Playa Samara (week 1) Costa Rica

A busy week of spanish lessons with Virginia, surf lessons, animal watching, cafe frequenting, general beach life oh and plenty of rain!

These guys are our local howler monkeys, they hang out in a bigger group as you may have seen from previous posts, this time they were crossing the local power lines above our heads. check out the cute baby one.

We have spent many rainy afternoons (it often downpours from 3/4pm and most evenings) in the organic cafe, good cake and good coffee. They do a mean Gallo Pinto a Costa Rican breakfast, (poached eggs tomato and rice and beans) anyway this little fella keeps the many dogs in check and likes this chair over all the others.

The beach is long in Samara and we ventured up south side to explore. When we got to the end of the beach we realised that the beach we visited on the long cycle was only at the end of this beach. Still we did get to see more of the beautiful beach, the horses and some of the local kids having a footie game.

Kyle visits us everyday and on Friday spent a few moments showing off a few moves, spot the Coati. These guys can climb, jump and have some mean claws to fight off inquisitive dogs.

Surfing and Spanish are going really well. I (Chris) can stand on the board but still can't brag about it in spanish. Kat is more of a pro, using increasingly smaller boards and trying to ride the unbroken waves. It is a beginners beach as the reef out sea takes some of the power you would expect to see in this region (thank god) Spanish is tough but we are making a poco progress.

We have made some plans for the week after next leaving Samara on 25th Oct heading south to Montezuma, Mai Pais and Santa Terasa. Until next post Adios amigos!

Playa Samara (Day 5), Costa Rica

A normal start to the day watching the wildlife from our garden.

We took a walk along the road and found this lovely looking specimen.

Oh and some more from the howler monkeys!

But the day was really about starting Spanish school. We arrived at 12:00 for orientation and to find out our timetable for the week. The place is really nice http://www.samaralanguageschool.com/ they offer free activities, we have signed up for football against the staff as well as cooking classes and jewellery making.

Oh and Kyle returned after school,

Playa Samara (Day 4), Costa Rica

We cooked a lovely poached egg and avocado breakfast, so good that it attracted the attention of our aforementioned Cotie friend (Kyle), decided to drop in for a bite. He is very friendly and extreamly persistent and would not shift even when confronted with a matador-like challenge with a blue towel.

We decided that Sunday was a good day for a bike ride, several rain showers later we hired bikes from a shop and cycled to a neighboring beach. The ride was about 20/30 mins and included a few hills, which was very difficult on a single speed bike. The beach is something the locals seem to enjoy doing of a Sunday, there were many family groups dotted along the tree lined shore, cooking and hanging out out. There are flavoured ice sellers and coconut stalls and the whole thing was laid back and Sunday like.

Day 3 Beach and some sun

We woke up to the snuffling of our local friendly white nosed Coati (see spotter page) on this blog. He or she likes to rummage through the organic waste and is a relative of the raccoon family.

We headed for the beach a 7am stroll/mini jog. Where we saw a horse paddling in the water. 

After we jumped in the sea, we were the only ones in there (apart from the horse)!

After the midday monsoon we went down to the supermarket and had a drink on the beach. A local guy made us these birds out of a palm leaf, took him about 1 min. I'm going to learn, just need a ladder to reach the tree (Chris might need to do this). 

After this we watched the nature in the hammock (saw a cool red and grey squirrel) and had another swim, it was a beautiful evening. 

After sunset we enjoyed a piña colada on the beach & a few local beers, which gives us headaches. 

People generally seen really friendly, there are a few annoying spring breakers but it's pretty quiet here as its rainy season so not many tourists which is great! 

Day 2 First full day in Samara

Today we woke up at 7:30 with my alarm going off by mistake, we had a rather disgruntled roar from a howler monkey to show how he felt.

We made a boiled egg and had breakfast in our garden. Sat watching 3 humming birds take it in turns to eat nectar from a feeder.

After dropping the car off 1hr late we decided to check out our locality, it is very laid back and quiet due to it being out of season. After heading to the beach we stopped by an organic cafe for tea and cake, and to catch up online.

After a spot of lunch back at the apartment and a bit of a snooze we went for our first swim in the sea. It was warm, and started to rain whilst we were crashing in the waves, this felt awesome.

We walked back through the very flooded road. Once back & sitting in the hammock, we spotted some howler monkeys moving through the trees above us.

 

We are currently locked out of the apartment because I (chris) popped in and forgot to grab the keys. There are  worse places to be shut out. :) Wolfgang saved us.

Getting to & arriving in Samara, Costa Rica

The journey from the airport was wet! Just like being in the UK only warmer, the roads were just as bad, potholes and bumps. Chris did well though, he can drive again! 

Anyway we managed to find our apartment, a little yellow building in a beautiful garden and only 5 mins to the beach! 

The people who own it are called Wolfgang (German) and Maria (Spainish), she's a teacher at the language school. Seem very friendly and thorough! 

On our first night we checked out the local happy hour and had a well earned dinner at our French neighbours place!