But there is a way to handle the ‘couple cabin-fever’: take day off from time to time. Go and do your own thing, and by the time you meet up in the evening you’ll have forgotten the bickering and have new things to chat about.
The simple fact is that everyone needs a break sometimes, or even the most loving of couples will end up wanting to throttle each other. Certainly we were feeling rather sour-tempered when we finally arrived in Costa Rica after a lengthy trip on a hot, overcrowded minibus, and a death-defying border crossing by foot, over a rickety old railway bridge with missing planks and gaping holes.
So upon our arrival in the central cloud forest region, we decided it was high time we spent a day doing our own thing.
And there’s plenty to choose from: the regions of Monteverde and Santa Elena are attracting growing numbers of outdoorsy travellers, eager to hike up smoking volcanoes, splash under picturesque waterfalls or explore the cloud forest via zip-line.
In fact, there are numerous adventure parks offering high-wire tours of the mist-garlanded treetops, and I jumped at the chance to try it for myself. As I flew through the trees with Aventura Canopy Tours – home to Latin America’s longest zip-line, a whopping 1,590-metre wire crossing a deep valley – Joe (never a fan of heights) remained grounded, heading off on a guided ATV tour of the thick forest.
It may have just been the adrenaline of zip-lining and off-roading, but we were definitely in better moods after our separate adventures!
It was with light hearts that we boarded our next battered minibus for the long journey to the western Nicoya Peninsula. And while it might still be small, crowded and lacking in AC, at least there was no bridge border-crossing to deal with this time.
