Finn and I ended up staying in Nosara from Saturday night until Tuesday afternoon. Our schedule was pretty routine. Steven would pick us up around 7am in the morning, we would surf for a couple of hours, head to Soda Vanessa for gallo pinto, nap, eat a snack, surf in the afternoon, shower up, and then head to Rancho Tico for casados with fresh snook. Those were the constants. In between were life lessons from Steven, fresh coconut water and the colorful cast of Steven’s rasta buddies. None was more colorful that Steven’s buddy Cacho, who owns a surfboard rental shop at Playa Guiones.

Cacho (his nickname by the way which means shoes) joined us at Soda Vanessa one morning. It’s hard to describe him but the closest I can come is a Tico version of Jonah Hill. We first heard of Cacho when we were driving to Nosara and Steven told us about his buddy and his lazy dogs. Steven tells us how his buddy, Cacho, complains all the time about his two dogs who do nothing except play on the beach all morning and then sleep all afternoon. Right on cue when we pulled into Guiones the first time there was Cacho’s dogs on the beach having a great time. We also saw Cacho with his feet up on his desk sound asleep.

Anyways, Cacho joined us for breakfast and he and Steven started speaking in Spanish. Finn and I didn’t understand a word they were saying but we could tell a) it was funny and b) Cacho was a good guy. They switched back and forth between Spanish and English until we ordered our drinks. They didn’t have passion fruit that day so Finn had to order something else. I stuck with my regular, tamarindo juice, because, you know, it cures the “hot blood” whatever that is.

Steven started extolling the virtues of tamarindo juice as soon as I ordered it and immediately brought up its medicinal properties. I had been drinking it for a couple of days and had not been afflicted with the dreaded “hot blood” so I was all on board with Dr. Steven. Cacho, however, didn’t seemed to be as impressed. He looked at Steven funny and then, in a total surprise, said,

“Bro, it’s heartburn. Not hot blood.”

Mystery solved.