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Published: June 21st 2006
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I had the most fabulous weekend, again opting not to travel (much) because Samara is so amazing. Saturday we had glorious weather so I attempted an adventure of swimming to the island off of Samara. With camera carefully triple-wrapped in ziplock bags, I took the 45 minute walk to the very end of the beach at low tide to the place where I'd have the shortest distance to swim. I must have gone too far though because I found myself sort of stranded among some rocks. I finally made myself back to the beach and started out again. However, some ugly clouds started forming on the horizon and I heard my mother's voice saying, "Jolynn, don't you have any sense?!?" With the theme song of Gilligan's Island humming in my head, I decided NOT to start swimming out to the island and instead just began swimming back home, parallel to shore and close enough in to make a quick escape if necessary. Good thing too because after about 20 minutes of swimming, that storm sure did come up fast! It was fun walking home in the rain!
I'd recently learned that "Pablo" (known here as Jimmy) is a massage therapist
as well as a surf instructor. . .que suerte! I signed up for a massage after that long swim and walk home. He decided it'd be best to bring his table to my bedroom since we're neighbors, and since we're such good friends, he spent an extra amount of time on me--a 2-hour massage in my bedroom with Pablo! And yes, we had the cellulite discussion prior to and being the proper gentleman that he is, he said, "What cellulite. . there's nothing there!" :-)
On Sunday, I headed out for some adventure and excitement since I'd spent so many days in the beached whale position. I rented a motor scooter that I thought was more like a moped but turned out to me a bit faster/stronger. . .more like a motorcycle. Again, I heard Mom's voice as I zoomed through the hilly Costa Rican countryside, but what a ride it was! It took me an hour to get to the town that was my true destination. I was headed to Buena Vista, which is the next beach over and is actually within walking distance. Since it's the rainy season, the river has washed out the road so I
had to take a route that was a little like going from Austin to San Antonio via the North Pole! I only had just a few challenges along the way--It's hard to hear those buses coming up behind you and when you slide off the road it's really hard to get back up, especially when you've just seen a snake in the road!
Finally I found the hotel and little Guido, who was going to fly me up into the brilliant blue sky in an ULTRALIGHT plane! Guido is German and therefore is just a bit abrupt and a man of few words. Once I'd met him, my apprehension increased just a bit. If I was going to die with someone, I'd prefer him to be friendly! Oh well. . .I decided to ignore Mom's voice and just go with it! As we gained speed on the "runway" (a grassy strip of land), I remembered how much I hate rollercoasters. . .but with my stomach in my throat, at that point there was no turning back! Once we stablized, it was smooth flying and oh, what an amazing view I had! It was heaven, or as close as a
person still breathing can get! We flew over mountains and three beaches worth of Costa Rican coastline. We even saw some crocodiles swimming in the rivers. I'd called my Tico family before take-off so Coral and Juanita were standing on the beach in Samara waving to me. At one point, Guido decided he needed to scare some people so he flew very low to the ground over their heads and then zoomed right back up. Again, I don't like rollercoasters so that part was not so fun. He also thought we needed to "go surfing" so he flew out over some really giant waves, really close to the water's surface so we could get a spray before he climbed back up into the sky. What a ride of a lifetime!
Since I had my motor scooter for 24 hours, I decided to take advantage of my mobility. I headed back to Samara and then went to the next beach south, Playa Carillo. This beach is non-developed and an absolutely amazing place to watch the sunset. Since it was the first clear evening of my stay here, I was really lucky to get to see the sunset in Carrillo. Aside
from one drunk Tico hitting on me and my failing to disenchant him with my broken Spanish, and aside from a busload of 30 students from Texas coming to ruin the peace, I had an amazing end to my weekend.
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Amy
non-member comment
Jolynn, It sounds like paradise! So glad that you are having a wonderful time. The blog is great. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to your next post.