As much as we didn’t want to leave beautiful Puerto Viejo and views like this:
We knew that we would eventually have to leave the amazing Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. As I mentioned in Part 3, instead of sitting in a shuttle for the five hour trip back to San Jose, we decided to do a white water rafting trip. Needless to say, by the time we got back to our hotel in the capital city (we stayed in San Jose for a night since we had an early afternoon flight out of Costa Rica the next day), we were exhausted. When I booked the room weeks before, I picked the most basic room since we would only be staying for one night. But after four hours of battling class I-IV rapids, we were looking for a bit of luxury. As we checked in at the front desk, I asked if they possibly had any of the jacuzzi rooms left that I had seen on the website. To our excitement, we were told that yes, for $30 extra, we could have a jacuzzi room that even had a mountain view!
We gladly accepted, and headed upstairs. Excited to continue the amazing views we had on the coast, I ran to the window and opened the curtains to see this…
Hmmmm, not so much a mountain view. But, if we really craned our necks, we were able to see what I suppose they consider a mountain view.
Fortunately, the rest of the room was pretty nice, especially the huge jacuzzi tub- definitely a nice change from the nonexistent pressure and lukewarm water temperatures of our shower on the coast.
That jacuzzi ended up being our saving grace, as neither of us were very enamored with the capital city. Maybe because we had just spent a week in the laid back paradise that is Puerto Viejo, but we both found San Jose to be very abrasive, and just not where we were looking to spend a whole lot of time. I think this face pretty much sums up my feelings…
We ran out to grab a quick bite to eat, and stopped at a pharmacy to grab a few bottles of juice to go with the rum we brought back from the coast 🙂 The rest of the night was spent sipping rum punches in the jacuzzi, ignoring the outside world!
The next day we gave San Jose another chance, and ended up finding a pretty awesome indoor marketplace that had everything from meats to medicine shops, to live chickens, roosters and kittens. For two people who love culture, this was possibly the saving grace of our stay in the capital.
Soon enough, it was time to board our flight to Miami, or so we thought. After arriving in plenty of time at the tiny airport, we found out our flight was delayed. After a two hour delay in the terminal and another two and a half hour delay once we boarded the plane, we finally landed in Miami at about 10:45- just over three hours behind schedule.
Fortunately, the hotel we stayed at in Miami was amazing, and not only send a shuttle out to pick us up from the airport, but the driver also drove us 10+ minutes away to a Denny’s since it was the only thing open by the time we checked in at the hotel around midnight and we hadn’t eaten since about 1 p.m.
We crashed as soon as we got back, but got up fairly early the next day to check out Miami before flying out that evening. Again, we weren’t very impressed. But to be fair, we were pretty far from Miami beach since we chose to stay at a hotel close to the airport, so we missed a lot of what many consider the “real” Miami. We did end up having quite a bit of fun walking around, and even saw a manatee in the bay!
The saving grace in Miami was definitely our hotel. I literally picked it on a whim, but between picking us up from the airport just before midnight, to taking us all the way to Denny’s, to holding our luggage after we had checked out so that we could explore Miami for the day, they were pretty awesome people.
Not to mention that they even let us use the pool after we had already checked out! After seeing about all of Miami that we cared to, we headed back to the hotel, arriving a few hours before we needed to leave for the airport. Not wanting to sit in the airport any longer than necessary, we asked the hotel if we could possibly go for a swim, to which they quickly agreed. So we swam around a bit, giving Brian a chance to play around a bit more with his waterproof iPhone case. He had so much fun with that thing!
Finally, it was time to head home. After tucking our swimsuits away in our bags, the hotel shuttle took us to the airport for our 7 p.m. flight. With no delays this time around, we made it back to Chicago on time- with my new in-laws waiting to pick us up. We finally got home at about 11 p.m., exhausted.
I’m a bit sad that this is the last honeymoon post, and even more sad that our time in Costa Rica is already seeming like it was so long ago. But between all of our photos and memories, it will definitely not be forgotten. Pretty often, a memory will pop into one of our heads and we’ll reminisce and laugh together, remembering the trip of a lifetime.
Until someday, when we can make it back to our little piece of paradise…
