Catarata,
Volcano, & Termales
As
mentioned in our last blog post, the town of La Fortuna is the hub of much
tourist activity in Costa Rica. The town
sits at the base of Volcán Arenal, and the surrounding hillsides are prime
areas for waterfalls (catarata or cascada) and hot springs (termales.) Now that we have transportation we have been
out exploring and enjoyed visits to all three; there are many in Costa Rica.
Just
minutes west of downtown Fortuna is the beautiful Rio Fortuna Waterfall. In Spanish it is Catarata Fortuna. The cascade drops about 80 meters, and is
formed by the Tenorio River as it travels through the rain forest across the
Arenal mountain range. Finally, it
plunges off the cliff forming the beautiful waterfall.
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| View from partway down |
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| Rio Fortuna Waterfall |
Admission to the waterfall area was $12 which
seemed kind of steep but not as steep as the trail down! We’d
been told various details about the walk down . . . 300 steps, no maybe 400
steps, and a definitive 500+ steps by the park attendant. Regardless, in the heat of mid-day, it is a
long way down and then you have to come back up.
The steps are in good shape for about half way down with
handrails and benches every so often to stop and let your legs stop
quivering. The last half is a bit
tougher with the steps more primitive and only a chain to hang onto. There are a couple small bridges to cross and
of course as you get closer to the bottom you can hear the water.
It
was well worth the hike! The catarata is
impressive, the pools of water are tempting, though getting too close to the
fall itself is dangerous. Lots of people
were swimming but I’m glad we didn’t have to hike out in a wet swimsuit. We spent quite a bit of time down at the
bottom enjoying the cooler air and delaying the inevitable trip back up the
hillside.
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| Impressive |
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| Enjoying the pools |
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| Cooling down |
Once we started there was only
one way to go . . . one step at a time.
I’d read reviews that it was 10 minutes down and 20 minutes up; it took
us 30/45. Bob went ahead of me, and I
sort of hung back with a couple other women who were about my age, and like me,
don’t really have steep hill hiking legs.
But we made it and it was worth the knot in my leg the next day.
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| We made it! |
The
reward for making it out of the canyon is there are nice park facilities at the
top . . . clean bathrooms, an overpriced souvenir shop, and a very good restaurant/bar. I highly recommend the lemonade but something
stiffer might have been satisfying as well.
We
are told there are many beautiful cataratas in Costa Rica with varying degrees
of accessibility. Rio Fortuna was an
easy “let’s do this” attraction and one we’d recommend if you are in the area.
There
are several volcanoes in Costa Rica; most have been inactive for many, many
years. But Arenal was active as recently
as late 2010 and continues to rumble once in a while. While on our 1996 visit to CR, we sat at
Tabacón Hot Springs and watched the volcano let off steam and spit lava. It was very impressive . . . this is a
scanned post card (can’t take credit for the photo) from that timeframe.
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| Fireworks! |
Arenal
continues to be an impressive site.
Sadly, in 1968 there was a major eruption that killed 87 people and
wiped out three small villages on the west side of the mountain. The small town of El Barrio, located on the
east side of the mountain, was unharmed and renamed . . . La Fortuna. The meaning of the name is obvious.
There
have been many sightings of the volcano on this trip with changing
visibility. But one day the clouds
lifted throughout the afternoon and there it was . . . quite a sight!
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| Base of Arenal |
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| Clouds lifting |
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| Impressive Full View! |
We
made a day trip to El Castillo, a small village on the west side of
Arenal. There are a couple tourist
attractions there, a butterfly garden and an ecozoo (snakes, spiders,
frogs). We didn’t visit either but our
Canadian neighbors gave both a thumbs up “eh!”
Leaving the village Bob stopped and picked up a couple hitchhikers . . .
something I would never do . . . but Phillip and Christina from France were
delightful! They rode down the hillside
with us and we were all trying to communicate; they were speaking French with
limited English. We don't speak French but Bob did just retire from Areva, a French company. As it turned out the
common language was Spanish! It was a
fun exchange.
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| Phillip and Christina |
Dropping
our hitchhikers off, we entered Parque Nacional Volcán Arenal, part of the
greater Arenal Tilaran Conservation Area.
Entrance to the park was $15/each for an international visitor but only
about $2 for a Tican. The park has well
defined hiking trails, parking areas and nice restrooms. We hiked up a relatively flat trail, until
the last 50 meters where we had to scramble over some rocks, to the 1992 lava flow.
Looking straight up at the 5437’ high volcano was impressive; turning
around we had a nice view of Lake Arenal.
There are some other commercial ventures for sightseeing near the
volcano but we were pleased with the simplicity of the national park and the
views were very nice that afternoon.
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| Admission |
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| Trail system |
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| View of Lake Arenal from Volcano lookout |
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| Arenal |
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| Arenal view from the Lake |
Due
to the geothermal activity of Volcán Arenal, there are a number of hot springs
in the area ranging from very expensive upscale resorts to the simple
inexpensive springs frequented by the local Ticans. Guess which one we chose! Our visit to Termalitas was a very relaxing
afternoon, and for $6 it was even better!
Actually there is a free springs some of the locals go to but we were
warned to not go there due to bacteria in the water and snakes on the rocks . .
. no gracias! We may visit a couple of
the other springs while we are here, especially Tabacón, which we visited in
1996. It has been in our memory for
nearly twenty years and we’d like to see it again.
We
remember our earlier trip fondly, and it’s been interesting to see the progress
Costa Rica has made (mostly more paved roads) and also the changes in the
culture. Tourism has definitely made a
big dent in improving the infrastructure of the country. But along with that we’ve noticed some of the
unique Latin American charm we experienced in 1996 has given way to
accommodating tourists . . . there’s WiFi, satellite TV, and cell phones
everywhere. The traditional Tican meal
of gallo pinto (rice and beans) has been replaced with pizza on every corner. Costa Rican people, especially women, dressed
very modestly in 1996. Now they are
wearing jeans and t-shirts. There's a tourist attraction around every bend in the road rather than the miles and miles of beautiful jungled forest (bosque) we traveled through in 1996. I guess our insight for today is that while we appreciate the positive impact of tourism it can also have a tendency to make things like anywhere else. Sad.
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| Just follow the Sings! |
Thanks for following along on our journey!
