Samara, Costa Rico

You know you're having a great time when you forget to take pictures! We were in Samara (pronounced like Camera but with an S) for a week with our friends Jan and John. We had planned to join them in Samara last February and had to cancel at the last minute so when they invited us to join them in November we jumped at the chance. Jan and John already had the ground floor of the Dos Mangos property rented so there was room for us! Lovely 3 unit condo - we had the bottom floor and the pool. Although the pool is available to all three units, it feels and is used mostly by the bottom unit which we had. 
Our accommodations were great, in the town so close to everything. 5 minutes to the beach, bars, food and happy hours just a few steps away.  The beach is beautiful, lots of sand, waves when the tide is in but at low tide swimming was super calm. Lots of restaurants and hotels on the beach, all still small and quaint. You could rent a chair and an umbrella easily from one of these hotels/restaurants and keep it for the whole day, just needed to drink and or eat - who doesn't want to do that! The beach offers surfing and horseback riding. It's fabulous for walking, wonderfully clean with only a few vendors. 
The food was spectacular, we had great meals ad the prices were pretty good. Several grocery stores and lots of places for food, drinki and so on. Touristy but not too touristy. Lots of really small, great places to eat and friendly people. We'll definitely be back. 
We settled into a routine pretty quickly, early walk on the beach, followed by breakfast beachside. Some down time reading and then afternoon swim for me, happy hour rounded out the afternoon and into the evening. Highly recommend.