La Fortuna Waterfall Hike (by Sean)

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After a relaxing night in the hot springs provided by the Arenal volcano, seven members of our group got up early that next morning to head out to go see the La Fortuna waterfall. La Fortuna, which is fed by the Tenorio River, is located near the edge of the Arenal Volcano National Park and is at the base of the extinct Chato Volcano. It was about a 15 min bus ride up to the entrance of the park. After getting checked in we walked up to the first lookout point. Once the initial shock of "wow that is awesome" sank in, the realization came that it was going to be a long way down to get to the waterfall. The hike down the almost 700 stone stairs took about 15 minutes with one stop about halfway down. Once we finally reached the bottom we got to walk out onto the rocks close to where the water falls. The waterfall drops around 200 feet into the pool below which then continues on through the national park. It was truly one of the coolest things we had seen the whole trip. After taking dozens of pictures we got to swim and explore the river that continues on. Now like I said the hike down was 700 stone steps, and the only way back up was those same stairs. It took more than 25 minutes to get back up with three stops for the group being necessary because of not only how steep it was but also the altitude is much greater than that of Jonesboro.

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Comments

[Rebecca Oliver]

Beautiful!
The falls are beautiful and I enjoyed this blog entry by Sean. I especially liked the "We Made It!" photo!