Honeymoon - recap and reflections

Tuesday, March 17th
Fortunately, Katie was forward thinking and scheduled a car to pick us up and drive us to the airport. Our flight was at 5:35am and we got picked up at 3am. Needless to say it was a long day. We landed in Houston, and since our plane got in a little late, we had less than our scheduled 45 min lay-over. By the time we got to the gate for our next flight, I realized I had left my coat on the other plane at the other end of the airport. To make a long story short, the airline did nothing to help me out and I lost my coat before we even got out of the country.

We landed in San Jose and met up with our driver. It took about 90 minutes to get to our first stop of the trip - Hotel Villa Blanca in the Los Angeles Cloud Forest just north of San Ramon. We had our own little "casita" - basically a stand-alone apartment - at the hotel. We had a great view of the surrounding mountains and the hotel's grounds from our terrace. We made sure to take in happy hour our first night there and had a really nice dinner.

Wednesday, March 18th
The next day we woke up early and had breakfast. The hotel had a working dairy farm on the premises and guests were able to milk the cows. The two milk cows were named Britney and Madonna. I had the opportunity to milk Madonna (somehow I have a feeling I'm not the first person to make such a claim), which Katie found very entertaining since I don't like cows (except to eat) and had never milked one before.

We spent the morning walking around the hotel's grounds, relaxing, and reading. In the afternoon we had a couple's massage at the hotel's spa. I think it goes without saying that it was pretty awesome. After basking in post-massage glow for a while we had another nice dinner. Since the hotel was in the middle of no-where there wasn't a whole lot to do in the evening, although there was a game room with a pool table, cards, and other stuff, as well as a movie theater there. Our goal was to take it easy and relax, which is exactly what we did. The hotel offered a wide variety of tours, either half or full day, and if we get the opportunity to go back I would definitely do some of those.

Thursday, March 19th
Another great breakfast at Villa Blanca. Then we just bummed around until our driver picked us up at 1pm. This was when we met Randall, the coolest driver we had on the entire trip. He was a very friendly and personable guy. He pointed out all kinds of neat stuff during our driver to Arenal and even stopped at the grocery store so that we could buy some beer! Score for Randall!

We got to our next stop, the Arenal Observatory Lodge, in the late afternoon. We were staying there for 3 nights, but because of other reservations were were in one room for 2 nights and then we had to move to another room for one night. Both rooms had great views of the volcano and we even saw a bit of lava on our first night. The hotel was a bit "rustic" and they had some hiking trails as well as a pool and jacuzzi. We had a mediocre dinner and then retired to drink some of our beer before it got warm (the refrigerator in our room didn't work).

Friday, March 20th
We got up and had breakfast, and then we got ready for our excursion for the day, which was horseback riding. We got picked up and driven to the stable. After everyone had arrived and assembled, we mounted up and took to the fields. We rode our horses about 5 kilometers to the La Fortuna waterfall. My horse was a bit cranky, which made for an interesting ride, but by the time we came back I was a bit more comfortable. Anyway, we were able to spend about an hour swimming in the waterfall, which was really impressive and an amazing experience. Then we got back on our horses and rode back to the stables. Unfortunately, I apparently inadvertently washed off the sunblock I had put on my hands and both of them got pretty sunburned - especially my left since that was the one holding the reins.

By this time it was the afternoon and we went back to the hotel to find that our refrigerator had been replaced (yay! cold beer) and took a swim in the pool. After another bad dinner - the food there was way overpriced and reminded me of the food at a college dorm cafeteria - we took it easy for the remainder of the evening. At this point some of the allergens in the area started to bother Katie and she wasn't feeling well. To make matters worse our room was right next door to the kitchen so it was loud. Even worse, there was a back door to the kitchen that was left unlatched and when the wind blew the door would slam against its frame. This happened throughout the night and Katie didn't sleep very well, to say the least.

Saturday, March 21st
Since we had to switch rooms and Katie wasn't feeling well, we decided to stay close to the lodge and explore the hiking trails they had. We spent the morning on the trails, got caught out in the rain for a bit, and checked out another, smaller waterfall nearby. When we got back our new room was ready and fortunately, it was very far from the kitchen. In the afternoon we hit up the pool again and Katie started to teach me how to do flipturns. Apparently my wild flailing was humorous and I think she almost soiled herself laughing so hard.

Sunday, March 22nd
Instead of driving from Arenal to our next destination, Manuel Antonio, which was a 5-7 hour drive depending on how many times you got lost, we elected to fly there. We had to take two puddle jumpers, one from La Fortuna to San Jose, and another from San Jose to Quepos. To say the La Fortuna "airport" was nothing more than a strip of pavement and an open air building would be true, but at least there was a bar as well. Since Katie doesn't like flying it was good to get a beer or two before the flight. These were definitely the smallest plane I've ever been on, 19 passenger jobbers. The flights were pretty uneventful. Upon landing in San Jose, they literally paraded us in one door, check our IDs, walked to the other side of the building (about 30 yards), got our IDs checked again, and walked right back out to the plane we had just gotten off of. The "airport" at Quepos was just as small as La Fortuna, if not smaller. The entire trip took about an hour, so we saved a lot of time by flying.

Manuel Antonio was on the Pacific Coast and it was really warm, a nice change from our previous two stops which were in the mountains and more temperate. Our hotel, Si Como No, was run by the same company that ran Villa Blanca, and had really nice rooms, great restaurants, two pools, and spectacular views. After we arrived we went straight to the adult pool and I was introduced to one of my favorite new things - the swim up bar. Over the next three nights we did plenty of business at the swim up bar. One of the other benefits of Si Como No was the return to good food. So we had a good dinner at one of the two restaurants on site.

Monday, March 23rd
Our outdoor adventure for the day was a canopy zip line tour. I must say that I hate heights, but I had a great time. It was pretty much an all day affair. We left the hotel a little after 10am and got back around 4pm. In that time we drove out to the zip line course, which was in the middle of nowhere. The guides at least made the ride interesting by pointing out different trees and things that Costa Rica produced. Once we got to the place we got a quick safety tutorial and started the hike up the mountain. There were 9 zip lines, 2 rappels, a tarzan swing, and a suspension bridge. The rappels were by far the most frightening for me. The first one was bad enough but at the second, which was the very last thing we did, the guide made me go down an alternative way than what they had showed us at the safety tutorial. Basically, the guy made me do a free fall, which scared the shit out of me. I was the first one in the group to go down and the guide gave everyone else the option of going down the original way or the free fall. Thanks buddy.

After we got back to the main camp, we were provided a typical Costa Rican meal. This consisted of chicken in some sort of delicious sauce, rice, black beans, tortillas, and, for me, plenty of tabasco. I had two heaping plates full of the stuff. It was awesome. When we got back to the hotel it was back to the adult pool and swim up bar (2 for 1 happy hour drinks!). After a dip we went to dinner at the fancy restaurant at the resort Claro Que Si. We both got seafood, since that was the specialty, and it was delicious - as was the dessert.

Tuesday, March 24th
Our outdoor activity for the day was kayaking, but it wasn't scheduled until the afternoon. So after breakfast we walked from the hotel down to the beach. Katie's a beach bum, so she went into the Pacific Ocean. I just waded in and took pictures. I'm a pool guy. Especially when there is a swim up bar involved. We went back to the hotel and went to the kid pool, which lacked kids at the time and familiarized ourselves with the water slide.

Around noon we got picked up for our kayaking tour. We originally thought we were going to go kayaking on the ocean, but realized that we were signed up for the other kayaking tour the company offered, which took place in a river estuary in a protected wetland. Apparently, there was no one else signed up for this particular tour that day so we had the guide all to ourselves. He spent the next few hours taking us around the river system and explaining the ecosystem and various flora and fauna to us. It wasn't what we were expecting, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. When we got back to the launch site, they provided us with fresh pineapple and green tea. The pineapple was SO good. I ate a ton of it. Despite putting on two coats of SPF 30 I still managed to get a bit of sunburn on my shoulders and upper back, but the burns weren't too bad so that was good, especially since I burn so easily.

Upon our return to the hotel, you guessed it, adult pool and swim up bar. Another dinner at the Rico Tico Bar and Grill followed and we packed out gear for our flight home the next day.

Wednesday, March 25th
The worst travel day ever. We flew from Quepos to San Jose on another little puddle jumper. The plane was late arriving at Quepos, but we got into San Jose alright. One of the airport workers told me that our driver had called to say he was running a bit late, but since we were late too it worked out fine. As we entered the little airport, again, who did we see was our driver? Randall! We were so pumped to see him that we were almost to the car when we remembered that we still needed to get our checked bags. Randall got us to the big airport in San Jose where you have to pay a departure tax. It's about $26 per person. Seriously? I have to pay to leave the country? That's bootleg. The airport was pretty small and there wasn't anything good to eat there. We settle for Cinnabon and waited several hours until our flight took off.

We landed in Houston on time, but we only had 65 minutes before our plane left. In that time we had to clear immigration, claim our bags, re-check them, clear security again, and get to our gate. Of course, the lines for everything were ridiculously long and people are idiots who don't know how to go through security. I ended up literally sprinting through the airport in order to make our flight on time. One of the gentlemen on the plane told us that they had even begun boarding early in the hopes of getting out earlier (bad weather was on its way into town). Well the cluster#()$ at the airport apparently affected the pilot who decided to keep the doors open until 7pm (we were scheduled to leave at 6:45). Had he followed through with his original plan we would have gotten out without a problem. By 7:30pm, the doors were still open and people were still boarding the plane. Long story short, again, we spent 3 hours on the run way, ended up going back to the gate so some people could get off, and finally, got back in the queue and out of Houston. We landed at O'Hare at about 12:45am, over 3 hours later than we were supposed to land. So the return travel day definitely left something to be desired (never fly Continental Airlines and avoid the Houston airport, one of their hubs, like the plague). Of course, I'm not easy to travel with in those conditions - tired, hungry, and grouchy. But Katie was a trooper and managed to survive the ordeal. It could have been worse though - my brother could have been there too. I can only imagine what he would have done. (I did write a lengthy letter of complaint to Continental Airlines upon my return.)

So those are the details of our honeymoon. It was a great time and we were really sad to see it end, but we were really glad we had the opportunity to go to Costa Rica. Hopefully we can get back there at some point and do more cool stuff, but that's probably way down the line. Fortunately we have plenty of pictures from our honeymoon to tide us over!