monteverde :: cloud forests & chocolate!

after the gorgeous wedding, we hit the road at 7am the next morning. destination: monteverde! nothing like some bumpy mountain roads to kick that hangover. ;) our driver, ronaldo, was quite the expert at navigating the treacherous terrain and got us there in one piece.

we spent the day exploring an artist commune and taking in the sights of the teeny town that is monteverde, complete with a lovely dinner next to our hotel.

we were up bright and early the next morning to hike through the cloud forest. it was absolutely breathtaking! there were some serious tarzan vines hanging, and an amazing waterfall. it was also a welcome change of pace after 95 degree beaches...the cloudy forest and suspension bridges reminded us of san francisco. it was also the dawn of "monteverde hair"...literally, things got prettttty interesting with the frizz factor. we embraced it. ;)

a final highlight of our quick 2 days here was doing a chocolate/coffee tasting - if you're a fan of either, this was absolutely fabulous. so delish!

and yet...the taking of this last picture led to me leaving my wallet {with passport, license, credit cards, and $300 cash} in the coffee shop when we left monteverde for la fortuna...WHOOPS! spoiler: it ended surprisingly well.

costa rica wedding :: misha & chris

i mean...wow. so gorgeous, these two! i was lucky enough to not only get a stunning bride & groom to photograph, but this beautiful costa rican scenery as our backdrop. misha was the most beautiful bride and their wedding was so sweet. and the party after? amazing. :)

enjoy this quick peek at their wedding portraits!

costa rica: manuel antonio party time :)

this post is a quick departure from all of the "beautiful" DSLR photos, but i am just SO in love with costa rica i thought it would be a crime not to share the fun we had! whenever we were out on the town or partaking in some potentially dangerous activity {hello ziplining} i just toted around my trusty canon elph from 2009. it worked like a charm!

manuel antonio has SO much to offer in addition to the beaches. from ziplining {actual quote from our guide: "you look like bob the builder's wife"...good thing i wore blue} to pool parties to beach bonfires with our new fave ticos from la posada, it was just SO much fun. we had tons of fun dinners out in quepos and loved dancing at barba roja. el avion was amazing too, with an actual old plane making up part of the bar & restaurant. i did attempt to fly it and managed to bruise my bum severely climbing into that cockpit. haha.

upcoming tomorrow:  the wedding post. i'm already excited!

costa rica: our villas {manuel antonio estates}

i'll cut to the chase, the main point of this post is to show you: MONKEYS!

i think the feelings toward costa rican monkeys span a few stages:

1. desire. intense desire to see one...just one! "come on monkeys! come out! you're so cute!"

2. awe and delight. "oh my gosh, there's one! oh look, now there's six! look at those wacky little monkeys!"

3. nervousness. "do we think they should be swimming in the pool? wow there's like 15 of them. they can't unlock doors, can they?"

4. fear. "oh my GOD it's in my room! it scaled the balcony! it's stealing my bathing suit! those two are mating on the table downstairs! do they have rabies?"

so yeah. pretty fun at first, then regarded as basically pigeons. haha. our villa was absolutely gorgeous though...the first shot is a view from my room. i could get used to that!

costa rica: catamaran tour in manuel antonio

after a couple days of claire, steph and i on our own, we met up with the rest of the group in manuel antonio. one of my favorite things we did there was take a gorgeous catamaran tour! it was run by planet dolphin and we had an absolutely amazing time.

our skippers were hilarious, blending up mai tais every 5 minutes and making an amazing lunch. we got to see dolphins jumping, snorkel in a little reef {where the fish would come up and bump your mask...they were not scared}, and even go down a huge water slide off the top of the boat. the slide was fun, but i prefer just jumping off the roof. big wedgies, but exciting. ;)