Costa Rican Honeymooning Part 3

In this last installment of our Costa Rican Honeymoon I will cover the amazing food, drinks, and experiences we had during our week at the Hotel Punta Islita!

Food

All of the food we ate was from within 1 kilometer of the hotel property. That means all the food was extremely local and extremely fresh! On our first full day at the hotel the staff was collecting avocados from the tree just beyond our room. Our guide on the nature walk helped plant all of the mango trees when he was a boy. The food was amazing, and they had their menus marked with plenty of gluten free options. For breakfast and dinner everyday the kitchen made fresh gluten free bread for us. If you aren’t gluten free this likely doesn’t mean much to you, but for you gluten free folks out there, the bread was what we looked forward to most each meal. The bread always came out hot and they would make little flowers with the butter for us. I find myself to be easy to please but hard to blow away, this bread blew me away everyday. Of all the breakfast options, our favorite was the Creole Breakfast. This dish consisted of 2 eggs sunny side up, a hand pressed blue corn tortilla with fresh cheese, a rice and bean dish, and pico with an avocado spread. Something about the simplicity of the meal in the most relaxed morning setting with a fresh cup of cafe con leche just hit the spot for me. Over the course of the week I tried each breakfast dish that was gluten free, but this dish was the only one I got multiple times. The lunch selection from the Alma restaurant was mostly small dishes. The first dish we tried was our favorite dish overall and we almost never strayed from it. We would order the fish tacos with grilled fish instead of fried every single day without fail. One day we ate lunch at the beach and decided to branch out and order a different taco dish, but we still ordered the fish tacos as a backup. Simply put, we were in love with the fish tacos. The tacos came with 3 plantain cakes which were just as lovely as the tacos. I’m gonna drop a photo of this dish right here and y’all are probably gonna look at it and wonder what is so special about it. I really do not know how we got so addicted to this dish, but I know I would drop everything and go into debt to fly back to Costa Rica right now to have it again.

Moving on to dinner we also tried every option on the menu.The first few nights we would each order an entree and split both of them to get a sense of what we each really enjoyed. The strangest dish we tried we saved for the last night. To be completely honest, we were scared to try it. The dish was grilled octopus. I’ll say 2 things about it. The flavor was great but I would not order it again. The texture was somewhere between chicken and dying spray foam insulation. I’m definitely being dramatic here but food textures are my biggest ick and it was unlike anything I have ever tried before. I’m gonna pat myself on the back here for going out of my comfort zone to try octopus, but I will go back to the warmth of my personal comfort bubble now. The best thing about everything we ate was how fresh it all was. I could ramble on for 18 pages front and back about all the food we had and the flavors we experienced, but I’ll save that for another time.

Drinks

I already mentioned how amazing the welcome drink was. What a way for the hotel to set the tone for what was in store for us. For lunch, along with the fish tacos, we would order the welcome drink because it was just so good! I really need to get the recipe from them so I can attempt to make it at home. We were far less adventurous with the rest of the drinks because it's a bit warm down near the equator and water is very important. Punta Islita is where Aubry discovered her love for a refreshing dry white wine. Most night for dinner she would order a glass of white wine which came in these unbelievably large glasses. I’m convinced a whole bottle could fit in a single glass with room to spare. As usual the picture does not do justice but here is a picture of one of the glasses next to Aubry’s head.

My alcoholic beverage from the trip is called a Guaro Sour. Guaro is the national liquor of Costa Rica and it’s distilled from cane sugar. For the most part it’s flavorless except for a subtle sweetness that I find it has. What sets the Guaro sour apart is the hibiscus floater they would put on top. I have attempted to recreate this drink so many times at my house but I cannot get the hibiscus to float quite like they could. My suspicion is that the hibiscus syrup I got from Total Wine is more syrup than hibiscus so it's just too heavy to float. Overall, I find the Guaro sour to be similar to a riff of the Cosmopolitan. At least that is how the ones I make taste.

Zipline

As I said in part 2, the hotel offers a variety of experiences on and around the hotel property. The moment Aubry saw the hotel offered Ziplining she was determined we would do it. Admittedly I was too chicken at first and was determined to absolutely not strap into a zipline. Luckily for Aubry we booked the trip 6 months in advance so time and peer pressure talked me into giving the zipline a try. After the first line I was hooked! The course was a series of 6 or 7 lines through the canopy of the jungle surrounding the hotel. The views from the zipline were stunning and the adrenaline rush was addicting. It was actually during the zipline trip that we met the couple we day tripped to Samara with! The husband actually graduated from the same high school as Aubry and I, just 20 years before we graduated. What are the odds of that!

Samara

On our last full day in Costa Rica we took the hotel shuttle with the other couple we met to the neighboring beach town Samara. This was a fun little 3 hour getaway to walk around, shop, and experience Costa Rica outside of the curated hotel environment. I bought a tiny ceramic turtle from a lady on the beach. It’s clearly a knick knack made for tourists like myself but I thought it really neat and I am proud of my purchase. I felt the need to say that because Aubry thought it was a little silly at first. As we walked the streets of Samara we browsed all of the little shops in search of keepsakes that reminded us of the trip each time we saw them. Unfortunately most of the shops were catered towards tourists and we were not able to find the kinds of items we were on the hunt for. What I left with in addition to my turtle was an Imperial Beer shirt, a couple bags of coffee from the supermarket, a bottle of Guaro, and a bottle of Ron Centenario Rum also from the supermarket. Aubry got a couple of stickers and a postcard from a super sweet artist in town. The trip to Samara inspired the planning of our next trip to Costa Rica. While staying at the hotel was super relaxing and luxurious, getting out and exploring what the country has to offer was super fun. Next time we visit Costa Rica we want the trip to be as spontaneous as the trip to Samara and just take in the experiences as they come.

Classes in Islita

Over the course of the week we took nearly every class the hotel offered. Some of them seemed to be oriented more towards children than others, but we took them anyway. The first class we took was candlemaking at the museum. In my head I pictured this taking much longer and being far more involved than it was, but I was overlooking the simplistic style of the village of Islita. They had a bed of black sand from the beach and some cookie cutters. We pulled out a cookie cutter shape of the sand and the ladies helping us poured the liquid wax and essential oils and set the wicks. After that we walked around the village art museum and waited for the wax to cool and dry. While we were away the ladies made an extra candle for each of us as a gift which was super sweet. Also at the museum was keychain making. This was my favorite class that we took at the museum! They supplied us with string, a needle, shells, beads, etc. to craft our keychains with. My lack of artistic prowess aided me in making my keychain upside down and by the time I noticed it was all tied up and ready for me. It’s still functional, just not quite what I had envisioned for myself. The last class we took down at the museum was magnet making. They had a few example magnets but we could do whatever our hearts desired. Given my lack of skill in the art department I attempted to recreate a macaw that was on an example magnet. After sketching my macaw on the wooden block I was given a carving tool. It was at this point things headed south for me. My macaw sketch was a good size to just be painted, but to carve the outlines it was a little small. In the end it came out pretty okay, I was happy with it. The employee working the museum desk got a good laugh about my attempt and he tried in vain to assure me that it was good. Thinking about him laughing at it still brings a smile to my face. My magnet currently resides on my grandmother’s fridge where all great artwork belongs.

Mixology Class

This is a short story but I find it worth telling because it’s the funniest thing we did in Costa Rica. The hotel offers a mixology class where they guide you through the making of 2 different drinks. There were no other people signed up for the class when we went so it was the bartender, Aubry, and myself. The class is down at the beach bar which is a crucial detail to this story that will come into play later. The other important detail is that the walk to and from the beach is over 150 stairs, they offer a golf cart service but we thought we were too fit for that. Wrong. The first drink we made was the Guaro sour, my absolute favorite! On the itinerary and class info there was no designated end time given so who knows how long we could have taken to put down the 2 drinks. For whatever reason we drank the first one about as quickly as you would kill a Dr. Pepper at a Mexican restaurant. Keep in mind these are not sample size drinks with sample size amounts of alcohol and we are not heavy hitters when it comes to tucking away our liquor. Especially on a hot sunny day after a decent walk to the beach. Moving on, the second drink was a daiquiri-like tiki drink. This drink was heavier on the alcohol but remained sweet given its tiki drink nature, allegedly this is part of what the class is supposed to teach you. We basically took the class as a way to drink for free by the beach. Like before, we put this drink down pretty quick. We now find ourselves drunk by the beach and in need of a nap. Picture the way a 3 or 4 year old walks through a supermarket, like drunk tiny humans, I believe that is probably what we looked like as we made our way back to our room. I’d give anything for the bartender's thoughts of us as we were killing the drinks and then walking away. Oh to be a fly on the wall.

Overall Experience

I could go on forever about this trip and how incredible it was. The Hotel Punta Islita was gorgeous, their staff was so helpful and kind, the country was beautiful, and the food was so good. We were truly spoiled to have such an amazing time on our honeymoon, and I was spoiled to have that be my first experience leaving the country. I would drop everything and go back tomorrow if I could. I hope you all enjoyed my debrief even though it was a little lengthy. There are plenty of things we did that didn’t make it, but if you ever bump into me and wanna hear more I’ll be happy to share. Make sure to subscribe to the blog and follow me on social media! Until next time, happy travels!