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Getting Married on a Whim in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has a very special place in my heart. In 1997, my now husband and I went there, on somewhat of a whim, to be married. It was just the two of us, we’d never been there before, and Dan had taken care of all the details. (I know…what kind of woman lets the man plan the wedding? Well…this one did.)

Actually, Dan didn’t do much at all. He found the Don Carlos Hotel online and asked the staff there for help. They recommended a local attorney who obtained the legal documents and performed the ceremony. They stepped in as official witnesses and even found a guitar player to serenade us. It was low-tech, casual, and perfect.

From there, we set off on our two-week honeymoon. With a map but no itinerary, in a rented Suzuki Samurai, we headed north. At the time I didn’t know that my new husband wasn’t completely comfortable traveling in a foreign country without at least an idea of where he would lay his head or take his meal that night. If we don’t have a plan, how will we know where we are going? What if there are no Costa Rica hotels with vacancies? What if we get lost?

We learned a lot about each other on that trip. And we did get lost…more than once. We also had the time of our lives. From San Jose we drove through Heredia, Alajuela, and on to La Fortuna--with only one or two missed turns. We forged a river in our trusty mini SUV and spent the night on the southside of the Arenal Volcano in a little hotel called Linda Vista­--a place that more than made up for its “rusticness” with the view of the volcano. Our room had a huge picture window and we awoke in the night to see Arenal spouting great red spurts of lava.

From Arenal we went to Guanacaste and Playa del Coco. This was long before the real estate boom of the past decade and we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. When we left our hotel to continue our journey, the manager told us about the “Monkey Road” that would cut our time between Playa del Coco and Playa Flamingo in half, and where we had a good chance of seeing howler monkeys. “What fun. We have to take the Monkey Road,” I told Dan, still unaware of his aversion to the “unknown.” This was the second…or maybe third or fourth…time we got lost.

Our trip continued to Jaco, Quepos, Manuel Antonio National Park, and through San Isidro de General. The roads were terrible in many places, but that was part of the fun. In the funky little beach town of Dominical, we found a couple of bars, two restaurants, a makeshift convenience store, and lots of surfers. We loved it.

P.S. Costa Rica, which has long been popular with foreign tourists and retirees, is serious about maintaining its welcoming reputation. The people are friendly and generous, as Dan and I found out in 1997 as well as on more recent trips to Costa Rica. 
 

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