Last updated on December 31, 2023
Its been just over a month since the two of us were officially married in Fredericksburg Texas on November 12, 2023. We had an amazing day full of love and support from our friends and family! Photos are not ready to share yet, but once we have all the final images we will share them here!
Costa Rica
After driving away from the wedding venue, we finished getting all our bags packed and then drove to Austin to get about 3 hours of sleep before getting on our flight to Liberia, Costa Rica via Miami. Daniel had been to Costa Rica in high school for a mission trip and loved the people, the culture, and the beautiful nature found there, and thought it would make a great place to spend our first two weeks together.
Once we landed in Liberia, Costa Rica we rented a car and picked up some groceries for our stay, and then headed out on a 3 hour drive to our first AirBnB in La Fortuna. The drive started on a nice large highway but in less than an hour, the roads became much more narrow and twisty as the sun went down, leaving us driving through winding mountain passes in the dark.
La Fortuna
We arrived to our AirBnB in the dark and got all our luggage and groceries unpacked and crashed hard that night as we were both exhausted from the lack of sleep. But in the morning, the beautiful jungle views of La Fortuna greeted us outside our windows! After making some breakfast we went out to explore the town and sign up for a sloth viewing hike.
The sloth tour was a hike through the jungle with a guide who helped spot the sloths high up in the canopy of the trees overhead. The afternoon rains had started when we started the tour, so the sloths were mostly sleeping and were very hard to spot with the naked eye. Our guide had a spotting scope though, and we were able to clearly see several cute sloths, and even saw one moving around and eating! We also saw some poisonous frogs and many ants and other insects of the jungle on this tour. It was a really neat experience!
After our amazing sloth tour, we got some delicious drinks as well as food at the restaurant attached to the tour location. Emma got a Piña Colada after Dave joked about them in the family group chat, and Daniel got a Caipirinha, a Brazilian drink he first discovered in Portugal.
After dinner, we went to check out the tourist shops and the local grocery store, drove around the town a bit, and then went back to the AirBnB to watch the sunset behind the beautiful Arenal Volcano. When traveling to a different country, we wanted to try as many different foods that we could. Our favorite thing we found was drinkable yogurt that was sold in plastic milk jugs. Emma loved the kiwi flavor while Daniel loved the blackberry flavor. Surprisingly, they also had a ton of sugar free drinks that Emma could enjoy.
The next day we had a very exciting 3 hour drive from La Fortuna to Monteverde on the other side of the Arenal national forest. Much of this drive was over narrow, poorly maintained dirt roads which made this drive feel like it took most of the day, and was not the best experience for poor Emma who was barely holding back being carsick for most of the drive.
Santa Elena/Monteverde
The big highlight of this drive though was running into a cattle drive. We were driving on these steep pothole filled dirt roads when we saw a man on a horse riding in the opposite direction as we were coming around a bend. As we finished coming around the bend we saw this:
Getting passed by a herd of cattle was definitely the highlight of the day. We also saw some beautiful views of the Costa Rican countryside.
As we arrived into Monteverde the rain really picked up. The rain here in Monteverde was some of the heaviest rain that we had ever seen. The rain seemed to get heavier and heavier as we pulled into the AirBnB. It was less than 20 ft from the car door to the front door of the BnB but we both got soaked in our sprint from the car to the door.
We waited a few hours, and the rain died down and we were able to get our luggage inside and get ourselves unpacked. We went into town that evening and got some small grocery items and found a nice place for dinner, before heading back to the Bnb to get some rest so we could get up early for the 8am Zipline Tour!
The Zipline Jungle Canopy Tour was AMAZING, and also slightly terrifying! We got up early that morning to make breakfast, and headed out to the zipline tour location. We got to the tour office way up a steep mountain road quite a bit early for the start of the tour, and got to spend most of our time in the gift shop, listening to construction workers outside cutting metal with hand grinders until it was time to get harnessed up and listen to a safety briefing. After the briefing we waited in line for our turn to start the tour before going from tree to tree, and then from mountain top to mountain top.
The zipline tour consisted of 9 different ziplines including the longest zipline in Costa Rica at just over 1.5km (0.98mi), as well as a suspended rope bridge. At one point, about halfway through the tour, you get off a zipline and then ride a 4×4 mule up the mountain to a hiking path where we hiked another quarter mile up to the start of the longest zipline. It definitely felt surreal flying out over the jungle valleys, riding a cable from one ridge line to another. It was definitely worth the rough roads and pouring rain to get here and take this tour, though luckily it did not rain while we were on the ziplines.
That evening we had the best meal of our trip at “Sabor Tico” in Santa Elena. Emma got a chicken fajita with a roasted & candied plantain, and Daniel got Costa Rican chicken fried rice over fries. These two dishes were so good! The Costa Rican chicken fried rice was good everywhere we had it, but this one was definitely the best.
The next day we got all packed up and headed out and drove from Monteverde to Playas Del Coco back near Liberia where we flew in.
Playas Del Coco
After an exciting start to our trip, with a whirlwind 4 days of driving, exploring, ziplining, and trying the local cuisine, we started off on our last big drive back to near where we started for some planned relaxation at a poolside condo in Playas del Coco. Our trip back started with some beautiful views as we descended from the mountains down toward sea level and the promise of beach sand between our toes.
Though once we had made it back to Liberia, we did indulge ourselves by trying some local delicacies:
With that out of the way we got to our poolside condo, said hi to the condo giraffe, got ourselves unpacked, and promptly found some drinks!
From here our memory gets a bit more hazy. We spent most mornings in the pool, most afternoons talking and relaxing or going to the beach, and most evenings in town, eating good food, drinking delicious drinks, and wandering through the many tourist shops looking at small trinkets and handmade art.
We had an amazing stay in Costa Rica, and it was so nice to spend time together and get a head start on planning for our future together. We had some amazing food, met some lovely and friendly people, and most importantly got to enjoy each other’s company!
Thank you all!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us as we got married! We felt so blessed by everyone who was able to attend the wedding! For our Alaska Friends, we will be doing an Alaska Reception next year, so keep an eye out for that!
As we move forward in life together we will try to keep this space updated with what is going on in our lives, so those of you living so far from Alaska can keep up if you wish.
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