El toro
by iammon
Do not miss out on spending a day river rafting on the el toro river (Bull river). The river has many class 3 and 4 rapids and is therefore a lot of fun and will give your heart some pumping action. The scenery is stunning. There are some calm streches where you acctually will be able to enjoy it :-) There is quite some wildlife to spot as well. We even saw a coral snake or one of his nonvenomous look alikes. You can never remember the rhyme if you should to: "Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, venom lack".
You can do short tours with about 1 1/2 hours on the river or one where you will be three hours on the river. Of couse the trips will vary according to the water conditions. I recommend the longer one which includes some stops and lunch. If you have bring some shoes you can get into the water. The tour organizer will have some boxes to keep your stuff try.
Iguanas
by SumTingWong
This is actually a bar / snack stop called Iguanas. The name isn't random; it's called Iguanas because there are a lot of huge Iguanas here. It is on the way from Arenal to Monteverde and it well worth making the stop. For one thing you can get a cold drink and got off the bus, and you get to see some huge Iguanas. They are really huge, and quite vicious to be honest. If fact I was unfortunate enough to see one iguana kill another, by throwing it off a cliff and onto the rocks below, wasn't pretty. Don't get to close to these huge lizards, they have long claws too, bet really cool from a far.
The Arenal volcano experience
by BEETLE_VERTE
While in Fortuna, you can't miss the Arenal volcano. But I strongly suggest getting closer by with a guide and feel it up close... and personnal! Even if it was pourring rain and we didn't got to see it that night, or any time before the third day, it's still an amazing experience.
Our guided tour (25$ each) pick us up at our hotel late afternoon to bring us to the entrance of the park. Gustavo guided us trough a secondary (rain!) forest, explaining plants and animals we encountered (orchids, termits, withe face monkey, Cecropia tree where sloth often sleep, ...). We then climbed up to the 1982 eruption site. Black rocks every where with little or no plants. And the sun setting on the Arenal lake below. Amazing thing to experience as the guide explain danger and historic events of the region, forge by the volcano temper. I can only imagine how breathtaking this would have been if we could see the volcano. It spits out huge rocks and at night, it will looks as fireworks...!
Bring walking shoes, raincoat, camera and bathing suit for the thermal resort afterward.
The trip will end at the Tabacon resort... not to be miss!
More pictures in the Travelogue of my Fortuna page.
La Fortuna
by easterntrekker
La Fortuna is a little tourist town not far from the volcano . It's too toursity fot my liking so we only took one afternoon to browse around. People come here from around the world to see Arenal ...so there are tons of tourist shops and tour operators and hotels in all price ranges.
Anything that is Costa Rican has long sense been lost . It is however a conveient place to grab a meal or find accomadations.
Hike up the volcano
by twoinluv
On the property of Hotel Los Lagos, it is free for guests and a small fee for visitors, there is a 2 km road (in poor shape) that takes you up the side of a mountain adjacent to the volcano. You cannot get any closer from any other property. At the base is a view of a turquoise lake. We enjoyed the view so much we went up there 8 times, once each morning and once each evening where we saw fantastic lava. You can also hear the popping of the lava rock as it spews out. Very cool.
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La Ceiba trail
Volcano
A flower in El Silencio
Hot water river
