OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
I like rice and beans for breakfast...(not the real surprise yet). Our hosts at Hotel ManGaby have been so nice and we have enjoyed an excellent breakfast each day. Odeth and her son Alberto have an awesome place and they have been helping us practice our espanol. Yesterday we walked some big hills and I pulled a muscle in my hip. I actually thought I was getting stiff as we were walking and tried to stretch it out--doing more damage than helping (found this out after we finished). So today was a no exercise walk day and after breakfast we got out our CR map (thanks Wendy!), and planned our navigation route to some beaches to our North. We decided to head for Nacascolo, which looked promising and seemed to have a lot of 'playas' in the near vicinity. We headed out on Ruta Nacional 254, our path into our hotel in the dark on arrival night, and connected to Ruta Nacional 253 on our way to Nacascolo. Garmin girl was spot on getting where we thought we wanted to go, until we were approaching our first site. As we were oogling the incredible scenery, we realized that we couldn't get to the playa because it was a private community. Undeterred, and enjoying the views, we plugged our next spot into GPS and continued. Two more destinations ended in the same result; private area, gates and "guards" and no entry. Damn (still not the surprise). Although we enjoyed the visuals we were seeing, we hadn't got close to a beach. At this point we had tried all but one road in this area, and Sharon said we needed to try it as we both were bound and determined to find sand and water. This road was labeled Puerta Culebra, what the heck, it was the only one we hadn't tried.
The road was paved and driving was easy; but we were not seeing anything but natural beauty as we drove. We kept going. Garmin girl started chirping for us to turn right in 200 meters onto dirt road; forgot she was still on. We weren't biting as that turn looked to go into the jungle. Three or four more "encouragements" to turn here, or there were ignored--two roads were blocked by locked gates, and the other two didn't look like we wanted to chance it. The road ahead was still paved, driving was relaxed, and we wanted a beach! GG then began to give us, "at the next available opportunity, make a U-turn"--WHAT?! We looked at each other, and told her to shut up, and kept going. We still had not seen a car, house or person on this road. We were thinking that this road is paved for a reason, isn't it? We crossed a concrete bridge and continued on the paved road; then came to a second bridge. Having had a good road to drive on up to this point didn't prepare me for the 10 foot trough across the road on the other side of the bridge. Hard and immediate pressure was needed on the brake pedal to avoid busting the SUV in two. Whew, reduced just enough to avoid damage to car and occupants! Undeterred, we continued. We began to call this "the road to nowhere." At this point we had been driving for a good 20 minutes on this road, and still hadn't seen a sole. Wouldn't you know it, in about 2 miles from the "don't drive over me too fast bridge", the paved road ended! We didn't even discuss not continuing, and kept going, albeit a little slower on the gravel road. In another 2 miles we saw our first sign of life--but it didn't give us a great sense of relief because the sign of life was 2 guys in a hut that was in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. As we drove by them, using our standard "we know what were doing" attitude, we drove on and then tried to figure out what the hell those two guys were doing out there. We had to pass by them very slowly as there were troughs about 7 or 8 inches deep in five places across the road in "front of their property." We got some relief when neither of them set out after us as we continued down the gravel road. When we saw the vines hanging from the trees that we had to drive through on the road ahead, we began to seriously doubt our determination. We decided, we NEEDED to see where this "road to nowhere" was going to take us. Mostly straightforward to this point of the drive--except we didn't know where in the heck we were--the elevation changes and curves began to increase. As we climbed a hill and rounded a sharp turn we saw that there was a tree in the middle of the road! We slowly passed on the right side of the tree and then to our left was water! Great! But, it was a ways away and the preview that I could see in the road showed no direct way that we would get there. Just keep driving, just keep driving! We kept descending and rounding corners when the road straightened out. Now about 35 minutes on this road, we continued and catch a glimpse of open sky through the tree canopy covering the road. Our hearts started beating a little faster! Sharon spotted another building and then there was more sky to see. As we "headed for the sky", the road level came up enough for us to see that we were coming to the ocean! Finally we had arrived at a place we could "see." There was a little parking area where two cars were parked, and with no hesitation, we parked. We both couldn't get out of the car fast enough. We walked to where we could tell there was sand, and stopped--awestruck. We had found the most beautiful beach either of us had ever seen. The sun was shining, the roar of the waves crashing, the beauty was indescribable. Sharon hustled back to the car to quick change into swim top--sorry no pics--and I stood with my mouth opened as I waited for her. We walked hand in hand with the biggest smiles on our faces onto the white sand. Surprise! There was about 150 yards of white sand before the waves were crashing on the shore. We looked right and saw about 3/4 of a mile of curved shoreline, we looked left and saw at least another 1/2 mile that completed the bay. The only people we saw on the whole stretch of beach was a father and child laying in the sand as the waves came onto shore. We felt like we were in absolute paradise. "Heaven touching earth" is the only way Sharon could find words to describe this place. After you see the pictures, see if you can do better.
2 Comments
John Maloney
6/18/2021 06:12:58 pm
Sounds like you’re really enjoying your adventure. Met your friend Tom at Borgiornos Saturday. Nice guy. Enjoy and stay safe kids...
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Sharon Seibel
6/19/2021 07:23:06 pm
Hi John, great to hear from you. Glad you got to meet Tom. I'm too sure you all enjoyed the food, it's amazing. Time of our lives, cya in August
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