Flashback Friday-- Our Honeymoon

It was always a dream of mine to go to the rain forest.  I also loved sea turtles and wanted to see an arribada occur.  This led us to decide to go to Costa Rica.  It had turtle, rain forests, and also wasn't more than a few hours by plane.  We also considered Australia, but it was nearly a full day by plane and we only had 7 days and six nights and for that kind of trip we figured we would want closer to two weeks.

We ended up staying at the Occidental Grand Papagayo, an all inclusive resort on the Gulf of Papagayo.  We figured that since it was both of our first times out of the country, all all inclusive was the way to go.  I don't regret staying there, but if we ever go back to Costa Rica (which we plan to hopefully for our ten year anniversary) we probably wouldn't do an all inclusive again.  We aren't big drinkers and I am not a big eater so it was kind of a waste of money.

View from the lobby of the resort

It was a different world in Costa Rica.  The drivers there are very aggressive drivers.  We were passed by a big tour bus on a two lane highway like we were standing still.  My husband was even slightly taken aback by it and he is a pretty aggressive driver himself.  Plus the road are not well labeled like American roads and without a GPS things were hard to find, so we didn't end up going nearly as many places as I would have liked to.  I never did get to see my sea turtles.  It was slightly to early in the season and we didn't want to navigate the roads at night any more than we had to.  Also, when they say rainy station, they mean it.  It rained every single day we were there except one.

My very favorite part of the stay was feeding my little friends.  Coatis ran all over the resort and were half tame since everyone snuck them food.  Every single morning we would wake up to them sitting on our patio screaming at me to come feed them.  The little ones even would climb up in my lap. I also left pieces of fruit for the white throated magpie jays.  I would love to have brought one of these home with me to hang out in my yard.  They were so pretty.

The coati family

Hand feeding a coati

White throated magpie jay (which sounds like something out of Hunger Games)

We hired some guy on the beach to take us on a tour of Arenal volcano.  This was the best money we ever spent.  We hiked through the rain forest and I spotted a rare bird and we got to see howler monkeys.  Then that night we went and saw the volcano and it was amazing to see the lava flowing down the sides of it in the dark.  We also went to an amazing waterfall.  And of course, the camera battery got left at the hotel so I have nothing but cheap disposable camera pics of any of this.

On our final night in Costa Rica, we finally got to see the howler monkeys that the hotel reviews all talked about.  I had been watching for these all week and was thrilled to finally get up close and personal with them.  They literally where less than 10 feet away at times.  I almost could reach them.  These suckers are loud at 5 AM when they get to howling.  Let me tell ya.

I also really liked walking along the shore of the gulf right before dark.  There were all kind of tidal pools to see fish in and the waves were gorgeous.

Overall while not the honeymoon we planned on, we still thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to going back sometime in the hopefully not so distant future.  I would really like to take Destructo when he is older so he can see the rain forest.  Oh and just for the record, this trip was also the first time I had eaten spring rolls.  I never knew what I was missing before that.  Spring rolls are awesome!






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