Hard line telephones did not arrive in Nosara until the mid-80’s and when they did they appeared as pay phones at several sites. The only one I actually used was at a little blue house, I think near present day “Freddie’s,” or “La Casona”, and I have zero memory of the whole system being installed and I’m uncertain if the arrival of telephones happened simultaneously for the village of Nosara and the Beaches of Nosara. However, I clearly remember how folks communicated over the huge terrain of the Beaches back in the day.
CB radio was the vehicle and the voice of Nosara was Madeline Moore, a smart and gracious lady from Pennsylvania. A CB – citizen band – radio is a two way voice connection system with a range, depending on the equipment, of several miles. Much less in use today, but truckers still often communicate that way.
Each morning Madeline would greet all listening with a weather report and whatever else represented the news of the world and the project of the day. I can close my eyes right now and hear her clear as a bell.
Madeline and her muy guapo husband Craig -who I think was the heir to the Dixie Cup company and who organized kite competitions on Guiones- were real pillars of the community and especially gracious hosts. Craig taught me that putting ice cubes in a warming beer was a perfectly accepable behavior.
One afternoon in the early 80’s – I think – sipping a beer on the deck of Conrad Reisner’s house. Else and Conrad Reisner had a remarkable escape from Europe worthy of a novel during WWII and we escaped with our lives from an evening with Else, certainly the worst auto driver we’ve experienced anywhere.
But that evening in particular, we were looking down into the jungle and we saw a group of men carrying long poles. Mystified at first, we finally realized that what we were watching was the beginning of a new era for the Beaches of Nosara. After years of frustration with limited and expensive generator -produced power, Nosara was being connected to the national electrical grid.
That was probably worth another beer.
I’ve greatly enjoyed searching my memory for glimpses of Old Nosara and hope that folks enjoyed my offerings and now have a good sense of what it was like back in the day. Given the bitter current battle over land titles and the National Registry’s role in the mess, an entirely new history of the Beaches of Nosara is evolving. I wonder who will write that story.
Stay well and enjoy!
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