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Detailed Honeymoon
Current mood:  loved
Category: Travel and Places
Day 1, we fly out of LAX on a redeye to Miami, where we then sit for 3 or so hours. We board on time, but then proceed to sit in the plane for over an hour because someone who checked in & checked baggage never showed up for the flight. So we had to wait for handlerers to find the unclaimed baggage, and then re-load all that was taken out.
Day 2, we finally arrive in Costa Rica, get our rental car, and make the journey up to the northern part of the country, Arenal. We are about 3 hours later than we expected, so we try to drive straight there, so we can get there before dark. We got slightly lost in San Ramon, but make it back on track. As we get into the Monte Verde Mountains, the fog and clouds are very thick, so we slow down just a bit to be safe. The drive is amazingly beautiful, from what we can see. We stop off for a late lunch/ early dinner at a local cafeteria and get our first taste of authentic tico food! The arroz con pollo was just as I remembered it. Back on the road for the final stretch, realizing we won't make it there by sunset, but still confident we'll find the place.
When we arrive, we are thrilled! We've found it in the dark and the place looks great. Everyone is super friendly; we find our cabana with no problems and get settled. Upon touring the property we see the 2 normal pools, plus about 10 natural hot spring fed pools of varying temperatures.
Day 3, Waking up in Costa Rica is extremely easy with the thousand types of birds outside your window. We greet the morning with Costa Rican coffee and breakfast. Today we decide to take it easy, check out our hotel in the daylight, get a massage, relax, and then have a nice dinner later.
Let me start by recommending a hot rock massage whenever possible. There is nothing more soothing than someone rubbing you down with warm stones. After 80 minutes of heaven we head up to the top hot spring, figuring hotter at the source…we were right. So we soak, slowly making our way down to the cool pools. What a great day.
Dinner was nice. We have reaffirmed out love for hearts of palm. "Palmitos" salads are very popular and we ordered them wherever they were served. Chris's porterhouse steak is sans bone and looks strangely similar to my sirloin…
Day 4, this was probably one of our favorite days! We woke up early and headed out for out canopy tour. This consisted of 2 guides and about 15 zip lines. It was so amazing! Chris and I were the only ones signed up, so it was nice not having to worry about anyone else. Our guides were great, they knew so much about the land, the creatures and the plant life. The zip lines were a blast, we were going so fast! They showed us how to go upside down, spin around, and even took us on our bellies, like Superman. This activity is highly recommended! We saw a sloth way up in a tree, monkeys just hanging around, morpho butterflies, and red & blue poison frogs. It was like walking through a nature preserve or a zoo.
After our exhilarating ride, we drove up to Arenal Volcano. There we drove to a lookout point and got an amazing view of the volcano and the man-made lake near by. We look a nice long hike (about 3.5 miles), that took us through dry land, rain forest, lava rock beds, and along a creek. It was absolutely serene. We saw a toucan, a bunch of lizards, and many different bugs and beetles.
Day 5, Another awesome day. Today we hiked down to the La Fortuna Waterfall. The hike down was very lush and very steep. It was barely steps cut into a steep mountainside. The water was breath-takingly cold and the waterfall was dumping so much water! The stream was so heavy it was like swimming in a rough ocean, you couldn't even swim up to the falling water. We followed the river around the bend, where there was a really peaceful place to sit and have lunch. I read and relaxed while Chris wandered around taking pictures.
After leaving the waterfall, we wandered around the small town of La Fortuna. It's the biggest town in this area, but it's not much. They had some cute gift shops, bars and restaurants. We had some great local food there.
Day 6, Today we got up early and drove back to San Jose. Again, we had a little trouble navigating San Ramon, but we made it out. The view was even better this time, since it was earlier in the day, there wasn't as much fog.
As we boarded our little 12 person Sansa plane, the weather started to turn and it began to rain. As we took off, there were some strange noises and we started to tip sideways. Luckily, the pilot put us back down, and waited for the wind sheer to die down, and then we took off again, this time with much more ease.
We flew down to Golfito, arriving an hour or so late, but Aunt Katie was there to pick us up. We drove back to Katie's marina and just hung out there for the evening. She & Uncle Tim had got their house boat all dresses up for our arrival. It was the best honeymoon suite we stayed in our whole trip! Their boat, Magic Carpet, was so nice inside & out, they had pre-stocked it with essentials, and it was so comfortable. We absolutely loved it!
Day 7, Katie had a birthday party planned for one of her friends, so we all ran errands and helped to get ready for the party. She showed us a couple of her properties and had a little tour of Golfito. Chris & I helped with dinner, grilling all the meat and it was all very good! The party went very well
Day 8, Another early morning, we went fishing. Wasn't the best day out, but we caught a couple of decent size Mahi Mahi. We chased some tuna and had one on the line, but we lost it while reeling it in. That was a bummer. It isn't really fishing season right now, but we wanted to give it a shot. We saw a few sea turtles and a whale breach, so that was nice.
Chris cooked up the Mahi for a delicious dinner, nothing better than fish straight out of the ocean!
Day 9, This morning we took a boat out to the Osa Peninsula, which is a little south of Golfito. There we stayed at an Eco-Lodge, Encanta La Vida, which is run by a friend of my aunts. This place was amazing! There are private villas all over the property, which is amazingly well maintained. The kitchen feeds you three meals a day. The beach is a five minute walk through the rain forest. There is wildlife all around you. It was so beautiful. We just sat in hammocks and watched the monkeys take bananas from the trees. Scarlet Macaw's flew over head in their pairs, toucans in the trees over head. It was like nothing I had ever seen.
Day 10, After a breakfast of fresh fruit and eggs, we all (Katie, Tim, Chris & I) took a hike through the forest, up to a waterfall. A neighbor's dog joined our group and hiked all the way up to the waterfall with us. This waterfall was smaller than La Fortuna, but just as beautiful. There were very small, blue crayfish swimming in the pool, I think on bit me in the ass when I was in the pool. Something got me and it stung really bad. On the walk back, we saw a baby sloth up in a tree. It was so cute; it looked like a little teddy bear up in a tree. We also saw a tree with six scarlet macaws sitting in it.
We just relaxed for the rest of the day. That's what was nice; there was no agenda, nothing we HAD to do. We could just sit around and read a book and drink beer. It was so peaceful. There were no radios or TV, so we chatted and spent time catching up. Katie & Tim were way overdue for a get away, so they really enjoyed being away from the office. We enjoyed their company.
Day 11, As we left Encanta La Vida, the monkeys were in the trees sending us off. We drove into Puerto Jimenez, the local town with the "airport". It was basically just a landing strip, very rustic…In town we had a great Mexican lunch, something just as hard to find in Costa Rica as it is in St. Thomas.
We caught our plane and headed back to San Jose. From there we took a shuttle to the Marriot. It was nice to spend a couple nights in luxury. We had A/C, King size bed, nice pillows, room service, champagne and strawberries, the whole enchilada! We relaxed at the hotel for the rest of the night, eating dinner at their Spanish restaurant on property. It was good enough.
Day 12, After a great nights sleep in one of the most comfortable beds ever, we had a light breakfast in our room, and then ventured out to the city. We went to the National Museum, which was very interesting. They had a neat, enclosed butterfly garden with many different varieties. We then wandered around the city, stopped by the National Theater, got some great savory pastries at a local bakery and bought some coffee. We found a great Mercado with a variety of locally made souvenirs. We got a couple of beautiful hand-made Molas (Panamanian "quilt squares", sort of. They hand stitch animals and plant into different colors of cloth), and other gifts.
After lunch at a local cafeteria, we took a very frightening taxi ride back to the hotel. There we relaxed in the hot tub and ate a nice dinner in the other on-site restaurant.
Day 13, Back onto another plane, to make our way back to California. Our plane took off over an hour late and after rushing and running through all the customs, security check points and gates, we missed our connection by 5 minutes. When we reached our gate the plane was just sitting there, but they had already locked down the gates. So we spent the night in Miami.
Technically that's the end of the honeymoon, but just to let you know, we got on a plane the next morning and flew back to California. Spent 2 days with Chris's brother in Camarillo, then spent 2 days flying back to St. Thomas.
We had the most amazing time and know that we will definitely go back some day. It was a trip to remember.
7:32 PM
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