Yesterday we visited Parque Nacional Rincon de la Vieja. We took a shuttle from our hotel, as there is no public transport. It´s about a 45 minute ride from Liberia, and cost us $20 each, plus we had to pay a $10 park entrance fee. It was rather expensive day, but well worth it. The park is home to an active volcano, complete with boiling mud pools, steam vents. We did a good amount of hiking (over 10km) around the mud pools and vents as well as through the rain forest to a 60 meter tall waterfall.
The terrain here varies a great deal, from lush forest to dry forest, as well as desert and savannah. We were high enough up on the volcano to have views of the ocean, but the top of the volcano was under clouds the whole day, so we never saw it.
Our first hike was a 4km loop around the active part of the volcano and it was so cool!! It has been compared by guide books to Yellowstone Park in the US. It was worth it just for this short loop trail. The second hike was 8 km round trip to a waterfall with swimming hole. The forest was gorgeous, with lots of rivers we had to cross, tons of crazy looking trees, and we saw an iguana and we saw a family of capuchin monkeys. It took 2 hours to get there which seemed to drag on. The waterfall was so pretty and the water super refreshing to swim in. We relaxed there awihile and had lunch. I almost didn´t swim cause Craig wouldn´t go in, but I´m glad I did cause it was awesome. The hike back was much faster. We had about 45 minutes to wait for our transportation once we got back to the main entrance.
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| Boiling water pool |
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| Boiling mud pool |
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| Steam vent |
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| Sun rays coming through the volcanic steam in the forest |
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| Agaves bigger than me! How cool! |
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| Cangreja Falls |
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| Scared the crap out of me, I came up really quick on this iguana! |
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| Capuchin monkey! |
We stayed a second day in Liberia to relax. I had considered going to the beach (Playa del Coco), but Craig didn´t want to go because of the string ray incident. And I ultimately decided not to go cause I seem to get skin rashes from the beaches here and am still recovering from the last one. We will be at the beach in Manuel Antonio in a few days anyway so I figured I could wait. So we slept in and I took an additional naps. We had snow cones in the park, the best snow cones in the world are in Costa Rica (they have powdered milk and condensed milk both on them!). We also spent a good part of the day watching HBO (Mystic River). Ooh and we went to an American Clothing Store, I of course found all of the good items! I can´t buy any more, no room!
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| My super cool romper and delicious snow cone! |
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Awesome 1980s gitano jeans from american clothing strore
I told you I got the best stuff, ahaaha :) |
Tomorrow we have 50 km to go to get to Cañas. Since its´s not a very long day, we probably won´t leave til 6. We´ll spend the night there and find a place to store our bikes. From there we´ll spend 2 days (without bikes) in the mountains in the town of La Fortuna. The town is home to Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal.
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