Day 9 & 10: Samara beach, corn row microbraids, surfing, and reggae!

So today we arrived in Sámara, Costa Rica, a very cute little beach town on the Pacific coast. We checked into our hotel and went to the beach almost immediately to try surfing! Per suggestion of our driver, E, we went with Choco's surf company and had a blast. My mom got up on her first try! However, her dismounts weren't nearly so graceful.... Our surf instructor was named Cristhian, a rasta style guy with long dreads and dark complexion, and was good friends with E. After the lesson I continued surfing a bit. The waves were getting huge! They were probably 8-10 feet with tubes; way beyond my level! I was catching the white water afterwards, which was still 4-5 feet above my head. After awhile I was having  a hard time getting out against the force of the waves, and was having to duck under the waves because they were too large to go over. I decided that my surfing ability had been reached and decided to turn in. Christhian is a Reggae DJ and was deejaying that evening at a local club called Tabanucos, and him and E invited me to go.

E is one of the most interesting people I have met - he is young, has dreads, and has the most interesting life story. During some of his upbringing, he had to catch his food for the day. If he couldn't catch a fish to eat, then he might go without eating for the day, because they didn't have enough money to buy it. I think it really made him appreciate the little things in life. He only wants to improve himself as a person and help other people, and possibly has one of the biggest, purest hearts of anyone I have ever met. We got on the subject of dreads and how there is a lot of discrimination in Costa Rica against people with dreads. Many of the locals in Samara are of Jamaican descent, or come from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, and especially the surfers all have dreads. However, outside of the beach towns, it is very difficult to get a job in Costa Rica and people look upon you as drug dealers or dangerous if you have dreads. Most of the tourist companies make their employees shave them off prior to employing them. I would never have imagined that! Especially after meeting this group of guys here in Samara, they are all some of the most real, down to earth people. It is hard to imagine someone feeling threatened by them.

E came over around 4pm to microbraid my hair. It took 4 hours, yes FOUR HOURS to microbraid my hair. He didn't take any shortcuts! We started out on the beach watching the sun go down (okay, so the light go down, as the sun was behind us) while he worked on my hair for an hour, then moved over the Cristhian's place for the next 3 hours. Cristhian was  listening to his music and getting ready to deejay for the night. It was a nice vibe, and very relaxing to get to hang out with them. However, I'm having the worst time with Spanish here. You know how Jamaican's speak English with a heavy accent, right? Well, apply that to Spanish and you will understand my difficulties. After my microbraids and some cornrow design was done, we made plans to meet at the bar later (I needed to go back to the hotel and get ready, they had to get there to start deejaying).

I was ridiculously nervous going out to Reggae dance! It is just way out of my comfort zone... but I ended up having a great time! I just hung out with E most of the night - we made a nice connection - sipped on a Smirnoff, and eventually I worked up the courage to try dancing a bit. I think I got it a little bit, but only when I could dance with E as a partner. I can't solo dance! Let me follow and I'm much happier. E was a big confidence booster though, and I really had a great time. I kind of want to try it again now! It was pretty entertaining to watch the local guys making the circuit with the foreign girls, who were all getting progressively more wasted. People watching is quite fun, lol, especially when large amounts of alcohol is involved.

Before and After

The next day, Saturday, we went kayaking in the morning. This was NOT the same quality of tour as we had previously experienced. We miss Desafio! We were expecting a relaxing float down a gentle river getting to spot wildlife. What it turned into was a white water kayak trip without helmets (the one time we felt we really needed them!). One girl fell out and smacked her head right in the beginning. It was a pretty interesting experience... although we did get to pull over and see some monkeys just sleeping in the tree right next to the river!

The afternoon we went shopping a bit and relaxed for the most part. We took a nap, then enjoyed the most amazing dinner at a place right on the beach. My mom and I enjoyed our first ever legal mom-daughter cocktails together! On the way back to the hotel, we got to see some horses, some mares and their foals, just standing around around near the main street in town.