Playa Avellanas

El 2 de febrero

I woke up around 8 and ate breakfast with Jose and Marlen in Santa Cruz. We had corn tortillas, cheese and scrambled eggs and coffee.
This was the day we were going to the beach! I was very eager to see it but we had plans to leave in the afternoon so that Jose could work that morning. So Marlen and i walked down to the river close to their house instead. I put on athletic clothes and running shoes, sunscreen and bugspray and we walked down the street to the left.

Their Santa Cruz house is on a dirt road, from what I remember, and it gets bumpier as you head towards the river. When the street hit a dead end, we turned to the right and separated the barbed wire in the fence of their neighbor's banana field and climbed through. We walked down along the edge until we reached another barbed wire fence, and we climbed through that as well, then turned left and walked on a trail downhill through the woods to the river.

Marlen made sure to warn me about certain plants where small ants build their homes, and said not to even touch the plants because the ants would come out to defend their home and their bites are worse than any other ant.

We walked down to the river that looked more like a creek, since it's the dry season here (December to July) and Marlen switched to her water shoes, while I took off my socks and put my running shoes back on. We walked around in the water and on the river bank, chatting the whole time and caught a glimpse of an iguana race on a hill above the river. We sat and read the Bible together and then headed back to get ready for the beach.

We packed up the car and drove about 40 min away to Playa Avellanas. The beach parking lot we stopped in had a huge pig in one corner, with its own hut and mud pit. Apparently the pic is legendary and the owners just keep it out all day on that part of their property for the surfers and tourists to see. We chose to park a little farther down so that we could have our own trees for shade and not be stuck in the sun or sharing shade with other people. We found another lot nearby and took about three trips back and forth bringing our bags and barbecue supplies out to a shady tree we found near a small lodge/restaurant's gate.

We arrived just before sunset and the view was amazing. I had a 180 degree view of beach and on the other side was trees and driftwood. Marlen and I swam in the water, collected shells and walked between the large black rocks looking for starfish. Jose sat back and watched until we returned and then he started grilling the chorizo, steak and pork we had brought along. We spread out a bedsheet on the sand for me and set out two plastic chairs for Marlen and Jose. We took pictures in the nearby trees as the sun set and once again found a dog that stuck with us the rest of the night, probably hoping to snag some food. We ate the meat with corn tortillas, pico de gallo, bean dip and corn chips. After we ate, Marlen and I walked down the beach a ways and she sang all the English praise songs she could remember and I sang as many Spanish ones as I knew. I also taught her some swing dance steps and she learned very quickly!

After that we went back to Jose and talked for a while, gazing at the stars and singing songs. On the way home we stopped and took pictures at the entrance of a resort, Hacienda Pinilla, run by the founder of the scholarship program that sends Guanacastecan students to universities in the United States.