Alice, Drink Me!

This stick was too big

Flat ass but still fat!  :)

One of the best things about Costa Rica is coconut water and fresh coconut*  to drink/ eat on the beach.  But usually to get these you need a man with a machete, sometimes a man to climb the tree to get them down too.   Or so I thought.  Saturday the other woman from the school and I rode our bikes to the beach.  We first stopped by one of the resorts to talk to the manager.  We now have permission to use the pool whenever we want.  So we did.  But didn’t stay long as we wanted to eat our picnic & fruit we brought.  We left the resort and started walking down the beach.  We came upon a makeshift shelter and had planned on eating there until 2 dogs ran up and peed on it.  But the previous occupants had left a perfectly good coconut behind.  It was the perfect size and I could hear the water inside.  Score!  Now I just needed to open it!  

So I’ve seen Coco, and William both open the older coconuts before.  And I was there when Sean got his step by step lesson.  So I gave it a shot!  After about 20 mins and an entire bucket of sweat I finally got it open!  I was so excited!  I’m not going to die after all if stranded on a tropical island!  It was delicious too!  

*There are two kinds of coconuts here, the young ones which they call pipas.  These are great for drinking but the fruit inside is very jelly like.  It tastes ok, but I prefer the older ones for eating.  The older ones are what most people at home find in the grocery store, the dark brown ones with three holes at the top. But that’s not how they are in nature.  They are wrapped in a very strong outer shell made of fiber stuff.  So to get to the water and fruit inside you have to break them out of the shell without damaging the actual coconut.  The best means to do this is to find a smallish stick poking out of the ground, a log or a tree, stab the coconut with it and pry the outer skin off.  Easier said than done!  I this case I had to find a stick and wedge it in the sand next to a big piece of drift wood to get the leverage I needed.  It took all my body weight and strength!  I’m hoping next time will go more smoothly and faster!