The Beach
Samara, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
This is part 3 of a 4 part report of tripping in Costa Rica. In our month in Costa Rica we tripped in the Jungle, the beach, a volcanic thermal hot spring and the cloud forest. We hope you enjoy our reports.
Our third stop in Costa Rica was the Guanacaste province, in the northwest coast of Costa Rica. While we stayed in a few towns, including the very touristy Tamarindo, our favorite stop was Samara.
Samara, like many of the larger beach towns is almost entirely dedicated to tourism. Rather than singing the praises of Samara as a vacation destination, just read what others have written here or here.
But a short description is Samara is a small town, with well populated, yet not over crowded beaches. The town consists of a main street leading to the beach with a few minor streets off of it. The beach has solid surfing, and the entire beach is lined with bars and restaurants. There are no major hotels or resorts near the downtown, and vibe is low key. The town is also less expensive than some other beaches, with rooms as cheap as $20. Getting there isn't easy, which keeps it as a destination for more motivated travelers.
After staying in the post Tabacon resort, we were back to an Airbnb. Unlike our adventures on the Osa Peninsula, where we had sprayling grounds and a very large home to ourselves, here we would be in a upscale townhouse, that hosted four separate units. Fortunately for us, there were never more than one other family sharing the space during our visit.
Merry Christmas. We decided to take our trip starting just after dawn on Christmas day. Many restaurants would be closed, so we hoped the beach would be relatively uncrowded.
We woke at dawn, and quickly prepared some fruit and snacks to enjoy during day. After a shower we took our 125 microgram doses and walked down to the beach. As hoped, the town was deserted and the beach was absolutely empty.
The weather had been hot all week, and the forecast for the day was over 100 degrees. But the morning was cool, and we found a shaded area under some trees to start our trip.
As usual, we were quiet, waiting for the experience to start. After around 25 minutes we noticed the first onset. The world came into sharp focus, and our attention was directed to small area of our field of vision: watching a bird fly by, observing the motion of a palm fawn and watching the mist off of the surf.
Eeek! It's the Police! Two police men strolled by with an American woman who apparently had lost something on the beach the day before. They were looking along a stretch of beach that a few hours earlier would have been under several feet of ocean, so without doubt the local police were humoring the woman. The appearance of law enforcement in Costa Rica did not concern us. Costa Rica has complex, but very liberal policies toward personal drug use, essentially decriminalizing it. We had been told by a senior member of a Costa Rican law enforcement agency that there was absolutely no risk in being arrested as a tourist for drug use unless one is being overtly disruptive. Even if one is found with a small amount of drugs in Costa Rica (and not involved in any sale or manufacturing), as a tourist the drugs would be confiscated, but you would not be detained or likely even scolded.
As the trip started to hit in full, minor hallucinations began. The trees swayed rhythmically, dancing to the soft music coming from our phone. The sand breathed with life, pulsating slowly. Unnatural wisps of mist and foam rolled off the sea beautifully. We enjoyed our visuals for several hours on the deserted sand.
Despite the natural beauty, the sun was now well above the horizon and it was quickly becoming very hot, well over 90 degrees at 11 a.m. We decided to head back to our apartment, hoping the family sharing the space was either locked away with their adorable small child, or off seeing the sites.
But first, the challenging eight-minute walk back home. Well, it was an eight-minute walk down to the beach, and now a 15-minute careful walk back home. We wish we could see a video of this stroll, during which we made every effort to look casual, but may have looked like marionette puppets, picking every step carefully. As far as we could tell there were no other people on the entire street to observe this mini parade of foolishness.
Back at the Airbnb, the pool looked amazing, and we began to relax with our feet in the water. The stone pattern and reflections of sky and trees around us were beautiful and fascinating.
Our neighbors were not home, so we turned on some music and enjoyed the courtyard that we had to ourselves.
Soon the intense psychedlic phase was in full swing, with intense colors filling the outdoor area with life. Small monkeys were in the trees working on freeing the coconuts. TIny birds may have been visiting, or they may have been a halucination. I have no idea.
When visiting the restroom and tropical painting floating around the wall, with the clouds in it swirlling across the paining. We spent the next hour just laughing and enjoying each other's company.
Then it was time for a snack. The local grocery store had some limited options, but on a whim I had purchased a bag of spicy peanuts and a few pouches of drink mixes - lemonade, ice tea, lime and mango flavored. I dispensed the drink mixes on several plates and put the spicy peanuts in a bowl. I also pulled out the pineapple, watermelon, pear and apples we had purchased. And began to eat them all.
Dabbing the pineapple and watermellon in the drink mix produced strong and wonderful flavors, and left an amazing color pattern on the plate as the fruits' juice mingled with the drink mix. The spicy peanuts had an intense hot and salty flavor, which we enjoyed one nut at a time.
We drank more of our spicy tequila on ice, and then blended some pineapple and watermelon with ice and added the tequila to that, for an outstanding cocktail.
In my graduate schooldays I enjoyed smoking cigars, but hadn't had one in years. However, I had thought on past trips that a rich earthy tobacco would be nice, so I purchased a fake Cuban cigar (probably from Nicaragua) the day before and lit it up. As an aside, there were no go tobacco stores in town, so the only cigars available were the fake Cuban cigars, with jacked up prices. Near Jaco Beach there was a quality store, selling excellent Nicaraguan cigars for $3 and legit Cubans for around $18, I regretted not having purchased these... Nonetheless, the cigar was of average quality, but tasted very good on LSD. The very high humidity lead to a slow burn, and both Alexis and I shared the smoke on the patio.
With the peak of our experience a good hour past, and the heat of the day well over 100, we headed inside. We decide a quick romp might be in order and enjoyed some entertaining, if downright hilarious sex. There's no doubt I could write a book about the hot sex I've had on MDMA. I could at least fill a magazine with the hilarious, awkward and downright odd sex I've had on LSD. It's something I always enjoy, and almost always do on an acid trip, and I typically find the women I am around to be very attractive on LSD, especially finding the female shape to be exciting.
I also think I look weird, blotchy, sunken chested and generally unattractive while on LSD. And my coordination and intellect isn't at its best. If you remember Gunter with his hat on his butt, that's pretty much my self-image trying to figure out sex on LSD. I know something goes something, and I have a vague awareness that I have at least some competency in doing it sober. But it all seems like a bit of a funny and mysterious activity while tripping. Alexis compliments the oddity of the entire experience by occasionally bursting out in laughter or by making endearing confused expressions.
Around 5 p.m. we were feeling pretty much back to normal, but very refreshed and emotionally upbeat. We had reservations for Christmas dinner on the beach. We headed down to enjoy our final unwinding and to enjoy the amazing sunset.
We hope you have enjoyed this story. As discussed in our "About" section, each of these stories are fictional stories we have created or have been told to us. We always comply with the laws and customs in each country we visit, and we encourage all others to do so as well.