Samara, Samara, we love you, Samara

Samara's sweeping bay is jaw-droppingly beautiful, at least if your expectations were more along the lines of Southend seafront but with palm trees that were still alive. The huge cove, curled in at the edges by forested promontories, seems to be the very best a 'commercial beach' (donkeys rather than horses trot up and down, but it's essentially Blackpool in spirit) can offer. Compared to other former beauty spots (see Unawatuna in Sri Lanka) Samara beach has been saved by the tendency (either through inclination or legislation, I don't know which) of the bars to hide in the shrubbery like a kinkajou. You need a guide just to find some fries. 

Playa Samara is about halfway down Costa Rica's Peninsula Nicoya, a land of beaches, waterfalls and iguanas, named after a dull, dusty and businesslike town somewhere vaguely near its inland edge, a bit like renaming the New Forest "Basingstokeland". We had selected it as a suitable place for NYE and - having narrowly escaped trying to find some fun in Liberia - immediately decided this had been a good decision. The town (not much more than a road) buzzed with a good natured excitement. 

A great trick Samara pulls off is hiding its huge transient population when they're not on the beach. It's really not obvious where all these people go. Perhaps they turn into parrots and fly off somewhere to roost. Dusk comes, and the humans pack their cooler boxes and slowly disappear. Except, of course, when it is New Year's Eve. 

We had arrived from Liberia, via the exciting hub of Nicoya, on a public bus at about mid afternoon the day before NYE. The heat was intense, and we were relieved that the bus had dropped us reasonably close to our lodgings. We'd booked rooms at Casa Amarillo, the extremely well-named Yellow House, at the top of Samara's uphill Main Street. This charming (if - in direct sunshine - a little intensely coloured) little oasis of calm, with its lemon walls and flowery garden around a plunge pool, was a real find. The room was clean and spacious, the fan strong and the smell of cabbage completely absent. It wasn't hard to impress us after Liberia, but it was certainly a good choice. It was run by an Austrian expat and his Tico wife, ably assisted by their two dogs, Teddy and Oso (bear). Oso was the most timorous beastie I'd ever seen: I let Michelle do the petting, as she has a way with dogs. I think Oso would have burst into tiny canine tears if I'd gone anywhere near him. Teddy, who I took to be a miniture schnauzer, was a bit more robust, with sturdy legs like a footstool. Neither of them could do anything about the other animal residents of the Casa - the hot tiles of the roof were a perfect environment for some very large iguanas who spent most of the day scrabbling around noisily or sunbathing above us. 

We wandered down to the beach at the first opportunity, as it is  - despite the town's laidback charms - the most interesting thing by far. About 50% of the shops on Via Arriba,  the main road, cater for beach goers - hats, towels, bikinis, plastic surboards, rubber sharks (possibly), sunglasses and, oddly, the word's greatest slection of Chinese-made rucksacks festooned store after store. The remaining portion of commercial premises were a motly mix of restaurants (a strong showing for vegetarianism, I was relieved to note), antique stores, tour operators, yoga centres and two ATM machines each with a permanent knot of hot people around them, a bit like an entourage but with actual heat. As far as we know, the towel sellers continue to stay towel sellers all day, but we did manage to fall foul of some peculiar local customs. Some establishments, such as Coffee Haus on Arriba, change their MO at an appointed hour - you might want pancakes, but you're getting guacamole (if you're lucky) - while one of the beach restaurants appeared to offer a different menu depending on which side of a fallen tree you'd decided to sit. Always check the menu before getting too comfy - it might not be what you were expecting.

Avocados were off the menu. This gecko was optional. 

Something else to check in advance is whether the meal you've spotted on the menu, and really, really want, is actually on offer. Somehow, we arrived in during the Great Nicoya Avocado Drought of 2015/16. In each establishment we were told how the town had run dry of alligator pears and there was no word on when they'd next be joining us for lunch. This meant our trip to the highly esteemed vegan outlet Luv Burger went from "yay, avocado on toast!" to "oh, vegan wholemeal pancakes" with alarming speed (tag: middle class problems). The pancakes were overpriced and underwhelming. One restaurant's waitress felt the need to inform me of the lack of avocado when I'd ordered a Greek salad. I said, "that's OK, it's not supposed to have any," and she looked at me as if I'd just asked for extra snakes with it. She might have been on autopilot, or maybe the economic problems in Greece have changed their salads. The salad arrived as nature intended, but I now couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed by the lack of avocado I had never expected.
New Year's Eve came. Being recently arrived, we hadn't made any special arrangements and most beach establishments had filled up with reservations. We snuck a drink in a bar, promising to vacate a table before its booked owners arrived (in three hours) to celebrate UK New Year, then slunk further up the hill for a decent Mexican at Coco's. As the hour crept closer we crept closer to the beach again, finding it thronged with people from the treeline all the way into the sea, where some adventurous souls were setting fireworks on exposed sandbanks. Samara's fireworks - stunning and exciting as they were - managed only a tenuous link to the celebrations. At about 11:30, for instance, the most sustained period of multi-coloured explosions rocked the beach, lighting up the crowd like flares (and giving people a chance to look for lost change in the sand) and shattering eardrums along the whole stretch of sand. This crescendo was matched at midnight itself by a small roman candle going 'pop' and a frightened bat making a well timed bid for freedom. We had to check the time - 12 had come and gone in near silence. Samaran firework launchers have a sad case of premature ignition, though they did keep up a sporadic volley of shots out to sea for some time afterwards, as if shelling an imaginary invasion fleet. It must have cost a fortune.

The half-hour before the New Year was marked in style. 

Samara beach is an ideal party spot, as the same venue for the party then turns into the best place to recover. Indeed, some people the following morning appeared to have combined these two functions without a break, though Michelle and I gave ourselves the luxury of a few hours sleep back at the Casa. About the only think I can't recommened, amongst the lush jungle backdrop, the swimming dogs and the body temperature water, is the iced drinks from the little carts that ply their trade along the sandy stretch. If the 20 minute preparation time (there's a lot of ice shaving) doesn't put you off, perhaps the strange flavour, the dollup of bicarbonate of soda that never quite gets properly mixed in, and the insistence of balancing a winegum, a marshmallow and a wafer on top of a melting heap of ice (which, of course, immediately fall off) might. It's an experience, I suppose, but if you're genuinely thirsty you might want to just ask for the ice on its own. 

After a few days baking in Samara's toasty climate, it was time to head for the hills. Michelle had been in roasting heat for five weeks, and it was time for some cool mountain air. We snagged some Interbus tickets for $50 (everything tourist related in Samara appears to be $50) each, and zoomed off into the clouds.