Sunday afternoon 4 wheeling
Sundays are the same anywhere you live. No matter where we live, we´re always searching for some way to kill time Sunday afternoons.
The day started off a bit dreary and very humid with no breeze at all. We went to the pool at 8:30 in the morning, the kids played with some friends, Ziggy met a Beagle friend and then we were home by 11am. Ok so now what do we do with the rest of the day?
Finally around 1pm, we couldn't stand it any longer. We knew the tide was low so we decided to rent two 4-wheelers, load the kiddos up and take a right. When you walk out onto the beach in Buenaventura, you can go left to cross a river. This way takes you past a small fishing village, the President's weekend home, the soon to be Nikki Beach, Playa Blanca Hotel and Resort and then onto to Farallon. If you look to the right and cross this river, you'll pass a small town called Juan Hombron and then nothing, nothing, nothing but a deserted white sand beach for about 4 miles until you reach an impassable river. We decided to go this way.
We headed out and crossed the river noting that the tide was coming in. We drove along at a nice clip - 40 kph or so - racing with a few dogs, spying a few rather large dead stingrays, chasing down a few seagulls. After the town of Juan Hombron, the beach is absolutely deserted. I did see some tracks from other 4 wheelers so someone had been down this way today but no footprints, no horse tracks, nothing else. It was amazing and I kept thinking that this beach is probably pretty close to what it was like for the first explorers to come across this land. It was completely untouched.
With Max in front, we pulled off the beach to see what was beyond the tall grass line. It was an absolutely beautiful river flowing parallel to the ocean. And of course my second thought was Wow, I'll bet there are some big crocs in there. Max asked if he could swim and I responded No Way even before he had finished his question.
We drove back to the beach and continued on for a few more minutes until we saw the mouth of the river opening up into the ocean. Max and I were ahead and I slowly pulled up to the bank. Something jumped into the water. Coley and Lila drove up next to us. I told him there was something in that river. And that's when we both looked halfway across the river and saw what it was. It was the head of a very large crocodile...probably a 6 or 7 footer. We watched it watch us as it slowly crossed the river to the other side and duck under water. Wow. Definitely no swimming here.
I then looked behind and saw an unending trail of seashells that had yet to be discovered. We moved our bikes away from the water and hopped down to explore. The 4 of us collected some of the most beautiful seashells to date.
We hopped back on, returning across the untouched beach, stopping to throw a dying pufferfish back into the water, inspecting the carcasses of some wildlife, waving hola to a Panamanian family. We were barely able to cross the river back to the Buenaventura property. A few minutes later and it would have been a long drive around the river but Coley was able to get both vehicles across while I waded with the kids. We lost a few of the shells but Max was sure to hold tight to the sticks he had found.