A couple of years back, we found a steal of a deal on a trip to Guanacaste, Costa Rica because it was the last non-stop flight for the season. Costa Rica had been on the “list” for a long time, so we couldn’t pass up going. This trip was to a RIU Palace, which is one of our favorite resort brands. We like it enough that we got married at RIU in Negril, Jamaica. What we didn’t realize in Jamaica, but we learned in Costa Rica, is that the “Palace” side would have been slightly more upscale–better food, premium drinks, and adults only.
Costa Rica is known for it’s population of monkeys, and in doing my research, I discovered a place called Monkey’s Bar just down from our resort where guests would go to watch and feed the monkeys. Much to hubby’s chagrin, I made him get up so early on a number of mornings that it wasn’t even light out, just so we could go down to Monkey’s Bar. It wasn’t open in mornings, but it looked like a pretty neat place to grab a beer in the evening.
Some people would feed the monkey’s bananas and strawberries. We didn’t. Most mornings we could barely see them, and only once did our friend get to see one up close. They were really cute, but reputably vicious.
We hung out a lot with our friends on this trip, but one afternoon we took a snorkeling and sunset cruise excursion. We went out on a huge catamaran, the Vision, and toured the Gulf of Papagayo.
The crew served a really tasty light lunch and there were fun cocktails available.
We stopped off to do a little snorkeling and then continued over to Monkey Head Rock. Who knew we’d even see monkeys in the ocean?
Shortly after the big rock, we ran into some dolphins swimming along side our boat. They looked like they were having as much fun as we were having, yet looked so graceful.
We then witnessed one of the most beautiful, albeit cloudy sunsets ever before being returned back to the RIU.
I may just have considered it to be so beautiful, because we had just had one of the most relaxed, fun days ever. It was a day that will make me always consider Costa Rica a wonderful, beautiful place!
Travel tidbits from my life