Today is beach day! That means i need to get a rental car and drives us there and not die. That last bit is important.
We wanted to hit a recommended beach and also visit the property we own. We bought that over 20 years ago and never visited. We aren’t 100% sure it is real. In any case the heat was real and we walked across town with our gear to pick up the car. We took shade the whole way as best we could. The walk wasn’t too long and we got there and fairly quickly got the car.
Playa Avellana was recommended to us by the resort manager, so we dropped it into the maps app and followed the directions. It was a fairly easy drive until we took the right turn to the beach. There was a car accident blocking the road so we sat for a while, and i tried to use the GPS to route around. Of course there aren’t that many extra roads in the area so we had to take several turns until we were back on the main road. After another short drive we turned down towards the ocean and went from pavement to a dirt road. It was rough and we basically had to crawl along it. A few locals passed us throwing up dust clouds.
The interesting thing is that some of the road was farms or empty land, kinda when we expected. Then every once in a while there would be several very nice and new houses, or a fully walled compound. The road never got any better though. We bounced our wall down until a woman pointed at us to park and charged us $5. No questions – just “Tourists go here” We could see the beach from the road and walked through a little gate down to the water. The main road took a left behind us but this road continued all the way to the water. The beach was secluded with perfect surfing waves crashing continuously. Hermit crabs scuttled about and behind us on the shore were two fairly big cafes. That was it. There was nothing else around. This was a fully undeveloped beach.
We grabbed a table at the bigger of the cafes, and it was perfect. they had food and drink, bathrooms, and some local folks with tshirts of course. We spent the rest of the day swimming and relaxing. It never got busy or crowded so it made an ideal location. We had lunch after a while and talked to the local folks. Yulia found out from one woman that this was wned by a Dutch guy who bought it 30 years ago and built both cafes. after that nothing has changed, but with all the new homes going in, they are getting worried. The fact that the road isn’t paved is what keeps things simple and small out here. If the road gets paved a hotel will go up in a year. And then the whole beach will get developed.
Paved paradise and put up a parking lot indeed.
We left around 3 and stopped quickly and a small outdoor market we saw on the way in. It had a big Banyan Tree in the center with shops all around. It was fairly new and honestly upscale. The guys looked around and i looked at the market itself. this was newer steel construction, not an old building. The little grocery store had some food and wine, and a fine selection of CBD and Mushroom goods. The second floor on top had what looked like an outdoor yoga studio. This was definitely built for expats to shop at. That road is getting paved at some point and someone wanted a head start.
We continued on our way out and decided to head north. Almost 20 years agon we invested in some property with folks we know from gymnastics, and have never visited. It was empty land but we knew that one of the investors did build a house there, so we figured it would be worth a look. Our main problem is that just like everything else in Costa Rica it didn’t have an address. I had copies of all the documents and maps, and after texting a bunch of the people involved we had a set of directions. I had looked on satellite photos but just couldn’t tell exactly where it was, but i knew which road at least. It was a 30 minute drive up the the turnoff in Santa Ana, and when we got there the road was being torn up by construction work. We drove past this intersection on the way in from the airport, and it was fine then so great timing on our part. I looked at the maps and saw we could circle around on local streets to get back to that road.
I cut through the neighborhood and we could see local homes. It was poor. Not terrible or anything but a mix of small cinderblock houses and some tiny tin shacks. small farms stretched off the back of a few of these. We got back to our road and had to drive over piles of construction dirt to get through. We followed the directions way into the hills, and stopped at what we thought was the property. It was close but didn’t match the map. There were two small farmhouses here, but no sign of the house that the other Investor built out here.
We looked again at a second set of directions and headed further down the road. We had to drive across a dry creek, that i noted wasn’t dry a few days ago since we had that storm, and drove up a pretty steep hill. At the top was a barbed wire gate that matched the description. I moved the gate with a blood sacrifice (yes, tetanus shots are recent) and we walked through.
This was it. It was a beautiful location – low trees with a couple of flat lots, there were hills in the distance that framed the valley perfectly. It was amazing to finally see it. But the amazement wore off quick when we realized we still couldn’t see any house nearby. and there was no sign that anyone was going through. We had no idea what was up with the guy who supposedly lived here, but it was obvious that there was no way to develop or do anything with this place. It was way too remote. We walked around for just a bit more then headed back down the hill. The construction truck was blocking the road completely now, so we had to wait for then to return and move their truck, and we followed them to the main road.
By the time we got back we had missed the sunset, So we just picked up some food from the food trucks on the street and sat on the porch watching the local animals play in the crocodile infested creek.
But we never saw a crocodile.
Cognitive Dissonance 