Mexico & Costa Rica

Happy honeymoon to us! We recently tied the knot on my family's farm in Minnesota, USA, surrounded by family and friends.

We celebrated our next chapter together with a honeymoon to Mexico and Costa Rica. Here’s an overview of our trip and some suggestions if you’re in that part of the world!

Mexico

Resort Life

We started our Mexican adventure with a week at a swanky all-inclusive resort near Playa del Carmen (south of Cancun) that Bobby booked using agent rates. The food was great, the beach was pretty, and the place was fairly empty, which was fine by us!

There was plenty of space to lounge, and the weather was perfect.

We spent some time sampling the taco bar by the pool for a quick lunch. There were also special food stations set up on the weekend.

They poured some STRONG drinks, and we spent a lot of time floating in one of the 7 swimming pools.

Just walking around this place was an experience! They had golf carts rolling around everywhere if you didn't feel like walking.

One of the best parts of this enormous resort was (surprisingly) the wildlife! While exploring the boardwalk through the middle, you could see monkeys (and baby monkeys) on the edge of the mangrove swamp. We also spotted wild pigs and coatimundis, aka Mexican raccoons.

If you stay at The Fives, we'd highly recommend the buffet breakfast and booking in at Arrezzo. We also enjoyed a complimentary romantic dinner on the beach to celebrate our honeymoon, where we watched another couple get engaged! The cycle continues...

Fuego

For our ultimate touristy excursion, we let the tourism desk talk us into Xplor Fuego, a nighttime adventure park experience. The Xplor park is full of ziplines, underwater caverns, and more, and once dusk hits it's all lit up at night for Xplor Fuego.

Diving in Cenotes

If you’ve never heard of a cenote, it’s a cavern that is connected by a network of underground rivers. They’re well-known for their beauty and unique light, popular for underwater photographers.

We explored Jardin Del Eden Cenote and Cenote Tajma Ha.

I was having some problems with my sinuses so I just snorkeled, but Bobby got to explore some of the caverns.

The GoPro really caught the light in this particular cavern.

After checking out of our resort, we spent a week in an AirBnB in central Playa del Carmen. We met up with Bobby’s friend Laura, an expat Australian who has lived and worked in Playa for several years. There’s a huge remote worker community here taking advantage of cheap cost of living and rent close to the beach.

Restaurants we liked:

La Cueva del Chango - A gorgeous little cafe close to the beach.

El Fogon - Some legit tacos! (Video)

Porfirio’s - Expensive for Mexico but the service is amazing and the flaming steak is pretty cool!

La Taberna - A quiet joint mostly visited by locals.

We had a very relaxed trip and didn’t quite get into “real” Mexico, but it was still a great time.

Cosa Rica

We finally visited a country that neither of us have been to! We spent one week in La Fortuna, up in the mountains. This area is known for the Arenal Volcano, which was erupting from 1968-2010! Too bad we missed it.

The top of the volcano is rarely out of the clouds, but we caught it at its best on an unusually clear day!

Arenal Rafting

Costa Rica is known for its adventure sports. We'd done plenty of ziplining, so we decided to try something else. A highlight of our trip was a white water raft on Class III/IV (intermediate/advanced) rapids!

The rafting companies in La Fortuna use the power of nature and the technology of man to add to the rafting experience. The hydroelectric dam releases water at 11am each day, so the rafts are all there and waiting.

Coffe & Cocoa

Another high point was a chocolate and coffee farm tour. Our guide showed us some coffee plants and beans, and how they're processed.

The beans are picked by hand, the outer shells are removed, and then the beans are roasted and ground.

It was pretty darn good coffee, even if it was filtered through a sock...

The cocoa plants have much larger fruit, but the process is essentially the same.

We sampled some freshly roasted and ground cocoa, mixed with sugar and milk because raw cocoa is actually quite bitter!

Rio Celeste

We also visited our only national park of the trip, Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio. This area is perhaps even more well-known for its brilliant blue Celeste River and waterfall.

The stairs back up the top were rough in the humidity of the Costa Rican jungle. We'd recommend finding a spot you can swim in the river. There are a few

Costa Rica is a great place to visit if you have money to spend on adventure tours and don’t have time to care about the slow wifi. If we came back, we’d find a nature reserve tour and look for tapirs!

We visited during October, which we later discovered is the rainiest month. We actually had great weather the first few days, with some rain at night, but by the time we left it was raining hard by 2pm and lasting through the night.

Lodging

We stayed at the Heliconias Nature Lodge, a lovely resort with treehouses in the middle of the jungle. We watched flocks of toucans from bed, and there’s a hiking trail on-site that can be walked day or night to find wildlife.

There's a main open-air room where you go for meals and as we found out later, karaoke night!

This place seems like it’s really struggling, with low season and sluggish COVID recovery, but the owner and staff were so friendly and welcoming. It’s about a 20 minute drive on winding roads from La Fortuna, so we’d recommend renting a car or organising day tours if you’ll be staying out here.

We were feeling beached-out so we spent a few more nights in La Fortuna. The Monte Real Hotel was right on the edge of town, but next to the river so white noise covered up any loud city sounds. The rooms were spacious and clean, and there was a new on-site restaurant run by Louis.

Where to Eat

Bamboo Restaurant -

He lost his job as a sommelier during COVID, and decided to branch out into cooking. The first night it was raining so hard we didn’t want to try find a restaurant, so we wandered over. Louis and his adorable son (wearing an apron)

Indian restaurant - Expensive, cool menu setup, slow service, great food