Vulcano Arenal & Monte Verde

Leaving San Jose and heading towards the Nicaraguan border, we passed Arenal Volcano and Monte Verde, two places heavily promoted by travel agencies and very popular with backpackers and organized tours. La Fortuna, a town that lives only from tourism, so much so that the locals complain that you can't get a coffee cheaper than three dollars in a local bar, didn't make a good impression on me. Everywhere there were local travel agencies that do nothing but gather clients for tours that they don't organize themselves, of course for a commission. This is Costa Rica of the "get your guide" type, not the "discover yourself" type. We admired the surroundings a bit and moved on...

The points of interest on this stage were the Hermosa hot springs (a favorite place for Costa Ricans, especially on weekends), a visit to a Swiss cow farm near Lake Arenal, and a hike in a “cloud forest” near Monte Verde. Unfortunately (we have bad luck with volcanoes!) the weather did not allow us to climb Arenal Volcano. Of course, if the weather had been favorable, we would have climbed it with Garmin GPS alone (it is not a very difficult climb), not with groups of 15 selfie-taking snapshooters.Leia mais