Advertisement
Published: February 22nd 2008
Butterfly Garden II
This is the CR national butterfly I believe, although the name escapes me...this is a male, and you can tell by the jagged edges on the wings...they fight and those are the wounds...Didn't get enough of the volcanoes in Nicaragua so we were off to El Castillo and the Arenal Volcano...
Arranged a Jeep-Boat-Jeep transport (more of a Bus-Boat-Bus) to get us there, it's apparently a lot faster than trying just the roads. Basically a bus picked us up at our hotel in Santa Elena, and after about an hour trip we arrived at the Laguna de Arenal where our small ferry was waiting. It was a beautiful day, and the Laguna was amazing...it was about another hour on the water, and about twenty minutes in we rounded a point and there was the Arenal volcano in the distance, amazing! It was quite a sight to see it from the Laguna, with the smoke slowly billowing out of the top and drifting right down to the water... We then arrived to land again and our second bus was there waiting for us, the timing on all modes of transport was impeccable, highly recommend this company (Flora y Fauna) if you're heading to the area...
The bus took us to our spot in El Castillo, basically ten cabins with a fabulous view of the volcano. Grabbed some lunch, arranged an evening tour
of the volcano and then took a wander around the area. Came across a butterfly garden and decided to check it out, fantastic! Run by an American who had come down to Costa Rica looking for some property to retire on and instead bought up some land with original growth rainforest, then decided to devote his time to studying and protecting all sorts of native butterfly species and plants. He was a wealth of knowledge and really interesting, the butterfly habitats were beautiful and it was a great way to spend the afternoon, highly recommend it!
It was then late afternoon and we headed back to the hotel to hook up with the tour to the volcano. We hopped into a 4x4 and with one of the employees we headed off towards the Arenal Lodge and the trail to the volcano...
Trail was cool, there were quite a few people there doing the same thing as us but it didn't matter. Managed to see a couple of howler monkeys in the trees, and even got to swing on a vine ala Tarzan, fun! Coolest thing was we would be walking along and then all you would hear is
My new friend...
...hanging out waiting for the ferry... (KS) this rumbling, only to learn that it was the boulders the volcano was constantly spewing down it's slope, a wee bit eerie...haha... After about half an hour we came out to a clearing comprised of volcanic rocks and we were now at the base of the volcano, probably about 2-3 kms away, with the Laguna in the background, beautiful... Picked a perch and waited for the sun to go down, hoping to be able to see some lava (the sunset over the Laguna was beautiful, and as we were sitting there the volcano started to rumble, wow!). The sound was cool, we heard it several times over the course of the time we were in El Castillo...and then the Howler monkeys started going off in the distance, quite the scene!
We were then to get our "history lesson" of the volcano and surrounding area. Our guide, being an employee of the place we were staying at confessed he didn't know a lot, but had done a project on the volcano in grade school, which he then pulled out and read to us! We just played along at that point, it was kind of funny, but in the end we
Flower I
Some of the beautiful flowers we saw at the butterfly garden... had each paid $30 for this outing and we weren't all that impressed...they tried to hose us on a couple of other tours as well which left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths but we made the most of it... Anyhoo, the sun set and slowly but surely we could see red dots of lava forming at the mouth of the crater...the volcano continued to spew boulders but now we could see that they were glowing red with heat, very impressive...they would start rolling down the slope, gaining speed and then breaking apart as they went, sending sparks and smaller glowing fragments all over the place. Hard to guess as to just how big these boulders were, but judging by the size of them at the distance we were at they would probably be at least the size of a car! While there weren't that many glowing boulders it was still cool, and we sat and watched the show for about an hour before hiking back to the 4x4 and home to the cabins...bit of a burn on the guide side of things but it was a great hang watching the sunset and catching what lava we
On the ferry...
...wasn't going to get the same farmer tan as on the ferry from Ometepe! (KS) could see...
The following day we decided to skip the tour they were trying to sell us and just arranged a taxi to the Arenal Observatory where we were going to climb the dormant volcano Cerro Chato. We had read that there was a lagoon at the top that we could swim in, so we figured the 4 hour round trip hike would be really cool... The guy at the gate to the park must have thought we were nuts when we asked about the swimming; he just looked at us like we were idiots and informed us that no, we couldn't swim, it's volcanic water, dumbass (paraphrasing..haha...)...glad we asked! So with this in mind we still set out on the trail; great stroll to start with, then the real trail started and it turned out to be pretty much straight up the side of the volcano with an elevation of 1000 metres...ugh...tough slog. Picture climbing a ladder for an hour, gives you the basic idea! Okay, it wasn't that bad but it was tough, you would be climbing, seeing what seemed to be a ridge, arriving there only to discover that there was no ridge, just another uphill
Arenal
...coming around the point for our first glimpse of the volcano...cool! climb with what looked like another ridge above! Dammit! Haha...tough climb but cool all the same, and we arrived at the top only to discover that the lagoon was set far below the top and involved an even steeper descent than what we had just climbed...screw that! Took some pics, then headed back down...
Made it back to the lodge, and ignoring the "Pool is for hotel guests only" sign we threw on the suits and jumped in...rebels! I can't tell you how good that felt...
That night we wandered up to a fabulous steak house that essentially served us small roasts each (the steaks were huge!), drank a bunch of vino and watched the glowing boulders piling down the volcano...man life is tough!
(Some photos copyright of Kim S., denoted by (KS)...used with kind permission)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 11; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0321s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
judith
non-member comment
el castillo
El Castillo es paraiso. We recently spent a few days there. Look for great food at El Jardin Escondido and tell John I sent you. Jude