Day 38 - Hotel Giada, Samara

The hotel had breakfast included and it wasn’t substantial, but it was very good. Loads of fruit, which is a healthy option for us, particularly as our diet hasn’t been too good on this trip. we tend to only eat twice a day, breakfast and then an early dinner. I get too tired if I eat lunch and then have to ride in the afternoon again and it makes the riding much tougher if I have to fight to stay awake. It was the same on the Africa trip, we never ate lunch, which not only helps with staying alert in the afternoon, because we were hungry, but also means that we would have more money for beer. So, with our bellies taken care of, the morning ablutions done, the bikes loaded, we pulled out of Samara and headed for Santa Teresa. Jorik’s connection had messaged to say that the coast road to Santa Teresa was a bit hairy and that there is a substantial river crossing that has to be negotiated at low tide. The river in question was located about an hour outside of Santa Teresa and should be taken seriously. We checked, and low tide should be around 3pm. We had about 50 miles to travel for the day, not particularly far, but travelling in Costa Rica had been slow going due to the roads, and it had been raining and we knew that the roads would be challenging, so we had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the river crossing, which should be around 2 hours from Samara. As we left Samara, which had been a good stop, we rode past a beach called Playa Carrillo, which was absolutely gorgeous. The best beach we have seen this whole trip by far and there was hardly anyone there. We had to stop and get some drone footage and take some pictures. It is a shame we hadn’t know about this beach before as it was only about 5minutes from Samara and it was straight out of a movie, just magnificent. We had time to spare so why not check it out, and I am so pleased we did. I hope it comes through in the video clips, just how spectacular this beach is. The terrain we had to ride was very challenging as hardly any of the roads we were travelling on were properly surfaced and we had some seriously steep inclines to deal with, both uphill and downhill and when the surface is slippery and loose, that is a proper challenge on the bikes. About 2 hours into the ride, and as expected, we came around a bend to find a pretty substantial river in front of us and immediately stopped to check out our options. It was way too wide and looked pretty deep to wade into with a stick and we were contemplating our options and which route to take when a pickup truck came from the opposite side and drove straight through the river, but over to a side that we hadn’t even looked at yet. That was enough for me, so I jumped on my bike and took pretty much the same route as the pickup truck had taken, just in the opposite direction. I got through with no issues and then set up to film Jorik coming through next. Whilst waiting for him to turn his bike around and get lined up, I noticed a sign on the riverbank that said “Expert Crossing Rivers – How to cross rivers, ask me tour guide Erickson Diaz” with his phone number. Well, I had crossed the river with no problems and Jorik then proceeded to cross without a hitch. As such, we stuck an Enfields Overland sticker on his sign, as we are also expert river crossing tour guides now. We did a little video as we were super chuffed with ourselves for having taken on the mighty river that we had been warned about although I didn’t think that there would have been an issue if it was high or low tide as we were not that close to the coast. As we were getting back on the bikes, a chap pulled up in his Jeep and asked if we had any advice for him for the crossing. I think he said he was from Columbia, and we let him know which route we had taken. He thanked us, but then warned us that there were still 2 more crossing, the first of which would be a short distance, but the second one, our third for the day, would be much more challenging. He mentioned that the depth of the larger river came up to the bottom of his doors, so quite some depth and that we should mind how we go. Bugger, we had gotten all excited about the crossing we had just done, only to find out that this was actually the easiest crossing and that we still had 2 more to go. With his warning freshly in our minds, we pressed on and sure enough, not far down the road, we came around a bend and were faced with a relatively short crossing, but quite fast-flowing water. We should probably have clocked that fast-flowing water means that it is probably quite deep, but we didn’t even get off the bikes to check, we just went for it. Both of us got absolutely drenched. In fact, the video footage will show that the water from riding into the river actually came over my windscreen. That was not how deep it was, but the wash from the bike pushing the water as it entered the river came flying over and drenched my gloves and jacket, not to mention that my boots and trousers were soaked through. The hot engine was hissing, and steam was coming off from everywhere, so we quickly decided to keep pushing rather than to let the bikes cool down. It wasn’t much further when we passed a sign that said that we were entering a dead end and that if we wanted to get any further, we were to take an alternative route. Screw that, we had come this far and were already wet, so we may as well see what all the fuss was about. A few meters further and we encountered the river. It was a big river, certainly wider than I was expecting and it did look pretty challenging. We pulled the bikes up and whilst Jorik walked down the river a bit to see if there was a better location to cross, I decided that I was going to walk into the river to feel for the best location, particularly as the entire riverbed was rocky and not nice and sandy with a smooth surface to ride across. I stripped off my wet gear, down to my undies and waded into the river. Jorik thought this was hilarious, but I wanted to be sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into so why not take the extra time to double check. Whilst I was a little more than halfway across the river, precariously balanced in the river, in my undies, a dude came bombing through on his smaller motorbike wearing a pair of wellies, and didn’t even hesitate, he just smashed straight through the river right next to me. When he made it across, he stopped and said to me “you can do it!”. He must have thought I was a crazy gringo walking through the river in my scants. This was even funnier to Jorik, and he quickly got himself lined up and took the same route as the other chap and was a cross in no time at all. I had to get dressed into my wet riding gear again, whilst being wet myself, and then cross over, which to be fair, wasn’t as challenging as the other crossings, and the 2nd was by far the deepest. We were chuffed to bits that we had taken on the challenge and that the girls had done so well, but we still had about an hour to go so there was little time to hang about. The track, and it really was a track, certainly not a road, from the river was sketchy as hell. There were pools of water and muddy sections for a fair distance, so the going was slow, and we were sliding around a fair bit. I was in the lead at this stage, and I came to a bend that was basically a swamp with very thick, smelly mud across the full width of the road. I spotted some grass over to the right of the bend and tried to get as much traction from the grass as I could, but Cassy was all over the place and it took all of my experience and ability to keep her upright, but I made it. The mud was thick and stuck to my tires, I could even feel how different she moved with all the mud clinging to her. I had to get out of the goop and find some hard ground up a hill so that I could check on how Jorik was going. I looked back just in time to see him make the error of trying to go round the mud to the left, getting it horribly wrong, and then dropping the bike smack in the middle of the mud pool. What a disaster and as the bikes are heavy, I knew I needed to go back and help him not only get Jules back upright, but to help get her out of the mud. We got it sorted, but by that stage, both Jules and the both of us were covered in mud. Stinking gross smelly mud! Still, we were all good and there didn’t appear to be any damage to Jorik or Jules, so we pressed on, albeit slowly as the mud on our tires meant we had very little traction at all. We got to the top of a hill, right near the beach and the track just stopped dead. There was no ways I was going back, and we were faced with a steep decent down towards the sea, which did not look inviting at all. We were debating turning back, when I said no chance, and just headed straight down this ridiculously steep hill with massive ruts from the rain and rocks sticking out. Not a route I would ever have normally taken, but we had come this far, so I had to go forward. I immediately noticed that my bake breaks were not biting, probably covered in mud, and I was way to nervous to even touch my front brakes as the incline was so steep that if I locked the front wheel, I was going down. I made it and then headed off on what appeared to be a track towards the left when I reached the bottom of the hill. The beach was right in front of me and there were a few people walking along it, so there must be a village or something nearby. I called to Jorik on the comms that it should be fine as I could see people, so he came down the hill behind me. He took a route that went straight on to the beach, rather than turning left like I had done through the trees. I got to a point where the track ran out and I would have to turn on to the beach, so I stopped, climbed off the bike and walked down on to the beach towards a couple that were clearly not locals to ask for directions. Jorik had already made it onto the beach and was now riding towards me, and as I no longer had my helmet on, I couldn’t hear him so started back towards my bike as it was clear, we would do the next section on the beach. By the time I negotiated my way through the trees and washed-up logs and branches to get onto the beach, and the harder sand near the water, Jorik had pulled up next to the couple that were walking along the beach. They explained that if we headed on for about another kilometre or so, we would find a track that led from the beach to a dirt track that we could then take towards a more appropriate road that would ultimately take us to Santa Teresa, about 30 more minutes ride from where we were. Sure enough, we found the exit from the beach, where we had seen an ATV had come down onto the beach and took it. We had to cross a river first, but then once we left the beach, we got the first attempt wrong and ended up turning left, which took us to the entrance to a private property, rather than a road. So, we turned around and then found the road that we needed. We did have to stop and ask for directions a couple of times, but everyone assured us that we were heading in the right direction towards Santa Teresa, we just had to be weary of the road, as it wasn’t in great condition. It had been a great adventure, crossing rivers, tackling mud, and even riding on the beach, but we were glad to finally make it into the town. We pulled up at a little bar called CJ’s and had a beer whilst high fiving ourselves for having done some proper riding in challenging conditions. We then had to find the hotel that we had booked, which was called Believe Surf & Yoga Hotel. It turns out we had passed it on the way in and we needed to go back some ways to get to the hotel. It was very nice, but very peaceful, in fact as we arrived, pleased with ourselves for having done such a big day, covered in mud and soaking wet, Jorik was asked to keep it down as there was a yoga session on, well yogis session, as they called it. This would not be our normal type of hotel, but maybe some down time would be a good thing. We managed to clean up a bit, in fact Jorik just stood in the outside washing area for surfboards and hosed himself down to get the mud off. The girls were filthy, and we asked if we would be able to clean the bikes the next day, as we had the day off to enjoy Santa Teresa. The chap said he would ask the maintenance guy and get back to us in the morning. We were keen to get down to the beach to catch the sun set, which is getting earlier and earlier the further south we travel. It had been at 07:30pm in Sayulita, but it had started to go down around 7:00pm, then 06:30pm, and it was now around 06:00pm when we needed to be in place. The chap behind the front desk gave us some advice as to where to get good food and mentioned that there was a place on the beach, but it was about a 10-minute walk from where we could get on to the beach via a little track opposite the hotel. We did catch the sun set, just, but it was a little cloudy, so it wasn’t the most spectacular sun set we have seen to date. Still pretty good, but not fantastic. We then walked about 20-minutes to find the restaurant, which was ridiculously expensive, and the food was very average, but I suppose, if you are the only option on the beachfront, you can charge what you like. Back at the hotel, we had a quick swim in the dark, and then hit the sack as the next day was still going to busy, even if it wasn’t going to a be travel day.