Meet the Kooky Coconut Man of Costa Rica
The prevailing style of dress in Tortuguero, the wild and wonderfully remote village on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, is anything but fancy.
Clean and/or dry shirts are fairly uncommon.
Shoes? They’re optional.
Ties? In the jungle? Are you serious?
Visitors and locals alike here tend to dress down, loosely soiled and slightly tattered threads of a style and type you might more closely associate with yard work or auto repair de rigueur all along Tortuguero’s muddy streets. The exception:
The Kooky Coconut Man pictured above.
We met along the path that leads out of town toward Mawamba Lodge, his decidedly atypical and eccentric (that hat!) fashion just part of what forced me to stop. The other part:
His Loco Show.
Intermittently singing and shouting loud, mostly unintelligible overtures to all passersby (both real and seemingly imaginary), the Coconut Man is part street theater, part bizarre comedy, and altogether uncommon. His antics draw you in, but the thing that’ll make you keep coming back is…
His Coco Loco.
Fresh, young coconuts expertly uncorked by machete with rum and a straw –– oh yeah, the Coconut Man’s Coco Loco is seriously on point!
Definitely seek out the Coconut Man next time you’re in Tortuguero. (He’s obviously not that hard to pick out from among the other locals). Sample his Coco Loco and hang around a bit to watch the show. Who knows, maybe after a few sips you might even be able to understand what he’s saying!
More on my recent adventures in Costa Rica here.
