Jan 12: 97 degrees
Today we leave for Playa Samara and we try to figure out the Costa Rica bus system. What drove us largely to spend time in Samara is friends. We have stayed in touch with a woman who owned the B&B in which we stayed two years ago. Also, a former coworker/friend of Mandy's will be there around the same time.
We must catch the bus from the town of Tamarindo and do so at 7am. After a lot of research about Costa Rica bus schedules, we understand that we have to make 2 stops prior to arriving in our next destination, Playa Samara. Santa Cruz, Nicoya and then Samara.
The bus arrives and we feel compelled to ask and make sure this bus is going to Santa Cruz. The day prior we were made aware that Costa Rica has multiple bus companies and it may be necessary to change bus companies in order to get to yor final destination. The bus that pulled up was supposed to be Alfaro. This one was not but claimed to be going to Santa Cruz. We board.
At the bus stop, we chat with a girl from Sweden. She has a huge hiking backpack, stayed in a hostel and we are sharing knowledge about traveling the country. We board the bus and sit next to one another. Our first leg is interesting. It is mostly gravel road and winding through neighboring towns, making a few stops. What we notice is that there are very few "official" bus stops. As long as you are on the bus route, you can stand there and flag down the bus. We stop a few times between Tamarindo and Santa Cruz. The bus is not tremendously packed, it is a bumpy ride and quite dusty. As we move along our route, we aren't exactly sure where we should be getting off. Not much is marked and we continue on believing that our final destination must be evident. All the sudden, we notice our Swedish amiga stand up and motion for the bus driver to pull over. She is signaling with her hand to her mouth. At that moment, we realize the bumpy road, the frequent turns and multiple stops has made our friend sick. The bus driver stops and lets her "release". I was fine with the trip until this moment. I think I was convincing myself that, I too, might not be able to handle the rugged road and driving.
We make it to Santa Cruz and to our relief, it is clearly marked as we arrive in a bus station. We get off the bus and get in line for the next leg of our trip. Off to Nicoya. We board the bus just fine and notice this leg is packed. Again, we assume our final destination will be clearly marked. It was and we arrived about 1 and 1/2 hrs later. Again, exiting at a bus station. This time, a line of people board the bus and head off. There are no attendants. As a matter of fact, Mandy and I are the only ones in the station. We see no schedules and have no one to ask. Finally, we see a piece of paper taped to an office window. Written says Carillo 7:30pm. Our final destination is not on the list. Because we have a been here before, we know that Carillo is right next to Samara. That's the bus we need! But it is not yet noon and we refuse to wait until 7:30pm for the bus. We walk down the street and ask a couple of cab drivers about the bus and if maybe we are to catch another company bus from Tamarindo. They tell us that this is the only bus station in town. Feeling defeated, we ask how much for a cab to Samara. $50 by cab. Bus would have been $3. We agree to take the taxi.
We get to Samara just before 10:00am and we are just happy to be there. It already feels like home because of the familiarity of being there before. Upon checking into our new place, we ask about the bus schedule. We find out that it runs right in front of the Tico Adventure Lodge that we are checking into every 45 minutes :(. What we were translating at the bus station is that the LAST bus to Carrillo not the NEXT one) is at 7:30pm. Just another reason to learn the language better. Dammit.
We settle into our place and decide to grab a bite to eat. Already, Samara feels more quaint and relaxing than Tamarindo. It isn't as bustling and we don't hear as much English spoken here. We end up at a Soda we discovered and loved before. Sodas are restaurants or even little stands that typically have local foods at cheaper prices. Here, we are served by a very kind woman who is tolerating our attempts to speak Spanish. She is helping us to finish our sentence by giving us the Spanish and English version of the word. She is also providing food and seasoning recommendations in case we are interested in eating like the locals. We take her up on it and have an amazing lunch. As we are ready to pay our bill, another woman walks into the Soda and starts talking to the woman who served us. They are talking in Spanglish. I walk out as there is little space in the kitchen where we are paying an it is already filled with people. Mandy stays to pay and engages in conversation with these ladies. After a couple of minutes, Mandy tells me that these two women are lesbians and they are sisters. She says that being gay here is not ok according to the older sister. Their father actually blames the other sister for the younger sister also being gay.
I don't know why I was so surprised by this because it is common in any culture with deep roots in Catholisism. Besides, I almost instantly knew that each of them were gay, especially the younger one. But, to blame someone for "making you gay"? I wonder what superpowers she must have had to done that. I was tempted to go back and tell her to tell her father that there must be something defective about his sperm. LOL! Instead, we walked off and sympathized with what she was going through.
Finally, we are in Samara and we are aware of the tradition at LazDivaz B&B at sunset. They welcome their guests with a beer to watch sunset on the beach around 5:15. Even though we are not staying there yet, we are going to say hello to the owner who we became friends with during our stay two years ago. We arrive and are greeted by Sara with open arms, "Hola Chicas!", accompanied with a big welcoming hug. We walk over together to view our first sunset in Playa Samara.
