Our Playa Grande AirBNB is offered through an American based in Miami, and is managed on-site by a Portuguese retiree. It's a big new house divided into separate apartments. The big unit at the back has the use of the pool. (We do not.) Our unit is a big room on the front of the house, with four twin beds in a row and an IKEA kitchen that is so complete is seems to have been bought as a package deal - 1 stove, check; 1 sink, check; 4 cups, 4 knives, colander, check, check, check. We have parking inside the gate and a covered patio bigger than the room with chairs and hammock that looks out onto the unpaved road . There's another unit next to us, housing an American family of 4.

You can tell they market mainly to Americans because when we walk through the door into our unit the AC takes our breath away. Just sucks the air out of the lungs like walking from a warm pierogi dinner into a Gdansk February night. After living in CR all these months, having only fans and cold water showers and experiencing cool temperatures while we were traveling in the Central Valley and the Highlands, the AC in this apartment is like walking into the freezer section of Harris Teeter on the Fourth of July. Patti and I immediately cut it back to a level wherein the toilet water would not freeze.

The beach is two blocks away, and on our walk there we pass a restaurant blasting 1970s rock, and some small shops selling surfboards, nighttime turtle tours, and clothing.

The beach itself goes for miles to both the right and left. Flat with calm water, the high tide comes right up to the edge of the protective dunes, and the low tide goes out the length of a football field. It's beautiful.

As we head closer to the typical CR sundown of 5:30 - 5:45 the waves swell and the locals come out in droves with their boards. I notice right away that there are probably as many female surfers as there are men. Right next to us is a group of French speaking women from 20 to 60, most with boards. Soon two 35-year-olds and a 12-year-old daughter head into the waves. This makes me smile.