La Cruz Beach: 24th - 27th October 2025
24th October – Friday
OMG, I’ve not even been here a week and I’ve spent almost £500, most of which has been on accommodation and does actually take me to the 1-week mark. But I’m really going to have to find cheaper places to stay if I am going to do a whole month here.
My last morning view in La Cruz was quite spectacular, there were about 20 rather large, beautifully coloured birds soaring around in the sky and every now and then one would come swooping towards the restaurant. There were also a lot of large yellow butterflies, it was certainly a morning for the flying animal world. I so wish I had a decent camera on my phone, one with a decent zoom. Perhaps I should just go the whole hog and get a new phone when I get my new laptop.
Due to still being ill I got a taxi to my new accommodation, Blue Dream Hotel. I could have waited for the 3pm bus, it goes right past Blue Dream, but just the thought hanging around and lugging my stuff onto and off a bus made me feel exhausted. Blue Dream is only 8 kilometres from La Cruz, so the taxi wasn’t too expensive, and I am now within walking distance of the beaches I was admiring everyday from my last hotel. I had to upgrade my room as the restaurant here is not open and I would have had no means of making my morning coffee otherwise. This room is an extra £10 a night but it has a shared kitchen. Hopefully I’ll save on cooking my own food. I left my water bottle at the hotel 
that’s the second one I’ve left behind.
I felt quite low when I arrived, in fact I have been quite low all day. I keep dreaming about my friends back home and last night was no exception. Errol and Anthea were the stars last night. I woke feeling lonely and haven’t really managed to shake that feeling and this place is so quiet. There’s supposed to be German couple in one of the other rooms, but I’ve not seen or heard them. I am basically the only person here and it is in the middle of nowhere – literally. And it is so quiet. I walked to the top of the complex and the view over Salinas Bay is beautiful, but not as stunning as from La Cruz. I sat there for quite a while, I took my epilator with me so I did my legs – lol. I have lots of little red bites, well at least I presume they are bites, all over my legs, they don’t itch and I don’t recall being bitten. I don’t think they are bed bug bites as they are only on the lower parts of my legs. I’ll keep an eye on the them, hopefully they go down in a day or two.
I went for a walk, the owner, Niccolas, was kind enough to point out where a couple of restaurants are and a supermarket, the fact that this is one long road meant they were very easy to find! He also told me about the local beaches. I had a quick look at Playa Papaturro, it is so beautiful but, as he said, there is nothing there. There was a family splashing around in the water and lots of birds flying overhead. I didn’t stay for long. However, Niccolas told me that the other beaches are better equipped and that I can also get the bus to Playa El Jobo, which he said is quite lively, but the last bus back is at 3:30pm and if I miss it, I may have problems finding a taxi. Anyway, I continued my walk down the road to the supermarket and bought a few bits for breakfast and a couple of pot noodles and on the route back I bought two pieces of fried chicken from the chicken hut.
The chicken was surprisingly delicious and moist, but the skin was very greasy. I gave most of the skin to the local cat, along with lots of meat and a juicy bone. In thanks, she wrapped herself around my legs and kept looking at me with a loving look in her eyes. I also fed the ants, again with some of the greasy skin, broken into small bits. It was amazing to watch how excited the ants got and how many of them came out. And rather than eat the skin there and then they all clubbed together and started to haul it back to their ant home. I had a few rambutan left but several of them had began to ferment, so I left one on the table for the ants – I wonder if it will be there tomorrow.
Uhm, I have just heard the Germans come in. They are banging around in the kitchen. It’s late now so I’ll wait until the morning to say hello.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening reading. There is a little front room area with a TV that is far too big for the area. I stretched out on one of the sofas and was quite content until I saw some cockroach looking thing was sharing the sofa with me. I am now holed up in my room with a couple of baby geckos praying the cockroach thing doesn’t follow me in here.
25th October – Saturday
Today is the first day I have woken up and not felt ill. No more tingling oversensitive skin and my tonsils are now back to their normal size 
I met the German couple this morning, they are not very friendly. They smiled and said hello and since then have avoided me. If they are in the kitchen and I go in, they leave. I get the feeling that I bust their little bubble. They had this place all to themselves, kitchen, front room, even a bathroom each. But now they have to share. Never mind, I like the fact there are other people here even if they don’t like the fact that I am here. The only thing they have that I wish I had is a car.
I went to Playa Copal beach this morning. It was a 40-minute walk in 32-degree blazing sun. I kept to the shade as much as possible but at some points along the route there wasn’t any. I bought water from the supermarket, so kept hydrated, but I was still exhausted by the time I arrived, as you can image the walk felt like it took forever. Luckily, when I got there, I found a few picnic benches under the trees, so I sat and cooled off for quite a while before putting my flip-flops on and having a paddle in the sea. It was so warm and very refreshing and the views absolutely stunning and so clear that you could even see the sand on the beach on the opposite bank. This beach is recommended for kite surfing, there is even a kite surfing school on the beach, but it is low season, the tide was out and there wasn’t that much wind. So I didn’t see any kite surfing In fact the beach was basically deserted. There was one other guy there when I arrived, but he
soon left, then two ladies and child turned up, the boy had a little swim and then they left, and finally an American lady turned up, walked her dogs up and down the beach and then left.
I had a walk in the opposite direction to the dog walker. There was an interesting looking rock in the distance, so I headed to that, it was basically the end of the beach, but as the tide was out, I was able to walk around to the other side where there was a secluded little bay with a house in the hills just above it. Such a stunning setting. On the way back I watched a miniature hermit crab lug it’s little shell across the beach and then another, larger, but still small crab eyeball me for quite some time before it decided it was safer to disappear into its hole. After that I notice hundreds of little glass like crabs running all over the beach.
I got to this point in my diary when my laptop screen decided enough was enough and turned a luminous green colour with a red frame, with rounded corners, and the mouse decided to become a line running vertically down the screen. Luckily, I managed to save my diaries and spreadsheet onto my external drive and then turned my Lenovo off for the very last time.
28th october – Tuesday
Yes – I have a new laptop. I am so happy and now have the mammoth task of catching up on my website – but I’ll start doing that in the next day or two.
The last two days at the beach were spent on the beach! Sunday, I walked to Playa Nubes, it wasn’t that far, about 20 minutes from the hotel, but in 70% humidity, that’s far enough. First, I went to the view point and found the piece of land I want to buy – lol. I’d build a house so that the front room and main bedroom windows captured the view over Playa Papaturro, whilst the kitchen window would capture the mountains on the right. I’d build two stories so that I could rent the bottom out as an air BnB. Playa Nubes beach was about ten minutes from my dream land/property and there I would build another place, this would be my secluded private beach property. Nubes is a very small alcove style beach, and perfect for swimming. I had such a lovely afternoon exploring each end of it, both of which contain stunning rock formations and with the tide out you can walk across the rocks to Playa Papaturro one end and Playa Playa Copal the other end. I didn’t actually walk to either of these beaches, but I did go far enough to see them and realise that you can get all the way to them. When I got back the German’s had left. So the last two nights I had the place to myself, it was so quiet and a little bit spooky so I kept my bedroom door locked.
Yesterday I downloaded a new book and spent a couple of hours reading on Playa Papaturro. It took ages to get into the book as the birds kept distracting me, it’s so relaxing watching them glide on the wind currents. A couple of them came in for a closer look, I tried to get some photos but they were too fast and my camera is too shit. Perhaps I should go the whole hog and buy a new phone as well. Last night was really scary. at about 11 thirty I was woken by the loudest clap of thunder and the building shook. The thunder continued overhead for about 20 minutes and each time the building violently shook. I was quite worried and certainly very relieved when it passed and became a rumble in the distance. I should have taken some painkillers as my head was throbbing, and I woke with a really bad headache.
