During my school break in October our family traveled to La Fortuna, a town near the Arenal Volcano.
To get there, we took a bus from Monteverde down to the edge of Lake Arenal, and then took a boat across the lake. From there we got our first views of the Arenal Volcano! How impressive!
The Arenal Volcano is a young volcano, meaning it is less than 7,500 years old. It was most recently active from 1968 to 2010.
We went for a hike at the National Park at the foot of the volcano. It is illegal to hike to the top of the volcano because of dangerous gases and venemous snakes!
We hiked out to the viewing point where you can see magma (an old lava flow from an eruption in 1992). From here you can also look down and see Lake Arenal.
On our hike up to the lava flow, we saw a lot of cool animals and plants, including these bugs that my dad took pictures of.
We heard a really strange sounding bird call, and it turned out to be a Montezuma Oropendola which we sadly didn’t get a photo of. But then, we spotted a couple toucans in the trees! Another hiker (a retired nature guide) told us they were yellow-breasted toucans, the largest species in Costa Rica.
We also saw many different flowers and berries, often quite small and hidden pops of color along the trail!
If you ever come to Costa Rica, don’t miss seeing Lake Arenal and the Volcano! We highly recommend a trip to the National Park, and maybe you’ll have better luck than we did seeing the peak of the volcano emerge from the clouds!
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