Playa Samara, Costa Rica

We made it out of Mal Pais. Samara is lovely. A great string of beach bars and a beautiful, unsurfable beach.

We did end up taking a surf lesson in Mal Pais. And yeah, it is fun. But I really can´t imagine it being the ONLY thing that I find interesting and am capable of talking about. Anyhow.

We grabbed a shuttle from Mal Pais up to Samara. We used a shuttle ($$) because the only other option involved backtracking quite a bit, and it would have taken probably more than one day. And using the shuttle we got to enjoy Costa Rica´s coastal "highway". And by "highway", I mean a near damn impassable dirt road. We had to ford 8 rivers with the old Toyota Protestant shuttle van. We lost 1 oxen and 200 pounds of food.

Samara is a really pretty place. We did some bar hopping last night, ran into some Brits that were on our shuttle to Samara. Terry retired early, and I hung around talking to an economist.

Today was just another day of lazing on the beach. Terry and I are constantly butting heads about the beach situation. My idea of a good beach day is to walk around, go in the water for a bit, get a snack, see about some snorkeling or kayaking. Terry´s is to do absolutely nothing. So that´s an issue. Today I just bought a mask and snorkel and went off on my own. There are TONNES of tropical fish here. Makes sense, being the ocean and being tropical. There were two I saw, about a foot long each, one bright blue and the other bright red. Very cool. But I didn´t go too far out, since I was afraid of being eaten by sharks. Don´t know if that´s a valid fear or not.

Tomorrow we´re off to Tamarindo, and Terry has agreed to try out kayaking. He tried out my mask and snorkel and almost managed to drown. So we´ll see how that goes.

Oh, and I HAVE to mention where we´re staying. It´s a beach front bar called Las Olas, that has huts and shacks to rent. At night the bar is quite a lot like the Gold Range. Lots of Shady Characters, who love to Mill Around. Our shack has walls of sticks, and the door locks by pulling a chain across it and padlocking it. The floor is concrete and the ceiling fan is rusty. THIS is what we were expecting of Central America. Way to come through, CA!