Day 1
The travel day to get there was early and long. We had a 6am flight from MSP-ATL, with a 9 hour layover in Atlanta. We actually ended up meeting J's coworker and fiancé for lunch! We took the train from the airport to downtown, and ate at Café Intermezzo, and it was a great break to split up the day. From there, we had a 4 hour flight to San Jose, Costa Rica. The coolest part about this whole trip, is that I was able to reconnect with a host sister that we had hosted when I was in high school, so roughly ten years ago! I had gone on a 10 day trip Junior year, and the next summer we hosted Adri for two weeks. When I had reached out to her months before the trip, we were going to get coffee. But when I reached out again, she made all of these crazy generous offers! She picked us up from the airport, we stayed at her parents house our first night, she brought us to the bus station (and helped us buy tickets;) )...she picked us up again from the bus station after Samara, she showed us around the city, and then brought us to the airport again. It was seriously incredible. We were overwhelmed with gratitude for sure!
Back to the flight! So once we finally touched down, customs was easy breasy. And the minute we felt that CR air, it felt fake. It was so warm! Adri thought we were hilarious since it was freezing to her. We landed about 9pm, and Adri drove us home to her parents house. Driving through Heredia (outside of San Jose), brought me so many great memories. My first trip here was one of my first ever, especially internationally. But my memories of that trip could be a post in itself...I should do that! Anyway...J and I got to chat with Adris parents for awhile, which was super special. They were so sweet. The language barrier was tough, but beautiful at the same time. Also, exhausting. We really need to learn Spanish better. Her mom made us a meal (which is still J's favorite of the trip) and then we were off to bed, ready to wake up early for the bus!
Day 2
I think around 6 we woke up, and Adri drove us to the bus station. She is seriously the sweetest thing in the world. It was total rush hour when she took us to the bus station. Thank goodness we had her. I'm confident that we would have figured this out, but damn was it nice that she just led us to everything. She explained that it's not in the best part of town, so she was happy to walk us in and show us around. Thank goodness, because it was not clear where to go. The window to buy tickets was on the 4th floor of this mall complex. She helped us purchase also (we are excited to start our Rosetta Stone for Spanish so this does not happen again). We knew this going in, but it became more and more evident that Samara was not a common destination (win!). After we bought the tickets, Adri took us to a little better part of town for brunch, since we still had a few hours to kill. She hung out with us for a bit like an angel, and then we convinced her that we could just wait at the bus station for the rest of the time. Luckily, she had us get there really early since every seat was eventually filled. Interesting fact, we had to pay to get into the bathroom. We waited a couple of hours at the bus station, got in line, and eventually figured out where and when to get on the bus. We thought it would be a dirty, crap tastic bus, but it was actually a really nice coach bus. The ride was 4 hours to Samara, J slept pretty much the whole way, I slept for a little bit but mostly listened to podcasts. It was pretty cold in San Jose, 50s...bus as we got closer to the coast/beach, it got hotter and hotter. By about halfway, I was sweating so much and had to cover up the window to hide from the sun. No AC of course! Once we arrived, there wasn't really a bus station, so we kinda looked around and then asked someone where el mar is (thanks john hahahahah), since we knew we had to be close to the beach and then we could orient ourselves. The only map we had was an adorable hand drawn touristy map, but it helped us out a ton. We started walking with suitcases in hand and made our way the less than a mile route to our hotel. Samara Treehouse Inn. It was perfection! They were so sweet, and showed us to our little bungalow. It was so awesome. No AC, but it actually was not that bad. The days were very hot, but at night it cooled down enough that sleeping was wonderful. We did sleep with a mosquito net, but it wasn't too bad at all. After we checked in, it was about 5pm, so we headed right to the beach, just to enjoy. We found the nearest beach restaurant, which was adorable by the looks of it, and settled in. There was barely anyone out and about at this point since it was a Monday. We ended up at _____. It was a weird menu, and we weren't very impressed, but stay tuned because this was just an amateur first night mistake :) We had some pasta dishes that were OK, but it was all worth it since our footies were in the sand!
Day 3 in Samara
For my birthday present, J booked us a hiking tour of a nearby reserve. We're not usually the type to do tours, we like to make it up on our own, but it was really nice to have direction and a pick up, especially since we didn't have a car. We were ready to go around 7, but of course they didn't come until 7:30. Tico life! I love it. The group we were with a pretty high average for age, but it was still enjoyable. A little slow moving for my taste, by body was craving fast uphill climbs, but we learned a lot and there was an awesome view at the end of Samara beach and the neighboring beaches. Along the way he pointed out plants and animals, and had us a try different indigenous plants. Too bad I can't remember them...the only bummer was that we saw no monkeys :( But we definitely could hear them. After the tour they took us back to the hotel, and we took cold showers to cool down. It was soooo hot on the coast. Which we were prepared for...but as prepared as Minnesotans in January...it was still a shock to the system. We wandered around town a bit, stopped at the ATM, then back to the treehouse to lay out and nap for a bit. The whole trip we switched off reading a book, which was fun:) We watched the sunset on the beach, and then headed next door to our fav spot, Lo Que Hay
We ended up going here every day, if not twice a day while we were in Samara. We really liked the service and atmosphere, the drinks and the food. It was just a really solid place. And the best part is, not till the end of the trip, did we realize the name was translated to “It is what it is”, which is something J says ALL THE TIME. So crazy weird. No wonder we liked it so muchJ We had some tacos for Taco Tuesday and beer. Though we could have stayed there for the rest of the night, we thought we should probably still try some other places. Later that night, we checked out a place that looked pretty cool from the outside. It was a really neat little place, but super empty inside. We ordered some tapas and wine and played pool. This couple weirdly watched us play the whole game, and then J played a game with them. I was not a fan, but still an enjoyable night! A lot of Americans move to CR to open businesses and live the good life (not sure what the ticos opinion of this is, it would be interesting to know). Samara is on a perfect line of tourism in my opinion, it's definitely around, you can tell it keeps the place thriving and is good for local business. After dinner we weren't completely satisfied, so we went back to our favorite place Lo Que Hay and had a taco, beer and margarita to end the night. Then we actually headed back to the treehouse and watched Netflix, it was perfection! We were so excited since Modern Family was availale in the country on Netflix (but not in the US…and when we got back we actually ordered the DVDs from ebay because we loved it so much). Luckily the nights really cooled down, so though we didn’t have AC, we slept really well with the big window open and our bug net around us.
Day 4
I woke up early, to the beautiful ocean! I dragged a beach chair out to the sand, read, drank coffee, walked around the beach and watched the early morning surfers. At around 8:30 J woke up and we had a toast and egg breakfast delivered to our table for breaky! We wandered around a bit, bought a t shirt, bought our home bus tickets (which was hilarious because there was no signs, but a tiny little window down this alley with a woman who didn't speak english and a tiny little document that explained the tickets in broken English), booked a snorkling adventure and went to the bank. Then we relaxed ocean side. We asked for a reocmmendation for a tradional lunch, and ended up at a cute little place in the middle of Samara called Conochos. We had ceviche for apps, and a very traditional meal each, it was WAY too much food, but so good. We took the hot walk back to the sea, and laid out until sunset. J walked to Lo Que Hay and brought us back drinks on the beach. We showered and then went to a Mexican place for dinner. LOL I know, but pretty good food and great atmosphere! Of course we went back to Lo Que Hay for chips and 2 drinks. J had his fave drink - black russion, and I had mine - a Guanavana and mint daiquri, i was obsessed. We played speed while we enjoyed the night.
Day 5
I woke up for the sunrise! So thankful for mornings. We had breakfast at 8:30 - fruit and the best french toast ever in history. We had to pack up our bags to go to our next hotel, and were able to leave them at the front desk and hang out for the day. We had lunch at a very touristy, but authentic? if that's possible...looking place right on the main stretch. They had the Simpon's muraled on the wall if that gives a better idea, ha! Had rice and beans and a coke. Super delicious. Stopped at the market for ice cream cones. And then back to the tree house to hang out. We watched the sunset, and then took a taxi to Gecko verde. The ride was really long, and the place was spooky empty, but super nice. We spoke with the front desk about our bus home on our last day and got continually stressed out about our new home. We hated that we couldn't walk everywhere and that we were so far away from everything. We took a taxi back to town to have dinner at Lo Que Hay. We couldn't let it go that we were unhappy with our second hotel, so we ended up speaking to the Treehouse in, and they said they had a room for us!!! We were so excited! We took a taxi again back to our place, but went to bed burned from the sun and happy that we would be stress free back at the treehouse soon.
Day 6
We woke up at 8am, called a taxi to town, AGAIN, and akwardly checked out from the hotel. We dropped off our stuff at the treehouse and had breakfast at Lo Que Hay. The best breakfast burrito ever in history for me, and a delicious iced coffee. Then we walked to the Carrillo adventure tours and met our guide to go for a snorkel. We were with another kinda weird couple, and took a van to a nearby beach. The whole thing was a little weird, but fun all the same! We took a double kayack to an island beach, woof that was a struggle. We could not get in sync with each other, but we got there! The snorkling wasn't EPIQ, but still always cools to be underwater. At one point i was stuck a little too close to rocks when swells came in and out, so that was pretty terrifying. They didnt' really give any rules or directions, so it was a good lesson in staying humble and figuring out something scary on my own. Honestly though, I'm really glad i didn't get tossed around on the rocks. I think I got really lucky. J said he kinda got stuck there too, but he didn't seem scared in the least! After an hour or two, we all met on the beach and had pineapple. There were two wild racoons that were trapped there, since they crossed to the island during low tide. They were creeeeeepy! Once we got back, we had some lunch at a touristy place on the stretch called the Outback, crappy service and average food. But we didn't care at that point! We layed by the beach for the rest of the afternoon, had some coconut water and waited for the sunset. At first the sunset didn't seem great, but it ended up being spectacualr! The most intense color ever! For dinner we walked to a place called Oooh lala, which was actually french cuisine. The lasagna was kick ass though. We stopped to get some groceries for our trip the next day, and then Lo Que Hay for our last drinks! We packed and showered and watched the stars out on the beach.
Day 7
We had to wake up at 4:30 to get ready and walk to the bus in the morning. Thank god we bought tickets the few days before, because there was no one around to figure it out. We got in our seats and settled in for the 5 hour bus ride back to San Jose. I got a little stressed out towards the end, I wasn't sure if we were going towards the right stop because we also stopped at the airport, but we ended up at the mall again so all was well! Once there, I used the wifi to message and Adri and she picked us up right outside the entrance! Again, she's seriously the best. We had an airbnb booked for that night, and had the correct address, but apparently they don't really use addresses there, so Adri wasn't sure where the place was! I can't even remember how we got there, but eventually she either recognized the name of the place, or what the front door looked like, but she was like, oh! I think that's by one of our favorite bars
Random things to remember:
+ Toilet paper can't be flushed, which i was used to from the first time I went, and forgot to tell J about at first!\
+ Sting ray
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