Our bus didn't leave until 9 a.m. so we had breakfast and then headed to the bus station 4 or 5 blocks away. What we thought might be a 4 or 4 1/2 hour bus trip was taking much longer and it was an hour in a traffic gridlock before we even got out of San Jose. There was a pit stop about 11:30 and we weren't even near the halfway point. About 2:45 pm we stopped at a roadside busstop to let someone off when we saw a hwy. sign indicating Nicoya. We were headed to Liberia where we'd planned to catch another bus back to Nicoya. Jo asked the driver about it and we jumped ship and crossed the road to catch the Nicoya bus. This ultimately saved us at least two hours and probably more. The third bus to come along about 3:30 took us into the Nicoya bus station where we caught another bus to Samara about a half an hour later. Our first stop in Samara was to the bank which had closed 5 minutes earlier so we went to a restaurant and had supper and then picked up a bottle of rum and some coke. They called a cab for us but it never showed up so they got a friend to drive us to the "hotel". We're about 3 miles out of Samara and across the street from the water. The other half of the hotel is directly across the street and is on the beach. There are tables and chairs out on the beach side as well as a couple of hammocks. When we checked in we were told the room is $40 a night (exactly twice what the 2007 book said) We'd expected to pay $20 and were hoping to stay for the remainder of our time here but I don't think that's going to happen now. We're booked for three nights and will spend some of that time looking for a cheaper place maybe closer to town. It's only a 20 minute walk along the beach and we can go in there to get some groceries as this place has a fridge and hotplate downstairs that we can use.
Update ..... we found a place on the beach closer to town. It's the same price but it's beautiful. It's an upstairs 2 room suite with a fridge! Yahoo icecubes and cuba libras,
The manager is a hippie about my age who paints as a sideline. Originally from California he's seems like a great guy and he didn't give us the same flak we got here as far as maybe not being able to stay due to bookings coming in for Easter. We are the only ones upstairs and have our own balcony, hammocks, and a coffeemaker. It's right on the beach and we should be able to see the sunsets from our room. We move in on the 7th and have booked it for the full two weeks until we meet up with Jim,Patty, Marion and Don in Islita until we leave on the 25th.
This beach is crescent shaped and directly North of one of the other places we've stayed. There's also a reef out in front so we may be able to get in some snorkelling, something we haven't really been able to do to this point.
The alarm clock here starts to crow at 4 a.m. quickly followed by the howler monkeys and then the dogs chime in. By 7 a.m. all the Germans who are staying here start coughing in case we managed to sleep through the earlier cacaphony. They were out at the tables last night and seemed to be having a race to see who could smoke the most. One nice thing about this place is that they sell beer and will make you breakfast for $6.00. We'll probably pick up some granola and yogurt for our breakfast. There's also internet in town but unlikely to be wireless. I'm not sure how theft proof this place is so for the next little while I'll carry my laptop with me.
It's nice to be near the water again and we're looking forward to soaking up a few rays and getting in for a swim.
LINK OF THE DAY
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30161&l=0b4a4&id=680056043
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