Samara – Beaches on the Pacific Coast & More

Road to Samara

How about a coffee with a view? Well, maybe 15 minutes from Monteverde, we found the perfect spot and stopped at the Soda Mirador Don Lelo, offering spectacular views over the mountains, the valley down below, and as the “duena” explained, 5 volcanoes, including one at the boarder to Honduras. What a lovely place to get a good coffee with a view! The road then turned easier as the kilometers passed, with less holes and turns, but… more trucks! We had hardly seen any over the last 3 days around Monteverde: trucks are everywhere in Costa Rica, and quite a pain on those small mountain roads.

The rainy season is starting

As we passed mid-August, we notice a significant increase in rain downpours. Now every afternoon at around 4:00 pm, rain starts and can be really heavy. It seems that from mid-August on, you really enter the rainy season. We wondered what impact it would have on our activities and if we would be able to do anything in the afternoon and in the evening…

First impressions of Samara

Samara has the same laidback flair as Puerto Viejo de Salamanca at first sight, though significantly smaller. This is less high-end than other destinations in Costa Rica, though prices (especially accommodation) are high. As we entered the rainy season, the number of tourists was decreasing rapidly. We noticed that on Friday night, groups of younger people were dressed up for a night out. We had not noticed such party crowds anywhere else in Costa Rica… The city center is tiny but pleasant to stroll aimlessly, with a few shops and some restaurants. We noticed that parts of the city is quite run-down, especially near the beach: probably the older accommodations and restaurants no longer suit the new visitors, more high-end, and simply were abandoned?

Samara – Playas

There are quite a few beautiful beaches around Samara, so if this is what you came here for, you are in for a treat!

Playa Samara – We started there, a long stretch of dark sand bordered with palms trees. Only few buildings can be seen, though if you look carefully, there are buildings all along the beach, hidden in the vegetation. Apart from 2-3 exception (like the Beach Restaurant Gusto), it seems that restaurants and accommodation along the beach are rather rundown and very simple. There are lots of surfers (beginners) on Playa Samara, and comparatively little current, making it a nice beach to enjoy with kids.

Playa Carrillo – A few kilometers away from Samara, this very long beach featuring dark sand and bordered with palm trees is almost void of people. It seems a great place to be, though there is very little shade on the beach, and close to zero infrastructure (restaurants, bars, markets, …). But we had a very pleasant stroll along the beach with the kids on a cloudy day.

Playa Islita – On the way to Playa Corozalito, this beach is very difficult to reach, not so nice but extremely secluded, if this is what you are looking for.

Turtle Watching at Playa Corozalito

Fellow travelers raved from the turtle watching experience in Samara / Playa Corozalito and gave us the name of the owner of the Corozalito Turtle Lodge, Randall. We finally found his WhatsApp (+506 8319 5999), contacted him, and went on a tour with him. And that was a GREAT experience, much better than at the Tortuguero (and much cheaper at that)! It is better because there are far less people, there is far less fuss around it (though everything is done not to disturb the turtles) and you can see the “whole process”: waiting for a turtle to arrive at the beach (at some point we felt we would not see any), watching the turtle going up the beach (remaining in complete darkness, completely still), preparing the nest for laying the eggs, laying the eggs and then going back to the sea. We appreciated the large efforts made not to disturb the turtle, with teams checking that all the rules are indeed enforced. Randall gave is lots of explanations on turtles and nesting on Costa Rican beaches (note that he only speaks Spanish). It was a great evening!

The road to Playa Corozalito (only 25 km from Samara) is quite a challenge though! 17 of the 25 km is done on a VERY bumpy dust road and takes about one our (and it shakes heavily). This road is clearly undoable without a 4WD. On the way back, we saw in the lights of the car an anteater, a very rare encounter. The last pleasant, completely unexpected occurrence was our diner at Aromas near Playa Corozalito. It was by far the best dinner we had in Costa Rica, and one of the best octopus I ever experienced: who would expect such a gourmet venue in such a remote place?

Whale Watching

We wanted to enhance our chances to see whales (this is humpback whale season), so we went also on a tour from Samara (we had planned one in Uvita already). The tour we took was about dolphins + whales + turtles + snorkeling (though they immediately were clear that snorkeling in that season is a waste of time, as the ocean is too rough and visibility very poor, due to the rain). It was really easy to book a last-minute tour in Samara, that lasted 3 hours, including 30 minutes swim from the boat (and jump from the toboggan on the boat). We saw one humpback whale with its baby + dolphins + 2 turtles, a nice first whale watching experience, of course not at the level of what I had experienced 18 years back at Peninsula Valdez in Argentina.