Seafood...eventually

On Sunday we went to the beach at Punta Leone. There is a good road in to it, at the end of which is a private resort/secure community and some security guys who charge you $US 20.00 per person to go down to the beach.

But there are no private beaches in Costa Rica, you say? You are right; the private owners cannot block access to the beach. But nothing says they have to make it easy.

There is another road to the beach, this one long and carefully paved in ruts and potholes, and whimsically decorated with the occasional roadside washout, frame-wrenching creases, deep puddles and streaks of clay gruel. At the resort end, a security guy radios ahead so the next security guy knows we're coming and haven't stopped to park in any driveway to one of the expensive houses that we pass before we get to him. These guys are just trying to do their job and scowl fiercely at us for being dastardly interlopers - and then wave back when wave and smile at them.

There is one last security guy at the skinny lane at which the road terminates; his job is to make sure that no one parks anywhere but in this twisty cul de sac barely two vehicles wide and capable of holding less than twenty cars. If it is full, shame about your luck, but you will have drive the car back to the other side of the resort and leave it at the side of the Back Road in. And walk back.

But we didn't have to cough up $US 80.00. We got one of the last two spots in the twisty lane, and tottered down a rough slope, over a deep gully bridged by long cement planks, clambered oversome massive exposed tree roots... and were there.

The beach itself is spectacular, and when the tide is in the right spot, you can leave it for another beach even better (see Jane's old entries about the battering effects of tides that sneak in when your back is turned). Perhaps I will get to see this beach yet, as just about the time the tide was out enough to let us cross to it- some two hours or so after we got there - someone switched on the rain, and we decided to leave. Rain here fails straight down, and the word 'heavy' doesn't even come close to descibing how much water there is splashing around.

While the tide was still going out, and I was puddling around in the surf picking up bits of coral and shells, I realized that the rock on which I was standing was laced with with big fossilized shell thingys, whose age, name and classification are not known, at least by me. I also don't know how far the fossil bed extends down under the water and back up under the sand, but maybe forty or fifty feet would be a good guess. In the picture, you can see that the waves have worn away some of the fossils to expose the chambers, but one of the most intact is front and center.

On the way out , David and I had to get out of the car and walk so that it would not get stuck as it scraped bottom in a particular steep and concave, mud-slick bit of uneveness - and the car didn't even slow at all, in spite of the graunching noise it made. Not bad for a little Hyundai Nothingmobile. Thereafter we drove to the Fiesta del Mariscos.

The boats in the pictures - shot from the table at which we ate - were used to go out and catch that day the same food on which we stuffed ourselves... and when the gods themselves die, they hope they're going to Better Place, where food like this is served. I had the filet especiale, which is an understatement.