Costa Rica has been on our travel bucket list for some time now. The Philippines is still closed to tourism, so we decided to spend our honeymoon in this beautiful tropical rainforest instead! When planning for this trip, we wanted to maximize our time in Costa Rica, so we rented a 4×4 car through Adobe rental. An employee was waiting for us at SJO (San Jose’s International Airport) and droves us to the rental location…super convenient. Our idea is to drive around the entire country and stop at different cities and destinations along the way.
The first stop on our honeymoon is La Fortuna, where we will be spending 4 nights. There are plenty of resorts and hotels in La Fortuna, so the options are abundant. You can have a secluded jungle experience, or a view of the volcano! When making our decision, we wanted a resort with unobstructed views of the Arenal Volcano, so we chose Arenal Manoa Hot Springs Resort.
We arrived to San Jose pretty late because of a delayed flight, but we were on the road pretty soon after arrival thanks to the Adobe services. Costa Rica is pretty close to the equator, meaning daytime and nighttime are about equal in length (we’ve found the sun rises before 6am sets around 6pm).
La Fortuna is about 3 hours from San Jose, so we arrived pretty late (and exhausted), only to find such a thoughtful honeymoon welcome in our room! We wanted to get a good night sleep for our first adventure of the trip, Arenal Volcano National Park, so we went right to bed.
Our hotel stay included breakfast, and we made sure to take advantage of this during our stay. The restaurant also had an amazing view of the volcano!
The National Park is about a 15-minute drive from our hotel, which is incredibly convenient (our resort is in between the national park and the town of La Fortuna, so it’s a great location). Once in the national park ($15pp), we hiked two trails, the Coladas de Lava and the Sendero el Ceibo (which is a 3km loop off of the Coladas de Lava trail).
The trail was pretty flat until you reach the lava fields from the 1992 eruption, which is a bit of an incline…but well worth it with the views of Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal!
Along our hike we saw and heard so much wildlife…we really had to keep an eye out for anything that might be around us…silence is key! We even saw a monkey jumping from one tree to another above us, but he was moving too quick to snap a photo.
The Sendero el Ceibo trail brought us to a 400-year-old Kapok tree that was a sight to see. It’s really incredibly to see the extensive root system that supports this magnificent tree!
When we finished our hike in the National Park, we exited, but not before asking the park ranger for a lunch recommendation. She directed us to La Mesa de Mama, which was about a 7km drive from the National Park (left out of the park). If you follow our adventures, you know how extensively we plan…but even so, one of our favorite things to do when traveling is getting local recommendations. We shared the casado dish with pollo (chicken), and it came with rice, beans, salad, plantains, and cheese.
After lunch, we made our way into the town of La Fortuna. If you know us, you know how much we love finding local craft beer. We were pleasantly surprised to find such great craft beer selection at La Fortuna Pub! Michael was super friendly and knowledgeable of the local craft beer scene. He took time out of his day to talk about each of the breweries that he stocked, and even let us take some bottles to go!
We made our way back to our hotel for some rest and relaxation by the pool and termales (hot springs). The pool area has magnificent views of Arenal Volcano, and when we looked up we noticed the clouds had moved just enough to show the peak of the volcano! Note: during rainy season, it’s rare to see the volcano in its entirety behind the low cloud cover, so if you get a chance, it’s usually only for a few moments.
We enjoyed a nice wood fire pizza by the pool (highly recommend the Pizza Manoa), and headed back to our room to get an early night sleep because tomorrow is a full day of adventure…stay tuned!
