Sunday, February 20th – Monkey business

After yesterday’s slight beach fail with the overwhelming surf competition, we decided to have a totally quiet, isolated, relaxing beach experience. It was pretty overcast, which we actually really dig because it means we aren’t constantly gulping down the sweat pouring down our faces, gross but all too familiar to us. We both zoned out and did some reading. Later we walked down the beach toward Tico’s Surf School, our new favorite spot. We stopped and chatted with Jessica, Kristen, Aryan and Max at the beach and informed them that tomorrow would be our last full day in Samara. We were suddenly shocked by how soon tomorrow seemed – funny how those things sneak up on you.

Jenny embraced her wannabee surfer girl and attempted to hit the waves for a little but the tide was super high and she washed up looking pretty bedraggled after about 10 minutes. Shortly after, super athletic Amanda was dragged ashore by a wave agreeing this was not our kind of surf day (and by our kind we mean people who suck). We stayed on solid ground and hung out with Christian and Sandro (the Ticos that took us to a bonfire at Carillo the week before…well Sandro is actually Nicaraguan). If any of you surf and don’t know what to do with your life we highly recommend heading to Samara and opening a surf school, it seems to be a pretty legit life choice. Christian who was set on being Kelly’s Tico boyfriend, attempted to woo her by asking “what can I do to conquer your heart” - which is only charming when a Tico says it, don’t try this at home American boys.

Jenny met 2 other struggling surfers, Georgia and Tonya, 2 girls traveling from Canada. They were doing a homestay with a local family and teaching English at a school nearby as volunteers with no TEFL certificate. We were kind of bummed we hadn’t met them earlier because the school was looking for additional volunteers and that was right up our alley. We also met a loudmouthed blonde woman from Ontario, well rather she was eavesdropping and gave her 2 cents on our conversation. She has a friend who teaches in Thailand with no TEFL certificate and in her opinion TEFL was simply a way of “separating you with your money.” We have heard so much back and forth about TEFL that we really don’t know what to make of it. In a nutshell we think that you can teach without a TEFL certificate, but that you may make more money teaching with one.

Max sold us on the idea of going on an expedition to find the sunset and said he would lead the way on a hike to a neighboring beach with an awesome view. The beach we live next to is in a cove so there is no view of the sunrise or sunset. We set off with Max, up the dirt road past La Verde Iguana (our grocery store). Eagle-Scout-Max turned out to be not quite so eagle scouty (no offense Charles Maxwell) and we got lost pretty much immediately. Even though we could tell it was getting dark and we were missing any kind of sunset view because of the mountains in front of us, we did get to see some awesome rainforest and....half a dozen HOWLER MONKEYS!! You hear these guys before you see them and they get their name for their serious set of lungs, they are loud!! Not really a noise we can explain but you should google it. We were so excited to see all these monkeys that we totally forgot we were on a failed sunset mission. On our walk back, after admitting total defeat since the sun was totally down, Christian drove by heading home from work and said he would take us to a nearby beach to see the sunset tomorrow so it turned out to be a win-win.

We seriously can’t believe tomorrow is our last full day in Samara. We are really sad to leave this place as it is such a wonderful community with great values and such kindhearted people. We are so happy to have started our travel experience with this. It put our hearts and heads in the right place for the rest of our trip.



Howler monkeys hanging out in the trees


Rainforest in Samara