It's been a time-constraining transition back to normalcy, but more on that later. I finally got through the honeymoon photos! Without further adieu...
We stayed our first night at Casa Bella Rita, ranked the #10 top bed and breakfast in the world. It's true.
From there we went straight to La Fortuna, near Arenal volcano. Did I mention we stayed at the 5-star Tabacon resort? It included unlimited access to its world-renown hot springs, which naturally flow at a comfortable 100+ degrees.
You don't need to see this one, but it's my blog so deal with it.
After a couple days there we traveled to the other side of the volcano to Monteverde. Those kids can bike over there.
That last picture was of the only paved road in Monteverde. Our hotel wasn't on it.
Monteverde is where all of the great Costa Rican coffee is grown, so we went on a tour to learn all about it.
This is a ripe coffee bean (before all of its layers are removed).
Amanda loved all of the wildlife in Costa Rica, including this little lizard.
The thing to do in Monteverde is ziplining. We signed up for three hours and 18 platforms of ziplining in the rainforest. This concerned me initially.
Amanda demonstrates the proper ziplining form.
And there she goes! Our last run was over 1,100 feet and several hundred feet in the air. It was insane!
We ran into a little problem on the way out of Monteverde - We missed our bus! So, we paid a local to drive us three hours to the coast. This is what rush hour looks like in Costa Rica.
Thanks for the ride, Mario!
We made it!
The weather was amazing our first day at the Gulf of Papagayo and after we explored our Hilton grounds, we hopped into our rental Kia Sportage to find the nearby beach towns. Our favorite was Playa del Coco.
UNFORTUNATELY it rained for the next five days.
This made me very, very sad.
So we hit the road to explore.
We found the surfing town of Tamarindo.
We drank a lot of these.
And, to save money, did some grocery shopping.
We did eat at some amazing restaurants, too.
FINALLY, the sun came out!
Amanda felt inspired to do some cartwheels.
We spent our last day on the coast at our favorite beach, Playa Flamingo.
There's my wife and one massive beach!
You can right-click to save this as your wallpaper.
We took a little plane from the coast back to San Jose.
We were the only ones on the plane!
The views were fantastic.
We spent our last night back at Casa Bella Rita.
We had such a relaxing, memorable honeymoon, and by the end of it we were excited to be home and start our married life together.