After Cano Negro, my friend and I actually ended up in our Costa Rican paradise. Somehow we picked Sámara from the endless list of beach locations in Costa Rica and it was exactly what we needed.

After freezing in New York City, being chilly in Santa Elena and being rained on in La Fortuna, Sámara offered us something different back and we were there for it.

Hostel Tip in 2010: Casa Brian

The first thing it offered us was our home away from home, Casa Brian. The Canadian owner who has lived in Sámara for years was great company in the mornings for breakfast and whenever we were hanging out in the lounge area. Even though the hostel was quite empty, the people that were there were incredibly friendly and fun. There were a few regulars such as a father and son who spend a month every year at Casa Brian. The hostel is reachable by walking 60m over the beach from town. That was the only downside, because this meant that at night we had to walk over a completely dark and deserted beach by ourselves.

Town Centre

Luckily, Sámara offered us kind people, because we never had to actually walk alone because we found so many people to walk us home at night. What Sámara has in addition to a great beach is a great community. There are a few tourists who stay for a longer time (mainly Americans) and some Ticos. This town is still so unspoilt by tourism! The next beach town we explored is the polar opposite of Sámara, a town I’ll never write a blog post about and that Jacó. Whatever you do, skip that town. It has exploded from tourism and everything about it feels dirty and cheap.

Beach

Our main hangout was the beach during the day. We took surfing classes 5 hours for 30 euros. However, we only managed to use 2 hours because of the lack of wind and waves. This was my first time “surfing” and I’m proud to say that I even managed to stand up on the board once or twice (even though I didn’t manage to jump on the board when we were on the sand).

We also visited the neighbouring Playa Carrillo by foot one day.

In the evenings we would go out. We would have dinner and enjoy one of the many parties on the island. When I say parties I don’t mean crazy nights out. There’s a lot of dancing, but not a lot of people which made it ideal in my eyes. I have nothing bad to say about Sámara. This does not mean that I want everyone to visit. It’s perfect the way it is now. No need for more tourists, so read this and then forget all about it.

And did I mention the sunset yet…? Most beautiful sunset ever! (Just look at the colors and ignore the bad picture quality)

Conclusion

We had planned to stay in Sámara for one or two days and ended up staying almost a week. We didn’t want to move on to explore the rest of the peninsula because we felt that we had found in Sámara what we were looking for in the region. This doesn’t mean that in the future I wouldn’t want to explore the region, but for the trip in 2010 Sámara was enough.