Adventurous Honeymoon in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is full of highlights. We actively avoided the highlights and visited the less-popular destinations. For example, we saw Poas Volcano instead of Arenal. We went to Montezuma instead of Manuel Antonio. I do wish we had seen the highlights instead, but we were worried about crowds. Crowds are not a problem during the "Green" season.

Costa Rica's strengths are in its natural wonders, its wildlife, its huge national parks, its volcanos, mountains, beaches and jungles. Costa Rica is probably the safest place to see real rainforest as well as cloud forest. The economy in this country is booming, and Costa Ricans seem to be doing very well. In most of Central America, visitors would see a disturbing level of poverty. Costa Rica is more reminiscent of Florida than its neighbors.

Some of the top attractions in Costa Rica are:

• the beaches and rainforest at Manuel Antonio
• the canals and turtles of Tortuguero
• the cloud forest and wildlife of Monteverde
• the fiery and very active Arenal Volcano

Quick Tips:

For Costa Rica, it is advisable to book in advance for the better hotels. On the other hand, we were able to book Flor Blanca with one day's notice.

The Internet is easily accessible all over Costa Rica and at fast rates.

ATMs, on the other hand, are rare. There is no ATM in Montezuma or Malpais. To pay our taxi, we had to stop at the only town that has an ATM.

Transactions generally take place in dollars. I never learned the exchange rate for Colones, and I only paid for a few things in Colones, usually inexpensive meals. Both prices are printed on receipts and both forms of money are accepted.

Best Way To Get Around:

Costa Rica does have an extensive bus system. These are cheap, but they do take longer than private transportation.

Private cars are another option. Many people rent, or you can get taxis from place to place. The Peace Lodge picked us up at the airport and drove us to all of our day-trip destinations.

Flights are cheap and convenient. Few flights last for more than an hour. We flew Nature Air, known to be the more reliable service. Sansa, the national airline, has many more cancellations, and we saw evidence of this when we took off sooner than an earlier Sansa flight. Nature Air has some great package deals that combine three destinations into a single ticket.

Flor Blanca, a boutique resort of 10 beachside villas, is the highlight of a honeymoon in Costa Rica. The special touches begin as soon as you arrive, when you are given a tour of the property and a welcome cocktail. When’s the last time the Marriott did that?

The property has a Balinese theme, and gorgeous arts and crafts from this part of the world decorate the property and rooms. The thatched hut by the pool doesn’t just add ambience – one can also have their dinner served out there, palapa-style. As if the white sands of the Pacific weren’t enough, Flor Blanca has a gorgeous pool. If you weren’t enjoying the outdoors activities or the yoga studio, Flor Blanca also had an executive gym. Exhausted from surfing? Flor Blanca has masseuses on staff. Most people have never stayed in a small hotel with this many amenities. There’s even a gift shop with artisan crafts from Costa Rica and Southeast Asia. See my restaurant review of Nectar to learn about the great food.

We rented Villa no. 7, just for a night. The villas are palatial in size; the one-bedroom villa is like a small home. From the living room, one could see the Pacific coastline. This area also had a sink and refrigerator to prepare one’s own meals. The living room connected by a hallway to the air-conditioned bedroom and the garden-setting bathroom. The bedroom, which could be closed off from the elements, had a large soft bed with mosquito netting and built-in fan. The bedroom also had a CD player, which we used to play our special honeymoon-mix CD. We left it behind by mistake, but hopefully other couples will enjoy it in addition to Flor Blanca’s own mixes. The outdoor bathroom is walled in for privacy and filled with greenery. The leaf-shaped stone bathtub would allow one to soak while resting one’s eyes upon the jungle and listening to its sounds. The toilet, sink, and shower areas were thankfully covered by a roof overhang, so rain did not pose an issue. The villa even came with a bookshelf of books.

Each villa is equipped with two soft cotton robes and two sarongs, perfect for beach or pool lounging. The sarongs, the room guide informed us, are easier to wash and dry than regular towels. Flor Blanca is conscious of the environment in the bathroom amenities as well. The custom-made Plumeria-scented soap and shampoo are wrapped in banana leaves, which are naturally degradable. The soap smelled so amazing – we would have loved to have purchased some. For the sake of the Planet Earth, Flor Blanca has many suggestions for saving energy and reducing waste. As a guest, I appreciate the opportunity to be environmentally friendly while I travel.

Quite a few famous people stay here, because the amenities and privacy are some of the best that Costa Rica has to offer. For a honeymoon, it was the perfect splurge, even for a single evening.

Hotel Britannia's lobby holds a lot of promise that the rooms simply do not live up to. This hotel is located in an older mansion of the Barrio Amon district, albeit at the very edge on busy Avda 11. For a short stay in San Jose, Hotel Britannia is adequate. It seems to cater to large American tour groups, and as such, its staff speaks perfect English.

The rooms are comparable to a Holiday Inn. A hairdryer is provided, along with shampoo. The room boasts a TV cabinet. I will say, despite being located on the streetfront, our room must have been well-insulated - it was not loud.

As I mentioned before, the hotel is in Barrio Amon. It is an easy walk to the restaurant and galleries of this district or to the attractions of downtown (Mercado Central, Plaza de la Cultura). Apparently it's also only 1km to the Serpentarium, Mundo Salvaje, but we never found out, because the sidewalk turns to rubbish after a few blocks. Despite its central location, it is quite safe, as the hotel employs two armed guards.

Breakfast was not included in our rate, but we did have breakfast in The Cellar, their restaurant. It was adequate, like everything else about this hotel. They served a typical North American breakfast, with choice of eggs, toast, juice, and coffee. The coffee was superb.

The Peace Lodge has an upscale-Disney feel. The lodge is built into the side of a mountain, and every cabin has a view of the Poas Volcano. Some people have compared the Peace Lodge to the elven village in the Lord of the Rings films. I have never felt more welcomed or at home than I felt at the Peace Lodge. It's top-notch, appropriate for families or honeymooners or whoever can afford to stay here. My favorite part of the honeymoon was our wonderful stay here.

The lodge is set in the La Paz Waterfall and Butterfly Gardens park. Guests have free access to the park at any time of day. It was quite lovely to visit the hummingbirds at dawn or to visit the park after the day trippers had left. Read my review of the park for more information on this aspect of the lodge.

Hotel guests eat breakfast on a patio overlooking the park every morning, and dinner is served upstairs in the restaurant. The food is pretty good too, with lots of variety so that diners won’t get bored and daily specials. Drinks are available at the bar here, as well as Internet access. There is also a pool area with cool and warm pools. New pool areas are being built as we speak, and they look even more luxurious than the current setup.

Every luxury has been provided. The rooms have CD players and televisions that allow you to order in movies. Each room has a deck overlooking the park. The deck has a bistro set for room service (no charge!), and a hammock where you can watch the hummingbirds feed from your own personal feeder. The bathrooms, luxurious even in the standard rooms, are out of this world in the deluxe rooms. The deluxe bathrooms have waterfalls coming down behind the hot tub, luscious live foliage growing around the tub, two showers (waterfall and normal), and two sinks. Of course, the bathrooms have all the amenities, like blow dryers and shampoo. A really nice feature, particularly in the Green season, when it can be chilly, is the gas fireplace in the rooms.

What really amazed me was the service we received when the Peace Lodge lost power due to an electrical storm that brought down a tree on their powerlines. They were still able to serve dinner, run the store, set up tours, and keep their guests satisfied.

This hotel owns two properties in Montezuma. The El Sano Banano is located in town, above their restaurant and movie house. The newly renamed Ylang-Ylang Beach Resort is their fusion restaurant, yoga studio, and beach bungalow property, approximately a 15 minute walk from the town along some of the most beautiful beachfront in Montezuma.

We ended up seeing nearly every type of room that they offer. We started out with a beach bungalow. Some people love the bungalow experience, but we did change rooms because it wasn't what we were looking for on our honeymoon. For one, it was extremely small, which shouldn't have surprised me, but it did bother me. Secondly, there were no screens to keep out bugs, and there was an ant trail of leaf-cutter ants swarming on the bed. The hotel manager did say they had never seen so many ants on a bed before and it was probably due to the torrential rain. They sprayed the bed, but we still felt uncomfortable, so we switched to their suites in the beachfront hotel. This was better, since it was on the second floor and much larger. However, because it was the rainy season, we had bats and all kinds of other wildlife entering the room. The hotel would be greatly improved by adding screens to their windows. Then one could open up the big double doors and let in the breeze without letting in the neighborhood.

Ylang-ylang does have amazing food and the property is beautiful. The beach access is superb - you are right there on the beach all by yourselves. Their yoga studio was beautiful, although we didn’t use it. The staff is friendly and helpful. It is obvious why this property is the darling of guidebooks.

Walking to town during the rainy season can be quite an adventure. Tiny rivulets become mighty torrents, creating rivers from the jungle to the beach that walkers must cross. When my traveling companion injured her foot, we changed to the in-town El Sano Banano because she couldn't walk out to the resort. In town, the rooms vary with size but have the same decor as the resort. The in-town hotel has air-conditioning. It's also quite quiet, even being located on the main strip of Montezuma on a Thursday night. The food here is great, and we enjoyed the movie that they played that night.

Nectar is the restaurant of the high-end Flor Blanca. Serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and "sushi time," its cuisine ranges from pan-Asian and Costa Rican to American. Not only Flor Blanca guests, but people from around the area, come to dine at Nectar. The sushi was excellent, fresh, and well prepared. The gourmet cheeseburger that I ordered for lunch was one of the best I’ve ever had. They also serve drinks here, both health-conscious fruit smoothies and delicious cocktails. Breakfasts are typical Costa Rican, with a rotating special of the day served with a tropical fruit plate and coffee. For visitors, I recommend making a dinner reservation. Guests of the hotel will not need to leave the property, as Nectar serves up a variety of well-executed meals to suit any appetite.

Dining is alfresco, under the thatched roof with a view of the playa. One may also request to be seated in the poolside and served palapa-style, which is very romantic. During the rainy season, the best seats are one table in from the outside, where you can see the ocean but not feel the rain.

Coffee bistro by day, fine dining by night, Bakea is one good reason to stay in San Jose the night before your flight. Located in a historic home in the Barrio Amon district, the restaurant spreads across many small rooms, each uniquely decorated. One room serves as an art gallery.

The cuisine has a touch of classical French, but uses local ingredients and flavors for a unique taste of Costa Rica. We shared a fish served a la plancha. It was delicious. I was underwhelmed by our appetizer, two varieties of bruschetta. However, our drinks, mojitos and their in-house martini, made up for it.

For dessert, don't miss Cahuita and Caramela. This is a chocolate banana tart sprinkled with caramel and served with a side of homemade ice cream. Of course, the sampler looked good, too. We actually shared an entrée to ensure we had room for dessert.

A restaurant like this connects city-dweller to city-dweller. This could be Paris, Florence, New York, or San Jose. Once at the restaurant, I was able to forget about my safety concerns, the heat, and the smog - and enjoy a meal that was as delicious and sophisticated as any large city has to offer.

We ate at El Sano Banano several times during our stay. The restaurant is located in the village of Montezuma and has street-side seating as well as indoor seating. The restaurant is not air-conditioned and open to the air. There is a great deal of tables, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a seat, unless it is during the movie.

El Sano Banano offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Their breakfast offerings include a typical Costa Rican breakfast, American breakfasts, and backpacker favorites. Coffee drinks and fruit shakes round out the meal. For lunch, we had soggy nachos. Due to the dampness of the climate, anything that must be "crisp" should not be ordered. There are many vegetarian dishes on the menu. For dinner, the best choices are fresh seafood and fish. Dinner entrées can be pricey for Costa Rica, but are delicious and well worth it.

El Sano Banano also has a selection of cocktails that beat any other bar we saw in Costa Rica.

In the evenings, El Sano Banano is a movie house showing recent movies on a projection screen. The movies are played at a high volume, and your table's location can be very important if you want to watch the movie. The projection screen is set up near the reception desk. There is a new movie every night.

Hacienda Pozo Azul is the adventure tour provider for the Peace Lodge, and we took two of the tours available on their property. The options are endless: mountain biking, rappelling, horseback riding, hiking, and more. We opted for a canopy zip-line tour and white-water rafting.

Our morning started out with a zip-line tour for the two of us. We were suited up with helmets and a harness. The guide, Roberto, explained all of the safety features and the technique for zip-lining. He was able to allay all my concerns. HPZ is the only zip-line in Costa Rica with two cables, so that there is always a backup cable. Trips include zipping between a number of high platforms on up to 9 to 12 cables, depending on the tour type. The final zip goes across the Sarapiqui River and is quite a ride!

You do not get to observe the wildlife at the treetops, except when waiting between platforms, but no matter! This would be fun even if you were zipping between San Jose rooftops! It is exhilarating, safe, and easy.

After lunch, we joined a group of people in white-water rafting. Again, I was afraid I would fall into the water and get hurt. However, we had good life vests and helmets, and by following the instructions of our guide, I was able to stay safe and sound in the raft.

The water in Costa Rica is warm, and it's a pleasure to float along the Sarapiqui River. The occasional class II and III rapids were easily handled by our team, even though several of us were newbies. It was just as much adventure as I was willing to handle, and I would definitely do it again.

One of the highlights of our rafting trip was seeing a sloth! It had fallen into the river, and the kayaker that accompanied our raft helped it out and brought it back to the forest. Before slowly crawling away, the sloth agreed to a quick photo-op.

Our visit to Hacienda Pozo Azul was one of the best days of our trip. One warning - they do not have an ATM, nor do they have money-changing facilities, and they do not take credit cards. The gift shop was unable to take our $20 bill. They do sell photographs of people rafting and zip-lining for $5 to $10 each. There is also a gift shop and a restaurant. Again, take small bills, because they cannot break a $20. We had to tip one of our guides with the whole $20 and ask that he share that with the other guide.

Click this link to see the latest park admission prices: Park Rates.

I stayed at the Peace Lodge, built on the property, so I had plenty of time to visit the whole park. Most visitors get a day tour from San Jose, which includes admission to the park and a buffet lunch.

The main lodge contains the restaurants, bathrooms, and a gift shop with the same gifts you see all over Costa Rica. Prices are the same or better.

Park tours are offered, but we just grabbed a map and wandered at our leisure.

Activities

Butterfly Gardens

Visit the butterfly gardens and identify the different types of butterflies as they fly around above you, land on you, or hide in the foliage. Whenever it is about to rain, the butterflies sense the change in pressure and find resting places. Although it is surely more fun to visit when they are flying about, we were there during the rainy season. During this time, you will find the butterflies resting. Be careful, as sometimes they rest on the pathway. Once, a butterfly even came to roost on my arm. It's a great time for pictures, as they will remain still.

Hummingbird Gardens

Watch the hummingbirds feed and dodge them as they fly around your head. They are almost like mechanical birds, so fast you can't even photograph them. You can also book a tour to feed the hummingbirds.

Tico House
A traditional Tico cabin, where you can try "comida tipica" and see a cute cow.

Waterfall Trails
There are a number of falls here, from babbling brooks to roaring giantesses that drown out speech. Dirt trails, walkways, and staircases lead the visitor from one spectacular waterfall to another. The walk down and back is long, but do-able. At the bottom of the trail, there is a shuttle bus for the less fit among us. We took the trail back up and felt we had earned our dinner. You will get wet, and don't forget your camera.

Serpentarium and Future Plans
The Serpentarium was closed whenever I was in the park, but it is already open. They also are building a lot of new attractions here, and I look forward to returning in a few years to see what's new.

Volcan Poas is the home of an old and beautiful volcano. It is very close to San Jose and is popular for day trippers, both Ticos and travellers. The Poas Volcano is often included with day-long tours around the Central Valley.

The volcano is not a replacement for Arenal, especially if you're hoping to see hot lava. In this aspect, Poas may well disappoint. However, the grandiose size of this volcano is sure to impress. Poas hasn't erupted lately, but last time it did, it took out entire towns.

Visiting the Volcano
From the visitor's center, there is one paved trail that goes up to the volcano viewing point. There are several lookouts here, and if you're lucky, you will see the crater. I'm told that some people never see the crater due to clouds. Poas wasn't showing us its most beautiful colors that day, but we did see the fumarolas sending up their smoke from the wide crater.

From there, you can follow a trail to the old site of the volcano, now a lake. It is called Botos Lagoon. The trees near the lakeside grow stunted because the lake water is not conducive to life.

All told, it will take no more than an hour and a half to visit this volcano. Don't plan to spend an entire day here! Fortunately, it is quite common to combine a trip to Poas with a trip to one of the nearby coffee plantations.

Amenities
The visitor's center has restrooms, the ubiquitous gift shop, and an educational area. The exhibits are in both English and Spanish.

We had a private tour of the Doka coffee estate, so group tours may vary significantly from our experience.

The Doka Coffee Estate bills itself as the "Real Coffee Tour." It is the oldest-functioning water mill in Costa Rica, and one of the original farms. The Cafe Britt tour is popular for its live actors and Disney-esque presentation. The Doka Estate does not do this. It is a matter of what you prefer. Both plantations use some organic methodology in their farming. The Doka Estate sells most of their coffee to Starbucks, although you can also order it directly online.

You must drive through the farm's lands, and most tour guides will start here to explain the farming process and the history of Doka Estate. After arriving, most visitors come to tasting hall, where five types of coffee were on offer. We soon discovered that peaberry was our favorite. Following this, we saw the water mill, not operating at the time of our visit, as it was off-season. Our guide explained how the coffee beans are sorted by quality and then processed. Then we visited the grinding room. Finally, we visited the store where we were able to try more coffee. Here we purchased several bags of Peaberry, made from a rare coffee bean that's actually a mutation of the normal coffee bean. After the store, we saw the small museum that housed older equipment used in previous decades.

During the right season, you can see the plantation workers gathering the coffee and the mill at work. High season runs from September through March.

An adventure tour to Tortuga Island is very popular for visitors to the Nicoya Peninsula. I will explain the offerings of the tour and then talk more about our own experience.

Tour Schedule
Take a boat out to Tortuga Island - approximately 1 hour.
Snorkel from the boat.
Land on the island and have lunch (fish, chicken, or veggie).
On the island, suntan, play volleyball, or pay additional money for the on-island zipline tour. Spend about 4 hours.

Our experience We went with a small tour operator in Montezuma, one of the several. Since Montezuma has no dock, you board a speedboat by wading into the water and climbing quickly into the boat. A very bumpy ride followed the shoreline. The tour guide told us about some of the sights we passed, including a waterfall pouring into the ocean, a hole carved by waves into a rock, and a famous beach resort. Once we arrived at our destination, we all put on snorkeling equipment.

The cloudy weather made snorkeling prospects dim, but the water was very warm for swimming. Unfortunately, my partner had a mishap. When getting back in the boat, she tripped and fell, breaking the guide's sunglasses. He was quite angry about the sunglasses, but not concerned for her wellbeing. Her foot swelled up and was painful to walk on for 2 days thereafter.

On the island, we discovered that it wasn't uninhabited at all. In fact, it has its own gift shop, although no bathrooms. This lack of bathrooms is inconvenient. Lunch was delicious - lots of fresh fruit and barbequed fish. The rest of the day was free for exploring a very small strip of beach. It was beautiful, but not worthy of an afternoon. Some people played volleyball. My partner was too hurt to even wander around. Swimming was not possible due to the coral reef that started not too far into the water. The most exciting part of the day was figuring out how to pee with no privacy. One had to wade into the water and sit down, since the interior of the island was closed off to visitors. We were very bored and couldn't figure out why everyone said visiting this "deserted" island was such a great idea.

On the way back, the driver made sure to keep bumping the waves in such a way to cause us all to have enormous butt bruises. When exiting the boat, it rocked and my partner's hurt foot was thrown onto the propeller. She limped away. Then the guide demanded $20 for his sunglasses.

Overall, we did not enjoy ourselves.

In summary, if you want a luxury trip, go with Calypso Tours, which I've heard good things about.

Watch out for sunburn.