Curing Homesickness, The Final Frontier

Journal Entry
April 2, 2006
Playa Samara, Costa Rica

We took off this morning for the nearby beach of Puerto Carillo, not on the 8am bus as originally planned mind you, but we made it none the less. See, we went out for some drinks last night and for the first time in a while I had a pretty healthy buzz going...needless to say I was feeling it this morning. So, we grabbed the 10am bus insead. Playa Carillo is just about 15-20 minutes away by bus, very close and clearly a popular weekend destination for locals, much like here in Samara. It's still ess crowed and mas traquillo though and it's always nice to switch things up a bit. The sand is darker and the waves break differently. They seem to be nonexistant and then, as if out of nowhere, once very close to shore, the water suddenly swells and, almost as quickly, the top turns over and breaks down fast and furious. From the beach it seems like a much calmer break but get caught in it at just the right time and you'll swallowing a lot of water, trying not to lose your suit and having to just give into the power of the wave until you can get your feet under you. Sounds fierce, but really, for the most part, the waves are actually quite gentle. There is a slight rip tide but only with the bigger waves. In fact, at first dip I was surprised that the tide was not a lot stronger.


playa carillo

It's a beautiful beach and after my romp in the waves I was more than happy to bask in the sunshine and read my "Indian Luck Book" that I picked up at the anrchist book store in Frisco. the book is really very interesting, covering every aspect of your life and how you can use things like gemology, astrology and palmistry (reading your palm) to help improve your luck in each of those aspects or avoide conflict all the same. After months of carrying around this book, I finally pulled it out yesterday and started giving it a thorough read. I'm glad I did, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly because the day before I did, the small book exchange, at one of the internet places here, left me no choice but to read a romance novel. Luckily, a Harlequin with Fabio on the cover it was not, but a romance novel none the less. I finished it the same day I started it...oh the things we do in order to cope with homesickness. Which brings me to the second reason I'm glad I opened that book. Maybe it was going out for drinks last night, even though we didn' meet anyone, but I think it was partly due to the luck book...I'm feeling better today. I'm still very much looking forward to getting home, but the sense of longing fo April 19th to arrive isn't really present anymore and I'm glad for that.


i can't get enough of the beautiful patterns the crabs leave on the beach as they run around

As we left Playa Carillo today, the beach crabs were out in full swing. I just love the sand patterns they leave behind as they crawl around on the sand from one hole to the next. It really is a thing of beauty. I had a great time watching as they scurried into holes upon our approach. I think they must be able to feel vibrations in the land as people approach. Even from 10-15 feet away they can clearly sense you coming and quickly run to the safety of the nearest hole. It makes it damn hard to get a picture but I still managed to get a couple thanks to my digital zoom, and some lucky timing when one crab strayed too far from any available holes and had to play the freeze game instead. Now, whether a hole is available is actually very pertinent. Upon cintinued observation, we discovered that crabs DO NOT like to share when it comes to their holes. As one crab, we'll call him Julio, grew scared of our approach and scurried frantically into the unavailable hole of another crab, we'll call him Miguel. We stood and watched as Miguel went on the attack and quickly made it clear that Julio was not welcome. Miguesl fiercely defended his dwelling, snapping his tiny little claws and lunging at Julio until he was made very much aware of just how unwelcome he was. Julio was still more concerned with our rather large, ominous presence, whereas Miguel I guess figured some things were more important, like defending his hole. In fact, Miguel stood outside his hole for a while, watching us watch him, before retreating back inside for safety. Not one to miss out on opportunity when he sees it Julio took off quickly as we watched Miguel.


miguel defending his home

We waited in the hot sun for about 25 minutes before our bus arrived and we were headed back to Samara. A little lunch, some internet and I took advantage of the free laundry services here before we went and bought our tickets to Mal Pais. We went with the more expensive (and far easier) option of the private shuttle, as this stretch seems to be the most difficult to navigate, and complete, by public bus.

So, as I write now, we are cleaning out what's left of our collective food in the fridge to make dinner and taking it easy tonight before our leisurly departure time of 1:30pm tomorrow. A little last minute gif shopping, one more dip in Playa Samara's oceanfront and another destination will be checked off the list and left, possibly for another time somewhere in the future.