Welcome to the Jungle. . .

Our first stop was to be Samarra. As the small single prop plane (twelve passenger) banked back toward land over the Pacific, the cliffs and beaches looked beautiful. But there was no obvious airport. Suddenly, I noticed we were heading straight to a dirt road in the jungle. “Holy smokes,” I thought. Except it was a different word in the “s” family. But, this is a family publication – so like when Ralphie says “oh fudge” in a “Christmas Story” but not really that phrase, this version has been edited for simplicities sake.

We landed on the dirt strip, which was no wider than a country road. On either side there is the jungle. The plane slowed down, turned around on the grass, and headed back to the airport – which is nothing more than two benches and a cover. The beach was just across the road.

Four people got off the flight, and one guy got on. We missed having a private family flight to Punta Islita by one person. Take-off was good, and the ten minute flight took only about seven. The Punta Islita landing strip is actually paved, and it was in more of an open field. Compared to Samarra, this airfield was bustling. Other people had been waiting to catch a ride to the resort on the van – not sure where they came in from.

The road to the resort was relatively new – all dirt, with bumps and surrounded by jungle. Every so often, we would catch a view of the ocean as we climbed.

Punta Islita

We hadn’t had time for breakfast before leaving Villa Blanca, and the terminal for Sansa air was so small that there was no food for sale. So, upon arriving at Punta Islita we had an early lunch (or very late breakfast). Everyone was starving, so it was a necessity.

Each of the suite here are individual buildings terraced onto the hillside overlooking the ocean. There is a nice big kitchen/family room, and two nice bedrooms. Each unit has its own small pool, with a private patio overlooking the ocean.

After getting settled, we headed down to the beach. There’s a restaurant there, a pool, and lots of palm trees. Very quiet, uncrowded resort beach. It’s a black sand beach, with the one drawback being lots of rocks. No one sits on the beach – instead, there are lounge chairs and tables on the grass, with palm trees all around. Very nice.

We spent most of the afternoon in the Pacific ocean. Once you navigate past the rocks, the ocean itself is beautiful. It’s a rather large cove, with rocky points on either end to watch the surf smash. The waves are strong, but not so bad that the kids had any problems. The resort has a number of free boogie boards to borrow, but the kids and I preferred to duck, jump, or dive into the waves. They were probably in the 8-12 foot range, but most broke fairly far out. I had some good wave rides, but didn’t want to go too far and be carried into the rocky area. It’s actually easier to body surf in the Atlantic than the Pacific.

It’s the rainy season, so the kids finally came in around 4:30 when the downpour started. It was a classic tropical storm – thunder and lightning reverberating around the mountains, and after the sun went down the storm would illuminate the ocean off in the distance. The frogs all came out to bask in the rain, so as we scampered back to the room (probably a 200 yard uphill walk), we were accompanied by frogs hopping to get out of our way.

There’s no cell phone service here (this is a very remote area of Costa Rica), and the resort has wireless. . .except it is not working. Hopefully it will be fixed soon, so I can cut and paste these entries. As of this writing, it’s been nearly 36 hours since I was last able to check email or add to the blog.

For dinner, we walked through the rain (which had started to let up, but that was an illusion) back down to the restaurant at the ocean. We were the only ones there at 7pm – not till we were about to leave at 8:30 did another group (two couples) show up. I’m pretty sure the workers were disappointed when the next group showed – they were probably ready to go home. Food was good – Carol and I both had the surf and turf (not cheap, but not overly expensive), and the lobster was excellent. We walked back as the rain finally had let up.

It’s early Friday morning, and the sun is shining and the birds are singing.