San Jose to Samara

It was a pretty quiet bus ride to Samara. We wanted to stop to use rest rooms and to get something to eat, but because it was a Sunday morning at 6ish, we couldn’t find anything open until we got to Puntarenas. We stopped at a soda which is usually an open air kind of diner which serves Casado a typical Tico dish of rice and beans called Gallo Pinto, a salad, a protein, and some plantains. Some got the rice and beans and a few got the empanadas. An interesting factoid about Puntarenas. About two weeks ago a possibly drunk man jumped from a bridge, some reports called it a suicide. However the height wasn’t enough to kill him. It was the crocodiles. The river he jumped in is notorious for its croc population. Many people witnessed the crocs getting him, and a woman a few days later happened upon his head, washed ashore.

After about five hours total, we arrived in Samara where the hard part begins. First we had to drop off the shoes. We dig through the mound of luggage on the back seat to find the luggage while the drivers goes to the top of the bus where we had stored the boxes. It’s 90 degrees with probably 90 degrees of humidity, so those of moving the luggage/boxes are already drenched in sweat. It actually goes rather smoothly.

There are no street names or addresses in Samara. When I had to wire money to the school, my bank demanded an address; I had to write in “50 meters west of the church”. Last year a girl with the school who was doing an internship, created a map of all the tica moms homes. I asked Lindsay, our group coordinator to send it to me. However, it still wasn’t an exact type of document. So we are in a large bus driving these narrow, pot holed dirt/mud roads trying to get these kids to their homes. The students have an outright look of fear from the confusion, the newness, the awkwardness of being dropped off on their own into the waiting homes of these strangers who do not speak the same language. After some confusion we get everyone to where they are supposed to be and I get dropped off where Peter, an Austrian friend of Wolfgang and Maria Fernanda, my landlords who are vacationing in Cuba this week, is waiting for me with the keys. I shower, unpack, put on a swim suit (that’s all I brought), and head to the beach. I swim. 80 degree water, bright blue sky with white mountainous clouds at the horizon. After I walk down the beach, see Choco, the local surf guy and talk for a bit, I head to Vela Latina for a cold (almost frozen) Imperial. It is a ritual I do when I arrive. It makes the journey all worth it.