Continuing with a few more of our honeymoon highlights from Costa Rica in December! Miss the first honeymoon recaps? Check those out first. 
- Our Honeymoon Overview
- El Silencio Lodge: Hiking Adventures
- El Silencio Lodge “Cultural Tour”
- Waterfall Rappelling!
- White Water Rafting
This highlight features the adventures that took place on one of our last days in the Arenal Volcano area of Costa Rica, just before heading to the beach for the last part of our trip!
On our trip from El Silencio Lodge to Arenal Nayara, we were driven by a guy named Walter Davis of Indigo Blue Tours. He was really nice and friendly (Matt had him tell us all about Costa Rica’s history!) and when he dropped us off, he explained that he also led private tours of some of the coolest spots in the area. We ended up signing up for a full day trip with him later that week.
Our adventure started bright and early and we met Walter in the lobby of our hotel at 7 a.m. sharp, ready to go. Our first stop was the beautiful hanging bridges in the Costa Rican rainforest nearby.
Official info about the bridges:
The Arenal Hanging Bridges are a complex of trails and bridges through the rain forest that was developed for the purpose of ecotourism. The main goals are the observation of nature and its protection. Our private nature reserve of almost 250 hectares of tropical rain forest houses a high local diversity of animal and plant species.
There are 16 bridges in total. Ten of them are regular or static bridges and vary in length from eight to 22 meters. Six are hanging or suspension bridges and are 48 to 98 meters long.
Cool, right? We ended up hiking for about 2 hours, enjoying the forest and the bridges. It was a bit rainy, unfortunately, but still really cool. Some of the bridges were really high up, too!
Our next stop on the tour was a volcano hike!
Unfortunately it was still rainy and cloudy so we didn’t have great views, but it was still really cool to be so close to a volcano. Here’s some info about it from the official website:
At 5,437 feet, the Arenal Volcano looms large and ominous over the pastured green hillsides that surround its base. Although currently in a resting phase, Arenal remained the country’s most active volcano for the past 43 years. Its storied history is charged with eruptions – both major and minor – that have intimately affected the region and the people who live here.
The volcano is behind that annoying cloud. Fail.
Here’s a better picture of it from afar on a less cloudy day:
After about an hour or so of volcano hiking, we got a quick lunch in town (more casado, mmm!) and then headed on to our next stop – a waterfall hike!
Waterfalls will never get old.
It was really quick getting down to the volcano, but getting out required a REALLY steep, long climb back to the top. Whew! By this point, it was about 4:30 and we were pretty exhausted after such a fun and active day. Our tired legs made our last stop of the day, at the Eco Termales hot springs, even more awesome!
We arrived early enough that there was literally no one there at first! We had this gorgeous place practically to ourselves – what a treat.
We relaxed in the hot springs on and off for about an hour. This place was truly magical – especially when it got dark outside! There were a ton of different pools and levels to explore, and I loved that it was right in the forest.
They even had a bar, of course. 🙂
What a wonderful end to our day. I didn’t get any pictures of our dinner at the hot springs place, but I wish I had because it was fabulous. If you ever go there, get the dinner, too! 🙂
Stay tuned – I’ll be sharing a couple more final honeymoon recaps in the days to come, peppered among normal posts!
