and the house we lived in was being slowly taken away by the ocean. A few years later it was totally destroyed by a wild surf during the highest tides of the year, and so we were lucky to move when we did.
Our next home was also right next to the ocean, but this time not in it but safely above it.

We moved to that penninsula further south down the beach

Our small wood house was right down the road from a true flight of fancy, a rancho style, thatched roof  restaurant, called “La Parcela del Descanso”(A little piece of restful land)
This Bar & Restaurant was created by one man, a true dreamer and visionary by the name of Chico Chacon. Chico, along with his brother, Carlos,  carved out this working restaurant from a wild un -touched piece of land…no water or electricity and brought both in to make his dream possible. Water was brought in by gravity, building a tank in the middle of a mountain stream and laying the pipes for miles and electricity by buying (on credit) a Lister Generator that ran on diesel, that had to be brought in from a town, almost 3 hours away. It only ran a few hours nightly.

front window & balcony

Poett enjoying the breeze

                                                  A small fishing boat

It was a great place for a seafood restaurant. Fishing boats and shrimp boats came into the natural bay regularly. Chico would trade fresh fruit, meat and eggs for jumbo shrimp and red snapper and sea bass. He would also go into town once a week to bring back supplies.
Off season, the rainy season had few customers on a daily basis, maybe just weekends, but in the dry season, it was very popular and people visited the beach for Christmas, New Years & Easter.

The ever-changing horizon

The Bar & Restaurant “La Parcela”
Chico Chacon on the left and Carlos on the right

We lived there so we helped out…that was the arrangement we had. Even Poett, when she was not in school, helped out in many ways too..She remembered her least favorite task was putting out in the sun a giant sack load of little dried shrimp that had to be sunned periodically so they wouldn’t go bad. A stinky unpleasant job for sure and she never forgot it. I was being taught (by Carlos) to be a waitress as he thought I had potential and I was bi-lingual for the few  foreign tourists that would find their way there.
I graduated from behind the bar to the salon floor to waiting on the customers.
That lasted until one day a famous USA fugitive from the law, who was hiding out in Costa Rica, showed up in his caravan of Range Rovers (The Cadillac of four-wheel drive) and ordered Jumbo shrimp for everyone.
There was a flurry of crazed activity, and Carlos breathing down our necks to make it all “PERFECT”!! He knew who our illustrious customer was:)
He sent me out with two trays loaded with jumbo shrimp plates, and reminded me to always look straight ahead and smile…and I did that, smiling into the face of Roberto Vesco and friends/ Then my flip flops hit a wet spot on the floor, and I almost saved the country the expense of extraditing him years later, by decapitating him with a flying tray, shrimp falling all around the table Disaster!  Luckily we had just been visited by the shrimp boats so had enough to do it again…this time Carlos served:)
I was horrified!! but a few hours later it struck me as very funny:)

And then there was the job of bathing the monkeys!!
We had two spider monkeys living there,Paco and Cheetah.
Bathing them was left to us and another girl who worked there, Ada Luz,
and we would walk them down  to our house and give them both baths with shampoo
maybe twice a year.

Paco in the suds

They seemed to enjoy it and afterwards we walked them back up to the restaurant and to
their giant mango tree near the parking lot that they called home.

“I’m ready for my rinse dear”

The long walk up the hill

                  Cheetah all fluffed and bathed posing with her groomer, Poett        

I want to finish off this Part 2 with a few anectadotes about my daughter.
She was the one, on her way home from school who was always saving the animals..
She brought back a sloth who was being peppered by stones (Bad little boys)
hurt birds, and one day even a pelican with a broken wing who we named Augustine
after the Latin composer and singer, Augustine Lara. 
Augustine had a broken wing that we couldn’t heal…in the daytime he walked down the hill, slipped into the ocean and hung out with other pelicans in the water, then in the
afternoon walked back to the restaurant and demanded food. 
Sometimes if we had sold out our fish supply, Chico, Poett and I would go fishing at the
tip of the penninsula, just to bring something back for Augustine. Dedication!!

When the baby turtles started to hatch, she was the first one to help them into the water

Today we know we should not hold them in our bare hands, but innocently that’s how we did it.

You can see she was a Mel Brooks fan:)

 I will end this part with a few pictures from that time..
It was amazing living and working there..We laughed, we survived squalls, mini hurricanes and drunk tourists on Easter weekend. We cried for Augustine who basically commited suicide during one of the busiest days of the year and honking cars and yelling tourists
drove him to stand on the veranda and try to fly away..instead he fell  straight down maybe 150 feet to his death on the rocks at low tide:(
Once again a  big shout -out to Tom Ryan for taking every picture you see and for still having them in good shape so many years later. Thank you Tom, you make this re-telling much more visual and enjoyable:)

A happier moment in time                   

                                                                 Popi, Me & Chico

Tom, yours truly and my boss:)

I hope you enjoyed Part 2 with a little patience, but Part 3 is coming soon:)