Keith: “Do we want to take the freeway to Samara, or the beach road?”

Girls: “The beach road - that would be fun!”

Keith: “Deb, do you want to drive?

Deb: “Sure”

Remember the earlier comment about paved roads? Well, Keith met a guy at Playa Grande who had just come up from Samara. He had taken the beach road and commented there was more pavement than he expected. Keith didn’t quite know what that meant but thought it would be fun and was sure we would be fine. Besides, we’d rather look at the beach during our travels than just trees and cars.

Off we go, on the main, two lane, paved road until we get to the turnoff for the beach road. It immediately turns to dirt and gravel, crosses a small river and has a steap grade to the top of a hill, of which we can’t see what’s on the other side. And there was a line up of cars waiting to cross. I said ‘nope - not taking this road’ so we turned around and went back to another beach access road. This one was much better, as it was paved…. oh, but only for about a mile, then it became compact dirt, gravel, rocks, holes, water trenches - get the picture? It was a bit bumpy but passable and reminded me of my days on a quad - watch the holes and pick your line.

We didn’t expect to see a single car on this bumpy, windy road, but it was a major thoroughfare with cars, trucks, tons of motorcycles, and the occasional livestock - we must be on the right road. And then we came to our first river crossing.

It didn’t look too bad and there was a car in front so we followed their path. It was just water, right?

Note I said first river crossing - we made three more before we reached our final destination. At one crossing, we encountered a flock of vultures, resting - after a meal - hmmm, who was for dinner?

Then we found a family playing (or bathing) in the water and they parked right in the middle. I guess that’s one way to do it.

It was so strange as we had small spots of paved roads in the middle of no where, like someone had extra asphalt and just decided to dump it there. But the funniest thing of this adventure - with all the trees and jungle growth, we didn’t see the beach until we reached our destination! It was a fun ride.