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Published: August 25th 2014
After leaving Manuel Antonio the last part of the G Adventures trip was to spend 1 more night in San Jose. For me personally, it had felt that the trip was too short (8 nights) and it was a shame to be saying goodbye to everyone as seemed that the group was all starting to mingle well together. Because we had left Manuel Antonio in the morning it meant that we reached San Jose within the afternoon and had spare time to venture out into the city centre. San Jose does not feel touristy at all, if anything it was a case of spotting the tourist amongst lots of locals. We were advised to stay close together as a group and to be aware of pickpocketing.
The city centre has a good selection of shops, including brands that I recognize from the UK. The city is majorly busy with lots of local people and it was a real culture shock for me to adjust to. At first I did not like it but after a while I got used to it. One thing that did surprise me was the lack of English spoken by shopkeepers, but then again there was
hardly any tourists about for them to have a need to know. I visited a couple of market areas with the hope of finding some bargains but to my surprise it was just as expensive as the tourist shops I had visited at my previous locations. I decided to make a note of what I had seen for perfect gifts to take home and knew that I'd be coming back to San Jose in a few days after my trip to Samara.
In the evening, I went out with the group for our last supper and then headed to a bar for some drinks. I got talking to some locals at the bar and discovered that a guy worked for the same company as I do. I must have spent a while talking with the locals as then learned that half the group had gone back to the hotel for an early night due to catching early flights. I was gutted to have missed saying goodbye to everyone.
The next day An early start for me as a minibus was picking me up. My Costa Rican friend, Walter, was meant to be catching the minibus to as
he was going to stay in Samara with me. But he got mixed up with the pick-up spot and ended up going to a different hotel the other side of San Jose. We left without my friend hoping he might be able to meet us at another stop or make his own way to Samara. The bus journey to Samara is about 3/4 hours long. After about an hour and half the bus stopped at a place called Limonal to change driver. This place seems to be where all bus drivers change over and there was a restaurant and souvenir shop. Also I saw several wild macaws flying around, which was pretty awesome. The next bus driver didn't appear to speak any English whereas the first one did. This became a problem after arriving in Samara as the driver did not know where he was taking me. The itinerary I had with me did not mention the name of the hotel so I thought the bus driver would know where to take me as it was supposed to be part of the trip. I ended up getting dropped off at this school where a young girl I was talking to
on the bus also got off at. I was feeling a bit concerned that I did not know where I was going and that I was at this random place although it was by a beautiful beach. Anyway after several phone calls to G Adventures, the bus driver came back and picked me up and knew where he was taking me. It appeared that we had actually driven past my hotel as we first arrived in Samara.
The hotel was called Hotel Giada and was pretty decent. After checking in to my room I decided to go for a walk down the main high street and checked out the beautiful beach. I was surprised that there were not many tourists about and actually quite liked this fact as it gave a real impression of what Costa Rica is really about. After exploring, I sunbathed by the hotel swimming pool as this was the first day that it had not rain in Costa Rica since my arrival. I stayed at the hotel for the whole evening as discovered the restaurant did specialized pizzas and lush daiquiris.
Day 2 in Samara The next day I woke up fairly early
but it felt so good to know that I could do my own thing and take my time. I knew that after relaxing most of yesterday and with the intension of doing the same today I would probably be itching to go exploring. After having breakfast, I ventured out to the high street and found this excursion place opposite my hotel. I wanted to do some horseback riding on the beach but due to it being low season there were not enough people for the instructor to offer the activity. To my surprise, I discovered that I could hire a car for the day at around USD 34.00. This is about 20.00 pounds back home. I really wanted to see the next largest beach resort called Tamarindo which is further north of the pacific coast to Samara and thought this would be a great way of getting up there. Costa Rica had not felt dangerous and although some of the roads had looked poor I thought sod It I am going to do this and arranged to hire the car for the next day. I also booked to have a massage on the beach which started in an hours time.
I carried on walking down the high street looking in souvenir shops before reaching the beach. I had a good half an hour before the massage and sat on the beach. It felt so peaceful, hardly any tourists and not many locals either. I could hear parakeets flying above me as they made this quaking noise. I could hear the sound of the waves and felt a slight sea breeze as the sun was shinning on my face. This was it, this was perfection!
After spending 20 minutes I was feeling relaxed and looked for the lady who did the massages. After 5 minutes I eventually found her in this very remote area of the beach. The massage lady's name was Danni Mares and she seemed full of positive energy. She was originally from the States but decided Costa Rica was the place for her. We went for a swim first into the sea as Danni said it was all about getting the energy from the sea. After going for a swim I got to relax in a hammock before having my massage. Once I laid down on the massage board I received the most relaxing and restful massage
whilst listening to the sound of the waves from the sea and feeling the warm air slightly blowing on me. This really was perfection! it so good that I actually fell asleep and Danni had to wake me up.
After the massage I went for a walk along the beach feeling so relaxed and reenergized. I then went to a bar for food and had this really nice cocktail called an Apple Sour. The drink involved Jack Daniels, Midori, sugar, crunched ice and lime. It really did taste nice.
After food I went back to the hotel to chill by the pool. However, the weather changed and we had heavy rain with thunder and lightening. The thunder was so loud that I actually thought it was a gun that had gone off. There was amazing fork lightening too, and this continued into the evening. The last time I had seen lightening this bad was in Florida. Despite the bad weather I arranged to meet up with Kate who I had just recently spent the past 8 days with as she was staying nearby to me in Samara. I told her about my car trip to Tamarindo and said
she was welcome to join me. I had also discussed with Walter earlier by text that I had a car and he said he'd be able to get a bus not too far from Tamarindo so I agreed that I could pick him up so that he could get the opportunity to see Samara.
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