Happy Valentines day....

 

As per plans from yesterday, we were at La Plata early today (about 9:40). Our plan was to stay till nearly the last molecule of light. At it's highest point today La Plata had 33 people, a regular seething mass of human forms:

 

 

Ok, not that bad, but more than we've seen before. Thankfully it didn't last for too long. The weather more than made up for the extra people, it was just about perfect. I occupied myself cleaning up the beach. I've now done the whole thing.  La Plata is nearly trash free from Esenada Honda to half way around to Escondida. Next task for me was   to find pictures for today's post, concentrating on a Valentine theme. I was drawn to this one type of tree that's on the shoreline of La Plata. I have a picture below:

 

 

Not a bad looking heart, huh? I took a number of shots and then I noticed that it was in bloom.

 

 

 

Not bad, I have the heart shaped leaves and a flower that looks like a rose, although it's yellow instead of red.  Not sure what kind of tree this is (update - it is a Portia tree or Indian tulip ). I went back later in the day and took another picture of the flower after is opened up more.

 

 

Lorrie and I, sticking to the plan, ended up closing down La Plata. That's the first time it's happened this trip.  As is always the case very late in the day, the shadows grow long and the sunlight turns a wonderful golden color. Lorrie and I took a walk along the beach, enjoying having the place to ourselves. I took of picture of the long shadows:

 

 

 By now the sun was very low and we really needed to get going. Lorrie was reluctant to leave, she was drinking up every last drop of beauty that La Plata exudes that time of the day. After some coaxing we packed up things and headed out.  Below is the last shot I took:

 

 

 

On our way out Lorrie ask if we could stop by La Chiva. She said "We haven't seen it at all this trip", and she was right. We haven't seen any other beach besides La Plata (we did go to Sun Bay for a couple hours one day last week). Anyway I pulled into turnout #9 on La Chiva and we had a look at it. My was it gorgeous. I ran back to the jeep and grabbed the camera:

 

 

 

 I made the mistake of looking out at the island off of La Chiva.  I noticed that the government, being the epitome of anal retentiveness, had placed not one but 4 signs on the little  island (might very well be even more, but that's all I could see).  Probably the same guy who put the 18 lomos (speed bumps) on the way into the refuge.

 

 

Tomorrow is our last full day on Vieqeus

 

:-)