Welcome to La Playa Azul

I  take the 7 kilometer paved road off the main highway through fields of mega-papaya and coconut, to get to Playa Azul. Entering the little town, the road dead ends into a small circle with only one paved option to the left. This road parallels the ocean and is wall to palapa to wall to palapa to wall restaurants and plastic coke and beer arm chairs.

 It is solid businesses, one after the other, on both sides. Mostly restaurants on the ocean side, a few homes interspersed on the other side. I head to the end, hoping there will be a stretch of open beach, but the road ends and then the beach stretches… apparently road-less.

As I drive back, a man flags me down and asks me what I am looking for. When he hears my halting Spanish, he calls the owner over.

I repeat in Spanish I’m looking for a place to park for the night and he kindly tells me I can park in the dirt area next to his restaurant for the night.

Daniel, born here, is also from San Jose. He is fluent in english and Spanish. He generously tells me I can use the bathroom, water, whatever I need.

Daniel, buff and tattoos visible wherever there’s a hint of skin, frankly tells me he left San Jose because he didn’t want to end up in prison for the rest of his life. At 21 years young, he was a three striker.

He’s only 30 and I’m really glad he has escaped the u.s. I see the tattoos on his neck behind his ears, on his knuckles and between his fingers, that I think are a gang or prison tattoos but I don’t ask – I’m glad he tells me.

He bought this restaurant and is doing really well, he says. I buy coconut from him $15 pesos, and quesadillas, rice and beans $50 pesos w/tip – I’m REALLY hungry. And then I buy chocolate flan $20 pesos from a young girl walking by. I’ve blown my budget for today.

Now I’m stuffed. I walk for what seems like miles on the flat, hard beach, looking for another quieter, non-business spot without a building structure and fence lining it, to park for a few days.

Daniel’s is only temporary and on a narrow space between two restaurants where my door has to face the restaurant. And I don’t want to interfere with his restaurant biz.

Pockets of people here and there are playing in the shallow, warm, calm ocean. A kid who looks 12 drives a pickup truck slowly along the edge of the ocean while two grown men are perched on the back of the truck peering out into the waves.

First I think this kid must be learning to drive but then I hear a shout and the kid slams on the brakes, the two men jump off and run into the ocean swinging nets. The next thing I know, they are hauling in fish.

What a way to catch a fish! I think they saw the pelican standing there, watching the ocean too. After they leave, the pelican calmly walks into the ocean and catches herself a fish too.