Our Costa Rican Road Trip- Episode 8 begins with our final massive buffett at the JW Marriott Guanacaste. We got out of the hotel around 11am and began our drive down highway 160, which is never easy to stay on. We missed the turn going south as the road was not paved and the road from the hotel to Playa Negro was a normal fast moving road. After turning around and getting on track, we immediately found out about the roads in Costa Rica, with a minefield of potholes scattered thouroughly through the road for miles. The scenery was awesome though, green lush hillsides, cows, and the occasional ocean view. For the next hour and a half we troded through the countryside crossing 4 main rivers- two with bridges and 2 without. we began to think this was going to be the worst of the river crossings.
We made a pitstop in Playa Ostional which is a large turtle refuge for nesting. We explored the beach for a little while, noticing the hatched turtle shells all around and the vast expanse of this long and desolate beach. We proceeded on our way to Nosara only 9km away, but taking us another 45 minutes to work through the construction and poorly labeled roads. We had thought we had missed Nosara all together, when we made a turn to the ocean to just check things out. Through a rag tag bunch of hippie hostels and random stores and restaurants we ended up on Playa Guilones. With a little ceviche stand and some other sketchy characters, Doreen stood watch by the car, while I grabbed an hour of some nice waves. The kids played on the beach and watched as the surf school directed their students in the nicely breaking waves.
The sketchy vibe made Doreen anxious and we were soon on our way to Samara. Google maps shows highway 160 going all the way into Samara with a river crossing near the tiny regional airport. After another couple of hours we reached a massive road block, the river was flowing heavily and the little Suzuki SUV was going to be no match for the 2-3 foot depths across a hundred meters of current.
Completely frustrated and at a loss, we backtracked to a turn off that looked to take us inland, following many large construction trucks we ended up at the main gas station in Samara around 5pm. For fear that we would have more detours ahead, we decided reluctantly to head inland to Nicoya a large city that the peninsula is named after to work our way past any impending river crossings. The drive was beautiful although adding another 2 hours to our journey, arriving at Hotel Punta Islita after dark.
We were warmly welcomed to the hotel by the manager and were given a refreshing smoothie while we finalized arrangements for checkin. We were guided to our room, that was a bit musky, but suitable for our needs for the next few days. We snacked on some of our provisions, showered and decided to make it an early night. What would we see the next day? Join us for the next episode!