Bahia Ballena

Yesterday I described the facilities we find so helpful on our journey and while I am certain the toilets and showers look rudimentary to a North American eye they serve us well. 

The other thing is the beach. It’s not bright yellow sand, most of Central America is basically volcanic so black rocks and black sand are the norm but this a lovely empty beach. All to ourselves. 

And if you look carefully there is no trash. Ticos are obsessive about picking up after themselves and they value the country’s eco-tourism reputation so trash is a scarce commodity in public places. 

During the day the tide goes out at the moment and I wanted to ask Webb Chiles, a sports fanatic, if that was a football length out to the water. I have no clue but I figure it must be close. Is that 200 yards? Perhaps I need a quarterback to come out and measure it for me. But in any event it’s a long walk for a swim…well worth it. 

The waves are mild and the water is warm here, shallow over black sand so it’s like a frying pan on low heat. 

The campground itself is huge though not all of it is accessible to tall vehicles. You’d be surprised how limiting a tall vehicle is when overlanding. Parking garages have height restrictions as do campground entrances and in Mexico even supermarket parking lots have height barriers. Apparently those are to keep buses and collectivo taxi vans from parking in front of the shopping malls, which makes life awkward for us. Around here the campground is criss crossed with low wires because each palapa has a light bulb and a twin 15 amp outlet. A van would bring all the wires down. 

We are too tall at 9ft or 2.8 meters but how the big expedition trucks cope I don’t know. Even on city streets sometimes we fear clipping overhead wires. 

For the moment we have found our happy spot. Panama is getting back to normal and the protests are over so the highways are open. One day we’ll wake up and feel the familiar urge to move and that will be the day we leave. We pay day by day here so any day may be the last. 

I’m sure you understand it’s not easy to leave. We have cabbage and apples but we’re out of bananas rambutans and lettuce. We started our back up bag of dog food and we have plenty of treats so Rusty is okay. Layne keeps cooking from her stores, smoked pork chops and air fried potatoes last night, and we are going to bake today. 

To get to Panama we need to pay a vet to organize Rusty’s exit papers. Some vets charge $260 according to iOverlander so we may have to go back up north to the vet who treated Rusty for ant bites as she seems much more reasonable. Panama and Costa Rica make pet travel expensive and bureaucratic I suppose because they can.

I wouldn’t get a dog if I were planning to overland a vehicle but I won’t leave him behind. 

I expect we’ll be on the road later this week back up into the mountains then when we have Rusty’s documents we’ll drive the Caribbean coast which I’ve never seen, passing through Puerto Limon and Puerto Viejo to Sixaola so we can drive the Caribbean coast of Panama too.

If like Joebob you are following along on the map you might enjoy checking out Rocking J’s in Puerto Viejo. We plan on spending a night there and I’m not sure if we will be laughing at the antics or clutching our pearls. It’s in the iOverlander app as well and also with mixed reviews…

Meanwhile we have some beach lounging to do. Soon enough we’ll be on the road and doing useful stuff.