August 12, 2013 / Arenal Volcano & La Fortuna

On Monday, we went on the Arenal Volcano hike. Arenal Volcano was dormant since 1550s before erupting again in 1968. Since then, the volcano has been active, although today, it was just smoking without any lava activity. Our guided hike took us through the area where the 1968 eruption happened. Today, the site of 1968 eruption has since been replaced by lush green vegetation.

This was also a walk through the rain forest, so we did end up seeing quite a lot of animals – crested guan, agouti, silver nosed coati, Montezuma oropendola, song wren, long nosed bats, white faced capuchin monkeys and a tarantula inside a bromilia plant. Our guide this time, Huberth, had specialized in eco-tourism and was giving us lot of interesting info. The last leg of the hike involved climbing over lava rocks from the 1968 eruption to a viewing area. Just as we reached the viewing area, it started raining. It was nowhere as heavy as yesterday, but hard enough to encourage us to use the rain gear we carried from home.

Each time I looked at it, Arenal Volcano never looked the same – it always had different levels of cloud cover around it and each time I looked at it, it had a different face. These changes would occur in as few as 5 minutes! In the three days we were there, there was just one day when I had a clear shot of the volcano!

That afternoon, we loitered in La Fortuna town. We lunched at another traditional Costa Rican restaurant where the waitress wore traditional Costa Rican dress. Costa Rica is another country that has taken to red-white-blue in their flag and national colors. La Fortuna is a small town with tons of souvenir shops. By my reckoning, the girls must’ve stepped into every single shop they saw :). That evening was our last night in Arenal Volcano Inn. We dined in the hotel restaurant, Que Rico. And during our dinner, we were also treated to our second experience of a classic rain forest thundershower. The fact that this happened in the night made the lightning and the accompanying thunder all the more beautiful and scary at the same time.