Samara & Playa Carrilo

Well it's been almost 2 weeks since we blogged last, 2 weeks since we've had a long weekend here in Atenas, and 2 weeks since we've been to the beach. So, guess what we did this weekend?

Friday was a municiple holiday here to commemorate San Rafael, the patron saint of the "canton" (or district), that Atenas falls in. So the kids had friday off school, and we decided we had so much fun on the last trip to coast, we thought we'd do it again. We originally thought to go to Manuel Antonio, which is a large land and marine nature reserve south of where we were last time, but the rainy season around here has really set in lately. So at the last minute, we changed our minds and went farther afield to a beach on the Nicoya penisula called Playa Samara.

This trip was quite different for us because we took off without having any accomodations planned anywhere. We were wingin it! As it turned out we found a great place just a short block off the beach that only cost us $30 night!!! It was very basic, but clean accomodation, with a shared bathroom even, but because it is the slow season, it was almost empty, and the owners had a couple of kids for ours to play with so it turned out really great. It was fun to watch our kids running around yelling in spanish with the local kids.

This travel in the rainy season is really starting to appeal to us. No crowds or traffic, no reservations needed, insanely low prices, and of course everything is green. Really green. When Megan and I were here last March near the end of the dry season, I recall there were a lot of trees with no leaves on them at all. It's like the difference between the trees in winter and summer in Calgary. And there are some spectacular trees. Trust me.

On top of that, the weather has been perfectly acceptable as well. We have had some rain, but nothing really that dampened our fun at all. We only got chased off the beach one day, and it's probably a good thing too. The second last day was nice and sunny all day, and we stayed at the beach all day, and we all got a bit too much sun.

On the day that was overcast, we headed out to a tiny little "zoo", that is run by a European couple who take you around personally and tell you a little bit about each animal, and how they got to thier zoo. A few of them were pets that got to be too much for the original owners, so it was nice to see them being taken care of. There were spiders, snakes, crocodiles (what trip to the beach with Nathan would be complete without a crocodile sighting?), toucans, a kinkajou, a pecarry, a jaguarundi, a marguay (a small, wild cat supposed to be the fastest cat "up in the trees". It can twist it's spine a full 180 degrees, so it can really bounce around from trunk to trunk. Google it). There were also Iguanas, an anteater, bats, parakeets, turtles, etc. etc. etc. The kids got hold the snake and the turtles, and got to feed the kinkajou. All kinda cool.

The zoo was near a neighboring beach to Samara, called Playa Carillo, and this beach is another little hidden gem, in my opinion. It is a really visually appealing beach, with the rocky outcroppings, the little hidden coves and the fresh water rivers running down into it which carve a really cool pattern into the sand. But again, the thing that struck me most about about this was the complete lack of commercialization. There is a cool tree lined boulevard running along the whole beach, and across this street from the beach is... NOTHING! There is a nice flat piece of land there, and my North Americanized brain's first reaction was "holy crap, why hasn't Mcdonalds, or Starbucks, or Super 8, or... (you get the picture)... found about about this yet!"... Please don't tell them!)

We just stopped the car, got out our cooler, and jumped in the waves. Awesome.

The next day, (our last full day), we were back in Samara and the plan was to just spend the whole day on the beach just relaxing... Megan lasted about 15 minutes (pretty good average for her), and had to go find something else to do. There is a small, uninhabited island right off shore, and they have kayaking tours that go there (with snorkeling and a light lunch etc.), or you can just rent your own kayak by the hour, etc. That sounded like a good idea, but do you think you could actually find anybody in any of the tour places? No way. I guess that is the down side of travel in the rainy season. In the Mexican Riviera, they are on you like locusts, here... You can't find em when you want to. It was a bit windy that day, so one other possible explaination is that they don't let people out in the wind anyway, so why have people staff the place if they can't charge you for anything anyway. Regardless, we didn't get to go kayaking afterall.

Oh, and one other thing that I love about Costa Rica is the cost of car repairs. We were coming back Monday morning, and I stopped to gas up. The guy at the station notices that one of my hoses has sprung a leak and points it out to me. We are 3 and a half hours from home and I have car problems... Just what you want. Anyway, the guy tells me there is a mechanic about a kilometer down the road, so off we go. We are out in the middle of nowhere when I notice the sign, and it's hardly the bright clean Petro-Canada station I see... More like that shop in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So we pull in anyway and I try to explain the problem to the guy. He tells me it's one of the heater hoses, and sends his buddy down the road for a new part. When he comes back he says they don't have the part and I figure I'm screwed... but wait! the mechanic goes off for a few minutes and comes back with "un otra solucion", (another solution). He fabricated the part, put it on, it worked like a charm, and by the look of it, it will probably be better than the original part anyway. When I asked how much it would cost me he says 3000 colones. That's less than $6 bucks Canadian. Gotta love Costa Rica!!!

Samara Beach...

Notice the crowds & the high rises?

Our accomodations...

Playa Carillo...

The Zoo...