Arenal Volcano

The second part of yesterday’s adventures was a climb up a volcano. Arenal volcano was thought to be dormant, known to the locals as “sugar bread mountain”. When tremors started in 1968 they thought this was just “normal for Costa Rica” minor earthquakes. However, they presaged an eruption which happened on 29 July 1968, and continued for several days, burying three small villages and killing 87. Smaller eruptions have continued, with the most recent activity being recorded in 2010. Lava from the more recent eruptions mean that the new cone is now slightly taller than the original volcano. It has, in fact, got Twin Peaks.

Naturally, we went to climb it.

As part of an organised tour, of course! Because that makes it safer. Alvaro, our guide, explained all this to us before we started the ascent, following the path up through lava-encrusted hillside. We saw some wildlife along the way, not least leafcutter ants, which were doing their leaf-cutty thing. We posed at the top for photos, then made our way back down via a different route.

Leafcutter ants doing their thing

Us doing our thing

On our way back, Alvaro dropped us at the Tabacon Hot Springs, where we were booked in for a swim in hot pools, followed by dinner. The resort is bigger than the Volcano Lodge that we are staying in and is clearly geared towards day visitors as well as hotel guests. We had some drinks at the swim-up bar before touring the rest of the pool facilities. They are based around the river Tabacon, which is a hot-flowing river heated by the local volcanic activity. We splashed around, ducked under waterfalls, and generally disported ourselves before heading back to the calm of the swim-up bar for another drink, then changed and had dinner in the restaurant. This consisted of a buffet, but was very good quality, with spicy tacos to start, a wide selection for mains and a gateaux and ice cream bar. We both had ice cream. At 10 to 9 Alvaro picked us up and took us back on the short drive to Volcano Lodge.

We had plans – best-laid plans, in fact – to get up early for “golden hour” to photograph more birds in the environs of the lodge. But at 6:00am it was cloudy and gently raining, so we decided not to do that, and instead had an early breakfast. As we approached the restaurant we saw more and more birds…the restaurant put out bananas on a bird-feeding structure, and all the wild birds were congregating on it. By this time it had stopped raining as well, so I was able to get quite a few pics there. I’ll identify them later.

We were picked up after breakfast and driven to Lake Arenal, an artificially-created lake that powers the hydro-electric facility that provides 12% of the country’s electricity. We crossed the lake on a boat and were all allocated numbered buses to take us onwards to our final destination. This took a couple of hours’ driving, with a brief stop at Café Horizonte, where we were able to look out and see the Pacific Ocean. After a short rest break there, we continued on and arrived at Monteverde Country Lodge, our digs for the next two days.

Pacific Ocean in the distance