We had an early night last night and wanted to wake up early so that we can maximize our time at the Punta Islita resort. Breakfast was included with our stay at Hotel Peace and Lodge, which is a great way to start the day. We opted, as usual, for the fresh fruits and “tipico” breakfast, which come with rice and beans, eggs, and plantains.
After a nice breakfast, we packed up our car and drove about 30 minutes south to Punta Islita. We made a quick stop at Playa Carillo, which was right by our hotel. It had really cool low hanging trees that we wanted to snap a few pictures at!
Today we are staying at Hotel Puntal Islita, which is a Marriott Autograph resort. We decided to stay here as a little treat for our honeymoon, but only for one night. We arrived way before we could check in, but we knew we’d still able to utilize the grounds. We had such a nice morning in the infinity pool overlooking Playa Islita, with incredible breathtaking views!
After a morning cocktail by the pool, we walked down a path within the resort to Playa Islita where the resort had a beach restaurant called Aura. The resort provided beach chairs and even surf board (plus lessons) for their guests, so we decided to park ourselves on a chair and enjoy the crashing waves until lunchtime.
If you’ve been following us, the past week or so we’ve been making our way down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica…technically the Nicoya Peninsula, which is considered one of only five “blue zones” in the world! Blue zones are areas in which life expectancy is longer than the average… mostly due to the diets and lifestyles of the local people. On the lunch menu, we found an appetizer that was a corn dish made from ancestral corn grown in the Nicoya Peninsula and part of the regular diet of the locals…it was amazing! We also shared a small pizza pie that we devoured in mere moments…either we were really hungry or the food was just that good, likely a bit of both.
After lunch, we made our way back up the path to the main reception area to check into our room. We were provided with a list of activities that the resort offered, some were free and some had an extra cost…so we looked for the next free activity that we could do for the day and found a magnet painting class! We thought we would just be going to an area in the hotel where a staff member would be facilitating a painting class, but to our surprise the resort shuttled us into the town of Islita where we took a painting class with a local artist in her gallery…and it was just the two of us! If you follow us, you know how much we LOVE supporting local artists, so this was such an awesome experience! We painted a fish and a macaw…can you guess who painted which!? We even purchased a fish keychain made by our painting teacher, Sonia!
After giving our best with the local artist, we were shuttled back to the hotel where we enjoyed our very own private plunge pool before our dinner reservation at one of the other restaurants on site, Alma.
For dinner, we shared a pork belly appetizer and had a grilled lobster and beef picana for our main dishes…everything was absolutely delicioso! We even had room for dessert and ended up sharing a passion fruit crème brûlée…YUM!
After an amazing dinner, we went back to our room and fell asleep like babies. Tomorrow is a big travel day out of the Nicoya Peninsula…we’re making our way to Monteverde where we will be staying for 4 nights in the cloud forest…so make sure to stay posted!