Samara to Alajuela

I'm writing this on board the plane home from Newark to London, so you'll have to forgive me if I miss any details, I'm exhausted! Can't seem to get to sleep, so thought I'd better do the last couple of days.

Yesterday morning we got our final fix of Samara (beach, pool and sunbathing) until checkout time, which was 11:00am.

The girl on reception reckoned you could get to Alajuela in about 3 hours, so we set off in high hopes of having a smooth journey and being able to do or see something interesting en route. I had my heart set on 'World of Snakes'. No prizes for guessing what they have there!

Sadly it was not to be. We must have had the worst luck ever because we kept getting stuck behind trucks that didn't have enough power to go uphill at any speed, which was a) very frustrating and b) added loads of time to our journey.

This plus the fact we'd left Samara so late meant that we were nearing all te potential interesting places just as they were closing at 4:00pm. As a result we were both in a pretty rubbish mood.

To make matters worse we had no idea which junction to take to get off highway 1 to get to Alajuela. We also had no real idea how to get to Hotel Coconut House, as both our maps were for the wrong part of Alajuela!

In the end we took a random exit, got pretty lost and stopped at a petrol station to get fuel and ask directions. Thankfully the attendant managed to direct us to places we recognised from walking around at the start of our trip and we were able to use various landmarks to find the hotel. We were so relieved to finally get there as we were both pretty sick of the inside of the car.

Really the only good thing about the journey was that we stopped for lunch at the cryptically named Restaurante El Toro #3 and were served fantasic casados by a very large Costa Rican lady. It was at the side of the road and save for a couple of truckers we were their sole clients. The food was great though and the little black dog was very friendly. I did feel a little sorry for the chckens running around the place oblivious to the fact the they might soon end up on a plate.

We almost had an accident when I saw a sign for a dinosaur park. I was trying to read it to work out what on earth it might be and momentarily took my eyes off the road. Amber had been looking at the map, so it was really lucky she noticed the van in front braking in time for me to properu test the brakes on the Terios.

Cars are definitely more dangerous than scorpions.

That night we went in search of Costa Rica's famous Cafe Britt coffee to bring back to the UK. Both small supermarkets we tried didn't have it so we ended up driving to Maxi Bodega who did. From there we drove into Alajuela for dinner.

I finally braved cow tongue in tomato
sauce, which I'd seen on several menus I'm various restaurants this trip. It was really tasty once you stopped thinking about the fact you're tonguing a cow.

After dinner we took a stroll and sat in the park in front of the cathedral to reflect on our uneventful day. If we'd known the timing would be all off we'd eiter have srated at Samara longer or left earlier to be at one of the places of interest before it closed. Bad planning, but hey, it happens. We resolved that in the morning we would try to go to see Volcan Poas before driving to the airport to make up for it and end the trip on a high note.

Little did we know...



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