Weddingbee Blog

Have y’all missed me?! I had planned on getting down to honeymoon recaps sooner, but my computer decided to kaput on me. I’ve been using the public library down the street, but the librarian wasn’t so keen on my using a public computer to blog. So now with a new computer and our hundreds of honeymoon pictures transferred, I’m ready to share!

I mentioned before I knew very little about the honeymoon. While we waited at our gate the (very early) morning after our wedding, I got Mr. Skunk to spill. The itinerary involved two days at Arenal Volcano and three days on the beach at Manuel Antonio. I was excited but also a little apprehensive. Mr. Skunk booked the whole honeymoon through LivingSocial. In case you didn’t know, LivingSocial is a flash sale site that has one deal per day. I usually research the heck out of vacation deals, and here I was leaving the whole thing up to Mr. Skunk and deal site? Call me converted. I think this post and the next will help convince you if you’re on the fence like I was.

My worries were eased as soon as we got on the plane and I managed to get a few drinks in me. We totally blabbed that we were on our honeymoon to get these babies fo’ free!

We landed in San Jose, hopped in our rental car and drove the treacherous roads. For serious, driving in Costa Rica is not for the faint-hearted. One laned bridges, no road names/markings, and random animals cross the roads in hoards.

However, it was also unbelievably gorgeous. I snapped this when we stopped at a cheap little road side soda stand to grab lunch.

It was dark before we got into La Fortuna and as soon as we pulled up to the hotel, I knew we had nothing to worry about. Our hotel was absolutely gorgeous.

Taken from the hotel lobby. Windows and walls were a luxury in Costa Rica but with a landscape like this, you don’t really need them.

Twenty foot ceilings, beautiful wood walls, big jacuzzi with volcano views.

And this was my view from bed every morning. A smoldering volcano!

While in La Fortuna we hiked a LOT! We drove to Arenal Volcano National Park and hiked almost all day. We saw some beautiful flowers, a waterfall, and even a family of monkeys.

This was at the base of the volcano. There was a beautiful clear river covered in lava rocks. This trail was ’technically’ closed because of so much recent volcanic activity, but no one stopped us and I’m alive to talk about it.

Mr. Skunk also planned to check off one thing from my bucket list while in Costa Rica. Zip lining through a rain forest!

And rainy it was! Our first two lines were in a downpour, hence the glamorous rain jacket I’m modelin’ up there. After that, the sun came out and we were able to get beautiful views of the forest and lake Arenal.

Mr. Skunk is that tiny black dot way out there on the line.

After long days of adventure we would come back to our hotel and relax in the hot springs. Oh yes, just another advantage of putting ourselves in a volcanic path on our honeymoon.

My Beta for La Fortuna/Arenal

• Drive only if you’re totally sure of your driving skills and have some background handling a 4×4 vehicle
• We read a lot of stuff about safety, got paranoid and didn’t stop for food for about six hours. we finally stopped at a roadside soda completely famished and decided that Costa Rica is probably safer than Atlanta.
• The stray dogs have homes. Somewhere. Don’t pack them all up and attempt to bring them back to your home.
• If prices are marked in dollars, you’re probably going to pay too much
• If your shoes start to melt, it’s probably time to head away from the volcano
• Dry season is just less rainy. we supposedly went in the rainy season but had lots of beautiful sun and dry time. it’s a rain forest though so you can’t complain about rain.

Are you considering Costa Rica for your honeymoon? Where are you looking at staying?