Chino (The Chinaman)

This is a shot of Chino's, one of my favorite establishments here in Puerto Viejo. Everyone refers to the owner as "Chino"--a real character. He's in his seventies, but remarkably active. He runs the store (and in fact owns the entire block, in addition huge tracts of land surrounding Puerto Viejo) pictured in the photo. The store (the green-painted central portion of the edifice, a currently closed disco is on the left, and a dive shop on the right) sits out at the end of the Point in Puerto Viejo. He sells just about everything, and makes change by peeling from the huge wad of bills he pulls out of his back pocket and the pile of coins on the counter. His prices are very competitive. He has no overhead--he lives upstairs, employs hardly anyone and obviously does no maintenance on the building. He opens (or doesn't) & closes the store when he feels like it. He speaks fluent English and supposedly Cantonese. (The story goes that his father, who presumably arrived with the original railroad-building Chinese immigrants, sent him to China to learn the language as a teenager. He spent a few years there before he could get out during Maoist times.) I've been going into the store for about seven years now on a seasonal basis. The other day he asked me, "What's your name?" I told him. He put out his hand to me, "I'm Manuel--the Chinaman! Are you American?" As we shook hands I said, "Yes . . . the United States." He said, "Oh, I thought you were Swiss."

There's a roughly 200' x 200' area of water, defined by the beach on one side and the reef on the others, in front of the place (from where I shot the picture), which is one of our two favorite swimming spots in P.V. It's also popular with Tico families because the reef keeps it pretty calm. We swim there when it's too rough at Playa Negra, or if we just want a quick cool down without the extra 3 minutes bike ride to & from Playa Negra.