Arenal Volcano

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Alajuela » Arenal
May 10th 2008

Published: May 10th 2008

Edit Blog Post

Kate and Steve

The Volcano

Taken from the lake

Kate: After such a wonderful time in Montverde but feeling a little tour guided and wildlife watching out we decided to head for La Fortuna which is home to one of Costa Rica's active volcanos' Volcano Arenal. Steve had never seen a volcano so we were pretty excited. The journey was slightly shorter this time- thank god- and we took the bus-boat-bus option to break up the journey a little. As far as we had worked out and people had told us we decided that we would only make it a short stop to Fortuna as once you have seen the volcano there isn´t a huge amount else to do. We were both pretty ready for some more beaching too so one day we thought to see the sights would be plenty. Because we had such a wonderful- and cheap- stay at the backpackers in Monteverde we chose to stay in another in La Fortuna and it was even better! It was described as a 5* Arenal backpackers resort and it definately didn´t dissapoint. It had a pool, a restaurant serving really cheap but good food, the room was massive with air-con and satalite TV and it was only about 12

Our boat that took us across Arenal lake

pounds each a night. A little over budget but well worth it for one and night and the luxury!

We arrived early afternoon and decided that we would do the tour that included seeing the volvano at night and then get a trip to the local hot springs. The volcano was very close to where we were staying but unfortuantely when we got to the look out point it was..er...rather cloudy-doh! Our guide told us that the volcano hasn´t errupted since 2000 but every 20 min or so you can see lava and ash smoking out the the top-or so he says. To be fair we did see a little bit of hot lava trickle down the side of the volcano, not that our cameras could pick it up, but it wasn´t quite the specktaculuar sight we were hoping for. Then again you can´t exactly make it spill out loads of hot lava-and to be fair that would have actually been a little worring since La fortuna is right underneath the volcano so i can´t complain really. Steve and i were a little gutted that we didn´t spend long watching and when we seeme dto be driving away alot

Arenal Volcano in the evening

more activity seemed to be arising from the top-oh well it was cool to see. Next we went to the hot springs. I don´t know if i am just totally naive but i was kind of invisaging wondering into the forest, stumbling across a huge natural springs out in the open, in the wilderness-well it wasn´t quite like that. We arrived at the hot springs hotel and inside the hotel grounds were big bars attached to the hot springs and flashing lights and really cheesy music. There was a choice of around 10 different pools all varing size and temperature the hottest being 67 degrees!!!!!!!! ouch! we dipped out foot in that one for about a second and it was scorching! I really enjoyed the hot srings, some of the pools were so hot they just made you feel like you had spent 30min in a really hot bath- after coming out you just felt really relaxed and like you just wanted to jump into bed! the best one was really hot and had a pool in the centre that was freezing cold that you could plunge into. There was a giant jacuzzi too-pretty cool. It was difficult to take