Samara

Today we got up early and left the mountains for the beach town of Samara.  The first 20 km or so of roads were bad again. It got drier and drier as we went down. And hotter and hotter. Finally we hit pavement, never been so excited for blacktop in my life.  Though once you're on real roads, there are lots of sneaky speed bumps that hide in the shadows and surprise you.  Most of them have a warning sign and are painted a different color than the road, but not all (we learned that the hard way).  The paved section of the road down was crazy twisty and turny, and I think Steve was pretending to be a racecar driver. It was a bit hard on my nerves.

In Samara, we'd booked a room at Entre Dos Aguas, which is about 2-3 blocks to the beach.  Holy guacamole batman, his place is spectacular. We're on the top floor, with a private balcony and hammock.  There's no AC but there are lots of cats who love to hang around. This is the first time I've seen a cat begging for food like a dog. I tried to tell it that begging was beneath it, but it didn't understand, I think.  There's a nice common, open air lobby at the hotel, and maybe 6-8 rooms total, and a small pool.  There's also a common use kitchen, though the suite has a kitchen too.  We are here for 5 nights, and have absolutely nothing planned.

It was blazing hot in the heat of the day, so we went to find lunch with shady seating.  Then we stopped at grocery store and fruit stand for breakfast parts and snacks. The pineapple and avocados here are incredible. Nothing at all like what we get at home. Our plan was to make breakfast and lunch ourselves, then eat out for dinner.  It worked great.  This cost about $36, and was enough for the whole week (though we did have to get another pineapple and 6 more avocados):

Samara is a gorgeous beach town, just rustic and low-key enough to be feel like you're not in a city, several great restaurants, and not a crazy busy town.  We picked it because it is supposed to be a good place to learn to surf, which was one of Steve's goals for the trip.

The bay open to the south here, so this section of beach is to the west, and has lots of rocky tidepools that we explored in the evening and mornings.

Horseback ride on the beach?  This one had a cute tag-along.

Small crab coming out to sift through for sand.