← ExploreHistorical note For much of the twentieth century, Puntarenas—widely known in Costa Rica simply as “El Puerto” (The Port)—was one of the country’s most popular seaside destinations. Families, particularly from the Central Valley, traveled there by train and later by car and bus to spend weekends and holidays by the sea. Coto’s photograph preserves a vivid image of this tradition: a crowded beach filled with swimmers, tents, and families gathered along the Gulf of Nicoya. Keywords human figure for scalepanoramic viewhigh-angle viewaerial viewwide shotbird's-eye view / overhead viewcrowddistant human figurefrozen motiondeep depth of fieldscale contrastdynamismmonumentalitywalkingunposedrunningplaying
A Day at the Beach
Puntarenasca. 1955Francisco Coto
© Francisco Coto Archive
