Honeymoon Day 7, 8, and 9: Mistakes Were Made and We Got a Free Taxi Ride. Also, Some Monkey-ing Around.

And the blog is back!

Day 7:

This was our last day at the Leaves and Lizards Resort near the Arenal Volcano. Our plan was to head to Monteverde from the Leaves and Lizards resort and be there sometime in the early afternoon. This did not happen.

A trip without problems is just not a trip… apparently. Our hotel in Monteverde booked only half of the trip plans we had made, and not the one to Monteverde. So we had to head into La Fortuna to kill the better part of a morning and afternoon for another company to ferry us to Monteverde.

Our time spent in La Fortuna went by doing some shopping and then going to see the La Fortuna Waterfall.

We left La Fortuna to Monteverde by way of a car, then a boat, then a car. A five hour trip ended with us in a dark Monteverde. We got checked into our hotel then headed out onto a night hike. We met a tarantula, toucans, an owl and many others. We also met a kid who asked too many questions.

Day 8:

We headed out early from our hotel to the Reserva Santa Elena in the cloud rain forest near the town of Santa Elena. We had a three hour hike with the forest itself and realized it is a very pretty, yet hazy area. We headed out from the Reserve down the hill to go on an hour long hike on the hanging bridges on top of the cloud rain forest. I refused to go on a zipline; the hanging bridges were more than enough.

The rest of the day was spent wondering about, eating food and buying coffee.

Day 9:

This was our last day in Monteverde, and we headed out very early to sunny, beach-side Montezuma. Six hours of travel led me to my first time at an ocean; specifically the Pacific Ocean. We stayed at the
Agua Vista Vacation Rental resort. This was an amazing place where our first few hours in this place had led us to see some awesome wildlife, like the white faced capuchin. We traveled down to the waterfalls located behind our lodging at the Agua Vista. We headed into Montezuma after a swim in the waterfalls, and I had the first and most amazing fish hamburger I had ever eaten.

I will hopefully finish up the remaining days of trip very soon. Until then, check out a bunch of the photos!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Back in the US of A.

Andi and I came back last night from our honeymoon trip last night around 11:00PM at the Chicago O’hare airport.

I kinda crapped out on continuing the day by day, or at least every other day, blog post due to being very sleepy at night, or being too relaxed during the day.

I will be posting write ups of the rest of our honeymoon in Costa Rica starting Monday and should have it finished up by Thursday/Friday.

Some concluding notes as we drive through Iowa to Omaha:

– We heard about these snowstorms we had missed. Its a shame we didn’t get to partake in them.

– I got tan. Andi got sunburned. 😉

– The dogs in Costa Rica are crazy friendly. If you go, give them a pat on the head and a treat.

– Howler monkeys wake me up at an all too early time.

– Drink beer out of bottles in Costa Rica. They taste better that way.

– They also sell plains based American Indian arts and crafts accompanied by wrong sources and folk stories.

That’s kind of it for now.

Randy

Day 6: Hiking and Relaxing

(sorry about the post going up late… we have had wonky Internet for a while)

Since day 5 was so packed, we took things a little slower on day 6. The morning was spent chatting to a parrot in the cafe area at Leaves and Lizards. It mostly said HOLA… a lot.

The rest of the morning was spent lounging around our cabin and napping on hammocks until lunch.

After lunch, we hiked to the Arenal River, had us a swim and then hiked back. We met some escaping cattle, an angry horse and an old bridge.

Check out the photos from this days events!

Randy and Andi!

Honeymoon Day 4+5: Power Outage on Day 4, and Horseback Rides on Day 5!

Sorry for no posts the last couple of days, the power went out on day 4 and I fell asleep on day 5.

Day 4 was spent leaving San Jose from our hotel, the Adventure Inn, and traveling for four hours to La Fortuna. Our brief stay in San Jose was sunny and bright, and our move into La Fortuna became very, very cloudy and moist.The big thing about La Fortuna and the surrounding area is the Arenal Volcano. The day we arrived it was too cloudy and rainy to even see, and this has apparently been the pattern for the last two months. So, from the sounds of things, we had a good chance of not seeing the volcano on our trip.

The rest of day four was spent napping and relaxing on the hammocks at our cabin in the Leaves and Lizards resort which was 30 minutes away from the town of La Fortuna. When you look through our photos you will notice that the cabin has an amazing porch area overlooking the forest, and when the weather was clear, we should also be able to see the Arenal Volcano. We went to bed with the power out throughout the camp, so we sat in away from the mosquitoes and watched some Doctor Who on my netbook. Sorry nature.

Day 5 started with us going on a horse-ride at 9 AM through local jungle and ranch land in the area, leading us to a sequestered waterfall for us to swim Throughout our horseride, we were able to some awesome wildlife such as the rare nocturnal creature of the two-toed sloth, along with some more regular three toed sloths. We were also able to see some white hawks, which our horse guide noted are also very rare to see out in the open. It took us about two hours to get to the waterfall with the intermittent rain that dampened Andi and me. A short hike from our horses later, and we came upon a spectacular waterfall, that honestly seemed too perfect. After a half hour swim near the waterfall, we got back on our horses and headed back to the resort.

On our way back, the sun finally broke through the day and a half of rain and heavy cloud cover. With the clouds breaking up we were finally able to see the volcano! We hurried along, cleaned up, and met with our guide to hike near the base of the active volcano. We traveled along with a British couple, Michelle and Raph(?), to the national park near the volcano and got to see some brilliant sights of the volcano up close, the nearby lake and a toucan that ate a flower like it was a bag of Doritos.

I would also like to note that the roving bands of dogs on the streets in these communities are tiny dogs. I am fairly certain I can take them.

Look for the photos of day 4 and 5 to see all the awesome things we did.

Randy and Andi

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Honeymoon Day 3: Its Currently 68°F in Costa Rica. Eat it Upper Midwest.

We left Chicago at 3:00 PM and at 11:30 PM, we touched down in San Jose, Costa Rica. That is pretty much all for today’s post. We are safe, sound and ready for sleep. We will have actual photos of Costa Rica for tomorrow.

Before I forget…
A grandmotherly Mexican women stole Andi’s nose on the plane into Mexico City, in a very sweet way. We are hoping it means only blessings for our future travels, and not Andi losing her nose.

Randy

Honeymoon Day 2: On Space, AmeriCorps Reunions and Bored Prostitutes

On the 2nd day of our honeymoon, we had begun our day vacating the creepy love nest of the Rodeway Inn. (Look at the 1st day’s photos of how awesome that room was.)

After leaving there, we had purchased a new power cord for my netbook from Office Depot and headed to the Adler Planetarium! The Adler Planetarium was fairly awesome that had tons to offer on the history of space and space exploration. Go there if you ever get the chance.

We then travel to the Wicker Park district in Chicago and ate at the Earwax Cafe. Home to delicious foods and interesting decor, my wife and I met up with AmeriCorps Alum/awesome person Caitlin Closser. After playing catch-up and eating an awesome black bean burger with avocado and salsa (Andi had a blue cheese steak sandwich), we went thrifting at a few stores in the area and then found our new hotel for the evening.

The evening was finished with going to The Ram Restaurant & Brewery near the O’hare Airport. Great brewed beer and food here. While here, Andi and I were witness to possibly, the most bored prostitute in Chicago. A women in knee high cheetah print boots sat there sadly looking at her drink, while a man 30 years her elder talked her ear off. (Its not necessarily fair that I call her a prostitute, but we both agreed that the evidence was stacked against her being in a normal relationship)

We leave for Costa Rica tomorrow! Look out Costa Rica!

Check out the photos of the harbor and planetarium!

Randy

A mini rover, roving about

More of the Harbor!

The Harbor!

Its the Adler Planetarium!

Giant old telescope and a smaller old telescope

Andi and I from the perspective of an infrared camera

Big Pimping

Light manipulation!

Andi looking down a telescope.

After Galileo had one, everyone needed one.

I have no idea what this is supposed to depict.

Its the Mars rover!

Honeymoon Day 1: Made it to Chicago!

Back to using the blog again… finally!

This first post on our honeymoon will be the most boring one, hopefully.

My wife and I have are on our way to our honeymoon in Costa Rica! We had planned (and by we, I mean my wife had planned) this trip back in October between our final semesters at grad school.

We left Omaha, NE this morning at around 10:30 AM and drove to Chicago, IL.
Map of our trip today.

After a stop at an outlet mall in Williamsburg, IA, we had arrived in Chicago at around 7:00 PM. Andi had reserved us a room that may be the best mix of romantic and creepy that I have ever seen.

Just look at it:

You can never have too many couches.

The whirlpool with fireplace next to it.

The whirlpool jacuzi in the best room ever.

Goodnight and more on Chicago tomorrow!

On Being Burgled

As funny as the word “burgled” is, my fiancee, and maybe myself, was a victim of theft. This Sunday, November 15, while on a long hike, my fiancee’s car had her rear passenger window smashed in and her was purse stolen.

Not our car but you get the idea of a broken car window.

I remember the moments leading up to finding out about the vandalism and theft. We had explored the Standing Bear Lake hiking areas for around 2 hours. We were on the last leg of the hike when I saw the window smashed out. We ran over to the car to see what had happened and found Andi’s, my fiancee, purse missing.

We called the cops and left a message on the crime reporting hotline voicemail: a rather lackluster system of crime fighting, but on the other hand, we are in a city with a pretty busy police department. We then called up her bank and her main credit card company to shut down her credit card.

Throughout the first few hours of regaining some of the bearings on her missing finances, we both had to push down and anger and tears to get the important things done. To be fair to my lady, I couldn’t be anywhere near as fearful or angry as she could, since it was not my identity missing or my car broken into.

We finished up closing the rest of her accounts and card services that evening and that following Monday morning.

We finally recieved a call from the police on Tuesday night, and the best we can get is a report filed. The Omaha Police Department is overwhelmed by many other issues and understaffed/overworked to be fair.  On our end, Andi and I are used to small town law-enforcement with a little more time to spend on these issues.

We still wait to see if anything will go missing or change from her accounts and we are lucky nothing else has happened, but until then, we are comforted by Facebook comments:

Comments from status update of the theft.

Edit: To be fair, the purse was left in plain sight in the back seat. Not exactly the safest thing, but it still feels rotten though.