Our Team 2
Dave Malbon
Owner
In 2002 my father visited Nosara on a surf trip with some buddies and surprised us all when he told us that acquired a piece of land and wanted to retire and move there ASAP. They made this dream a reality in 2003 and built Villa Tortuga where they could live off the income of the short term rental apartments and live on site. When asked if I would like to visit in early 2004 I countered that I wanted to live for 1 year in one of the apartments and would start a business while here before heading back to find a permanent job in SoCal.
After having visited Nosara a few times in 2003, I knew that I was going to need something more than what was here to survive, so The Frog Pad was started as an entertainment hub with DVDs, Used Books, Boardgames and Video Games as the main features (with Surfboards and Bikes as a side hustle). We wound up filling a huge need for activities in the area and the more that I got to know the people here, the less that I was looking forward to leaving. I wound up renewing the 1-year dream and I continue to do so, even after all these years. As the success of The Frog Pad increases in relation to how many people are arriving into our town, I feel fortunate to have known many different eras of Nosara's ascension into a well known vacation destination.
Adriana Vila
Arriving from Uruguay with her partner, Juan Carlos, and their small baby in 2006, Adriana stumbled upon sleepy Nosara and decided that it had the right amount of spiritual and mental energy to give it a chance. Adri started with retail but quickly showed an ability to work numbers and now runs almost all facets of the store. You can find her watching you like a hawk from her work station in the corner.
Adriana Vila left her home in Uruguay to travel the world and explore life on the road, first by selling "salt oil" in Paraguay, then "invisible rope" to rock climbers in Peru before finally sticking with a circus in Bolivia, meeting her current partner and famed carney, Juan Carlos "Magic Hands" Saldana. They had a child and were forced out for violating the "carney code" and set off by foot to the glory of the legendary black sands of Ostional. Though they would one day venture that far, they became sidetracked along the way when they bought a book from The Frog Pad. Little did they know that the book was enchanted and would not allow them to leave Costa Rica. The only way to break the enchantment was to work here for 20 years living off of scarce tips under the ruthless tyrant who would harness the power of Magic Hands and make him give satisfaction to all that paid entry into Spacio...
David "El Bicho" Jiménez
El Bicho started with us doing board repair, but is now our retail point man, making sure that you find the right board shorts and sandals during the day, but also is a brilliant (and well dressed) musician by night. Though music is his passion and main career, life at the beach pulled him from Alajuela (and his love for the football club Saprissa), to join us at The Frog Pad. No one has more confident, "I've done that before too eyes," than our Bicho.
David "El Bicho" Jiménez was raised by a famed army ant colony in the central valley of Costa Rica and at the age of 3 was discovered by a clan of Hare Krishna on what they thought was a tour of Southeast Siberia. The bivouac provided the proper shelter to El Bicho so that he could survive the harsh rains and intense sunshine of daily life while his brethren brought back the spoils of the forests. The colony even went so far as to procure more mushies for the Hare Krishna to snack on. It turned out that they vibed so perfectly with the colony that they were transported to civilization on a fourteen day ant riding journey to Alajuela. Though nothing more is known of the Hare Krishna, El Bicho was released by the colony to a family who raised him as close to a human child as possible. It turned out he had a natural gift for music, an unnatural ability to work well with others and an equally powerful tolerance to mushrooms. He found his way to the beach around 2017 and though he's sometimes spotted deep in the jungle riding what appears to be a giant black wave at twilight, he always manages to get to work (almost) on time each day.