Rumble in the Jungle... or Rainforest? Part 1 of 3

A few months after Mark popped the big question we started to toss around a few Honeymoon ideas. Dare we travel to beautiful Hawaii and live the life of luxury in a 5 star resort? Or, maybe we hop accross a few "ponds" to see the incredible sights of Bret and Jemaine's beloved homeland (New Zealand) then continue our excursion by exploring the South Pacific in Fiji? These all seemed like great ideas, but when it came to making the big decisions we decided to turn to Lonely Planet.

After spending several weeks swaying back and forth between 3 hot honeymoon spots- we went out on a limb and decided to head to Costa Rica. Why, you ask? Did we know anyone that had traveled there? No. Did we think that it would be a good honeymoon spot? Not sure! We just went for it, and it ended up being one of the best wedding decisions that we had made.

Mark, Mr. National Geographic and National Geographic Traveler subscriber and avid Travel Channel watcher made the big decisions. He is much more of a risk taker than I. He decided that in order to get the most "bang for our buck" and have the greatest number of experiences than we had to make 3 stops in the small country. 3 stops- sure! Sounds easy! As the trip went on it quickly became much more apparent that getting around any Central American country was not going to be the easiest. In fact, it was pretty darn tough!

After flying in to San Jose we realized that this wasn't the safest city, it was actually quite rough. We wanted to head to the huge market, but the concierge pretty much said that we would get mugged and kidnapped. Happy Honeymoon! We found a old mall to tool around at for a little bit- killing some time before we left for our first destination the next morning. The anticipation was building!

The next morning we woke up early and took a flight out to the city of Golfito. The flew on a single engine plane and I can probably say that it was one of the most uncomfortable and scariest situatioons that I have ever been in. The winds were fairly bad that morning and the little guy was bouncing and swerving all over the sky. ( I really do mean little, there was only room for 6 passengers). It doesn't feel good to know that you may not make it to your 1 month wedding anniversary. But, as luck had it, we safely landed in our little cow pasture and nausiously was able to climb off the tiny aircraft. After making chit chat with the 2 horrible pilots we hopped on a boat and headed to the larger town of Puerto Jimanez.

Puerto Jimanez was a neat port town that catered to fisherman. A Tico man met us when we got off the boat and drove up the 50 km to our final destination- Lapa Rios. This is where we would be spending our first 3 nights as a married couple!

Wow! There is nothing like the sound of Howler Monkeys in the morning! What can I say about the incredible Lapa Rios Eco Lodge? Way too much to fit on this blog! 16 eco friendly bungalows perched on the side of the Golfo Dulce at the very tip of Costa Rica. Check out our great photos:

I would have to say that even though the Howler Monkeys interrupted by sleep by waking me up at 4:30 every morning, they were my favorite piece to the Osa Peninsula puzzle. Their boisterous sound was incredible! The white faced monkeys were neat too. See below:

we captured 40+ monkeys following the same trail through the rain forest. It was so strange! Must have been a big party on the agenda and we definitely weren't invited.