I’m the type of traveler who loves collecting new experiences, which is why I decided to take Spanish classes with Intercultura Samara, in Costa Rica. After living in Spain for a year, I got really good at Spanish. Sadly, that was a few years ago, and you know what they say, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. So when I was looking up Spanish schools in Central America and I found Intercultura Costa Rica. When I saw that it was on the BEACH, I knew I had to go.
Intercultura Samara Campus
Getting Everything Booked
As I mentioned, the beach is what drew me to choose Intercultura Samara. Heredia, looked like a beautiful historical town, but the thought of being in the ocean everyday outweighed that significantly. I decided to go for one week as well as stay with a host family!
Host Family
The host family option was super interesting to me for many reasons. For one, they make you breakfast and dinner (along with the fact that you live with them). Additionally, they do you laundry (or have your laundry done) at least once a week! For one week of host family accommodation, breakfast and dinner, and laundry, it was $245 for the week. Having almost everything I need for the day for $35 USD sounded like a great deal, so I chose that!
Since I chose one week of classes, that came out to $350 for the week. My grand total, other than lunch, was $595 for the week, which felt like a steal! In order to solidify my spot, I paid $150 as a deposit and paid the rest upon my arrival.
Getting to Samara
When coming to Intercultura Samara, you can fly into either Liberia (LIR) or San Jose (SJO). Liberia is much closer to Samara, about an hour drive away. San Jose is much further, but for me had cheaper flights from NYC, so I chose to fly into SJO.
From SJO, I went to the TIG bus station and took a bus from San Jose to Samara. The bus can take anywhere from 4 to 6 hours depending on traffic, and the ticket was about $7 each way. This is the website to book your ticket on, and I’d recommend you book in advance if possible! Book the route “San Jose – Nicoya – Samara – Puerto Carrillo – Estrada” and the bus leaves at noon from the TIG station. When you book the return route, know that the bus leaves from Samara at 4am! The bus only leaves once a day, so I spent 24 hours in San Jose before catching my ride to Samara.
I found the bus to be a nice ride; I enjoyed staring out the windows at the Costa Rican landscape! My lovely host mother sent a driver to pick me up from the bus stop. This was very kind of her, but she only let me know this once I stepped off the bus. I did not have any cash so I felt a bit bad to not pay the man for the 2 minute ride. He also did not ask. This was a strange feeling to start my trip with!
My First Day at Intercultura Samara
The morning
After a quick breakfast with my host mother, I walked on down to Intercultura! Since I had arrived around 7pm the night before, I hadn’t seen any of town and was excited to explore. All the new students take a short Spanish test at 7:30am on Monday so the teachers can determine what class to place you in. The test was not difficult! They asked simple questions like why you want to learn Spanish, what a normal day in the life looks like, things like this.
The classes are structured from either 8am to 12pm, or from 1pm to 5 pm. Also, the schedule is rotating, For me, I was assigned the morning class on the first day, which meant I also had the morning slot on Wednesday and Friday with afternoon classes on Tuesday and Thursday.
I enjoyed the first day of classes, since I got to know my classmates and understand how the classes would work. In my class, I was with three retired people. In other classes there were families with children, so there were people of every age there! We mostly played games to practice speaking, but also would be introduced new grammatical structures to use in the next activities. My week was focused on learning the subjunctive tense, which I felt was a great placement for me, as that was something I had been wanting a refresher on.
After Class
After my morning class, I took a city tour, offered by Intercultura Samara, to get to know the town I was staying in! They showed us the most affordable grocery stores and pharmacies as well as restaurants the staff enjoyed. Later at 5pm, the offered a Latin Dance class which was super fun and a great way to meet new people. I though Intercultura did a great job with programming community building events!
What My Week Was Like
My week at Intercultura Samara was a fantastic time, and honestly went by way too fast. While I am often traveling solo and used to making friends on the go, I found I made friends even faster than I anticipated. When I wasn’t in class, I felt super busy spending time with my friends I made.
Everyday, I went to a new delicious restaurant, spent time on the beach, and laughed with new friends. The bar everyone from school goes to is called Las Olas, which is right next to the school. They have karaoke on Tuesdays dancing on Thursdays, so as you might guess I spent some time there!
While I don’t personally enjoy surfing, there are tons of surf schools nearby where students from the school went. There are some decent sized waves in the water which definitely knocked me about when I want in the ocean.
My friend and I heard you could find monkey in the mango trees, so we went on a monkey hunting tour around town! We found a tree not too far from the bus stop that had tons of monkeys sleeping in it mid day.
Spanish Classes
Classes were a total highlight of the week. Often times during previous Spanish classes, I would get anxious before speaking, worried I would mess up. In classes here at Intercultura Samara, trying and sometimes failing is normal when learning a new language. I quickly felt super comfortable during class to speak up and try my best. I worried that I would not want to go to class, but I thoroughly enjoyed class. The 4 hour class absolutely flew by, especially since there are two breaks in the middle to go outside and talk with others.
Overall Thoughts
I completely enjoyed my time at Intercultura Samara. My host mother was very kind (and a great cook), I loved my classes, and I made great friends. I also gained much more confidence in speaking Spanish and got tan! My week trip was filled with wins all around, except for leaving so soon!
Most people I met were staying for 3 weeks to 2 months! Next time, I definitely want to come for about a month to get really good at Spanish.
Overall, I had a fantastic time and would definitely recommend it to anyone I know!
