Costa Rica: Remote and Relaxing

The first part of our honeymoon was to stay at a remote, all-inclusive resort on the Osa Peninsula.  When I was planning for this trip, I wanted something *easy* that would still be fun and relaxing.  This was definitely the place.

Our resort was remote.  We had to take a small, local flight to arrive there from San Jose.  I thought one of those tiny planes would be scary, but it was actually a lot of fun.  The windows were large, and since the plane never got very high, we could see so much of the landscape along the way.  As we flew over completely deserted beaches lined by the rain forest, I kept thinking, OMG, I've arrived in paradise.

Once we arrived at the airport, we had a 45 minute drive on a very bumpy road to get to the resort.  Because it was the beginning of rainy season, the resort didn't have many guests.  At the most, there were six guests other than us, but one night there was only one other couple.  We loved the personalized attention, and the other people at the resort were a lot of fun, too.

Our cabin (the honeymoon one, of course) only had one wall.  Well, there was a small bedroom on the first level with four walls, but the main level, the second floor, only had the one.  The only reason it was private was because we were in the middle of the rain forest.  Our view was of the jungle, and the ocean in the distance.

We got into a pattern of relaxing in our cabin before lunch, and then doing an activity after lunch.  It was a great mix of relaxation and adventure. 

Besides, we got to witness so much just being in our cabin.  We saw a lizard eat a grasshopper.  The grasshopper was only slightly smaller, so it took a good 20 minutes for the lizard to finally win the battle.  We had bats that lived in our cabin and swooped down to eat bugs at dusk. Also, the rain forest is NOISY (in a good way).  We could almost always hear four or five different birds calling to each other, and we often heard monkeys (howler monkeys are quite loud and can be heard 1 KM away), frogs, insects, and bats calling out to each other.  All of it with the ocean waves crashing in the distance.

Our resort had to be all-inclusive because there was really no other way to get food!  The main road was a good mile away (up the mountian, to boot) from our cabin.  Fortunately, they served excellent food, and they always had something vegetarian for David.  We really enjoyed the pina colatas and coco locos at the bar because they were made with fresh, local ingredients. 

It got dark early (relative to NJ right now) and fast in Costa Rica.  The sun would start setting around 5, and by 6 it was pitch dark.  I really enjoyed watching the light fade in our cabin. 

The cicadas would start chirring just as it got dark, and keep it up for about 10 minutes.  Then the glass frogs would start after it got really dark.  We never saw one, but they made a very distinctive "ping".

We would fall asleep around 8:30 or 9:00.  This is much earlier than normal, but we didn't have a lot of electric light in the cabin, and I was usually exhausted by the day's activities anyway.  Besides, when we had early morning activities, it wasn't as big of a deal to get up at 5am!

ETA: More to come!

Comments

[Stacey]

What a delightful trip! So glad you had time to relax and savor every second!

[Kelly]

ohhh it looks and sounds wonderful! What an awesome honeymoon!

[Sharon]

Wow what an awesome honeymoon!

[bea]

WOw that looks wonderful.

[Jessica]

Looks awesome and rugged! Go you guys!

[Jacquie]

What an amazing getaway. Thanks for sharing!

I've definitely added Costa Rica to my list of places to go. :-)

[whitney]

Wow, that looks like an amazing place to spend a honeymoon!

[stacey]

sounds like the perfect getaway!!!

[kelp!]

I love that areal photo that you took! It looks like you guys had a great time. Oooh, and congrats on the second wedding!

[tiennie]

What an awesome place to go!