This week's rain has been a bummer, reminiscent of some of the heavy rains in tropical places we've visited. (Although it's much more fun to experience rain in an actual rain forest as opposed to rain flooding into your basement.) Here's a snap from the archives:

attempting to view lava flows in the rain at Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica

Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, is one of the country's top sites to visit. When I was there in 2007, it was recommended time and time again as a must-see. Unfortunately on the day I took the tour to see the lava flows, a torrential downpour blocked most of the view. I did get to see the volcano from afar under better weather conditions, but it wasn't quite the same. There's a much better pic in Marina Villatoro's guest post on Arenal.

view of Arenal from downtown La Fortuna

See more fabulous travel photos at Delicious Baby's Photo Friday.

RELATED LINKS
* browse all photos from La Fortuna
* browse all photos from Costa Rica
* read blog entries about La Fortuna
* read Marina Villatoro's guest post: Arenal Volcano

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The Arenal volcano is a 1,633 meter high mountain with a perfect conic shape and a crater of 140 meters. It is geologically considered a young volcano and its age is estimated to be less than 3,000 years. The locals also know it as "Arenal Peak,"  "Pan de Azúcar," "The Canaste Volcano," "The Costa Rica," "Río Frío Volcano" or "The Guatusos Peak". It is located in the northern region.

It was asleep for hundreds of years and had a single crater with minor fumaroles covered by dense vegetation. In 1968 it had an eruption that created three more craters on the western flanks but only one of them exists today. Arenal is considered to be Costa Rica's most active volcano and almost every night the crater offers a spectacular show of lights with its explosive eruptions, creating the most amazing views. Although the main attraction is the Arenal Volcano, the area offers much more:

Arenal Volcano National Park
Arenal Volcano is actually part of this national park. There is also a second volcano called Cerro Chato, which has been inactive for around 3500 years. The park is part of the Arenal Tilaran Conservation Area that protects 16 protected reserves in the region between the Guanacaste and Tilarán mountain ranges including Lake Arenal.

Lake Arenal
Lake Arenal was originally a small lagoon, but in 1973 the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity built a dam and within three years, this became the biggest lake in Costa Rica with a surface of 88 square kilometers. It is a wonderful place to windsurf or do some sport fishing.

La Fortuna Waterfall
This is the most popular excursion in the area, after Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal. The waterfall is reached by a 5.5 kilometer gravel road. On foot it takes about an hour to get there, but you can also visit it by horse or by car. Bird watching is also very popular in this area. Once you have reached the waterfall, you can take a trail that will lead you to a natural pool where you can go for a swim.

The Arenal Hanging Bridges
Here you will find eight bridges measuring between 8 and 22 meters and six hanging bridges that vary between 48 and 98 meters. From there you will have a great view of both the Arenal Volcano and the lake. Some of the most popular activities here are the natural history walk, early morning tour, bird watching and night walks.

The Venado Caves
The Venado Caves are located in the village with the same name, about an hour by car from La Fortuna, to the north of Arenal Volcano. Water is what formed the caves many million years ago. Presently, the caves consist of limestone rocks, stalactites, stalagmites and corals. It has a total length of approximately 2.5 kilometer with 10 large quarters. During the rainy season the tunnels can get filled with water. This is the reason access by visitors is forbidden in this season.

Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge
The 10,000-hectare reserve of Caño Negro has the most biological diversity in Costa Rica. There are trails and paths, but the easiest way to access it is by boat. The Rio Frio flows through it and during the wet season it becomes an 800 hectare lake. The reserve is especially popular among birdwatchers and sport fishers.

Peñas Blancas Wildlife Refuge
This 2400-hectare refuge was created to protect plant species and the watershed of the rivers Ciruelas and Barranca. The river canyons were formed million years ago when Central America was covered by the sea, by unicellular algae that built up deposits and transformed into chalk like stone.

About the author: Marina has been living in Central America for over 7 years and her site Travel Experta is all about traveling in Central America. Marina loves to help people plan the perfect vacation to this amazing part of the world! You can sign up for her RSS feed and join the fun on her Facebook fan page and follow her on Twitter at @MarinaVillatoro.

Related posts:
* Spelunk! tales from the Venado Caves
* Waterfalls and volcanoes and hot springs, oh my!
* Adios PSE, and on to La Fortuna!

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I have to say, I am pretty glad to be leaving this place. It´s not just the sweltering humidity, ants everywhere (I don´t think I´ve ever seen ants in a microwave before), or the strange geisha-like relationship grumpy Gringo Pete has with his Tica helpers. Nor the fact that Julia has headed off in a different direction, and after traveling with her for about a week I will definitely miss her stellar company. No, the worst thing about this place is that the mosquitoes are absolutely VICIOUS!!! And thanks to those hearty Zamborsky genes I seem to attract every bug in the country, no matter where I go. I´ve noticed that the skeeters are different in different parts of Costa Rica... on the Pacific Coast, they left little red bumps that only started itching a few days later... blessedly there weren´t any in Monteverde... and here in La Fortuna they actually create a puncture wound. I nailed one of ´em in the shower yesterday and it left a nasty bloody splat on the wall. No amount of bug spray seems to help, either. Thank goodness for chloroquinine! Maybe I should take up drinking gin & tonics...

Anyway... as glad as I am to be heading out, I´m a bit nervous about hitting San Jose. It´s supposed to be a pretty nasty place, especially after dark. There´s a direct shuttle there from La Fortuna, but it was full today, so I´m taking the public bus and from there will need to find my way to Alajuela, a suburb of San Jose where a recommended guesthouse is located. I was prepared for a series of misadventures.

However, it went much better than expected! Sometimes that happens, and you just have to be glad for it. For starters, I had a companion on the trip, a German girl named Kathrin who also found us a faster bus into San Jose. The "directo" was scheduled to leave around 12:30 and get into San Jose around 6pm. However, she discovered a not-so-directo bus that went to San Rámon, at which point we´d switch buses and the one I took passed right through Alajuela. So not only did I get into Alajuela about an hour earlier, I didn´t even need to set foot in San Jose. Sweeeet!

I arrived at Casita Margarita by taxi from the Alajuela bus station, and was ferried into the house by a very sweet 50-something woman, none other than Margarita herself. She was surprised to see me so early, as I´d told her the previous day over the phone that I didn´t expect to be there much before 7pm. She poured me a cup of coffee in her kitchen, and I chatted with her for a few minutes before her 86-year-old mother shuffled in. We continued to have a pleasant conversation, during which Abuelita was duly impressed that I had a 96-year-old grandmother. Hearty peasant stock strikes again!

I also met Steffi and Fabian, two German students who were studying Spanish and working at the bird sanctuary next door. But the highlight of the tour of the house was the signed photo of David Hasselhoff, who apparently stayed at the guesthouse a short while ago. Not sure what he was doing at a $20/night guesthouse in the suburbs of San Jose... maybe it was Margarita´s excellent cooking that brought him there. Who knows? Anyway, it was a source of amusement for all, and many Baywatch jokes were bandied about. 

This place rocks. The $20 price tag was a bit steeper than I´d been used to, but when you consider that three stellar homecooked meals and laundry were included, not to mention a private bedroom & bathroom with the hottest shower I´ve encountered yet, it´s actually a bargain. And it´s nice to be in a home where you are treated as part of the family.

Woo-hoo! The blog is up and running! It´s going to take me a while to backfill the entries from Tamarindo, Manuel Antonio, Monteverde, and La Fortuna. And I´m still figuring out how this all works, so bear with me while I get everything in order. In the meantime, I´ll entertain you with tales of spelunking.

For starters, the word "spelunk" is just about the funnest word ever. Use it three times in a sentence today! It´s fun for the whole family! So when my travelbuddy Julia suggested we take a spelunking trip through some rainforest caves, I was all over it. Our guide Guillermo ("Memo" to his friends) picked us up and drove us out to the cave site, stopping briefly at his house to pick up boots and towels. On the 45-minute journey out there, he showed us a promo video depicting people slogging through cave tunnels and sloshing through water, which was meant to serve several purposes. First, here´s a taste of what you´ll be doing. Anyone with bad knees or fear or bats need not continue. Second, check out these great pics you can get from our photographer! Third, seriously, we really don´t want you to schelp your camera around in the muck, you´re much better off letting us handle the pics. OK, point taken. Julia and I agreed to split the $20 fee and share the CD between the two of us.

Sliding on our boots (mmmmm, like slippery bowling shoes!) and helmets with attached flashlight (I´m sure there´s some ridiculously technical term for this device) and feeling ever-so-sexy, we splashed off through the rain to the cave entrance. After double-checking that none of us had any bat phobias, Memo led us into the cavern. The next two hours were filled with scrambling over slippery rocks, wading waist-high through a rushing underwater river, checking out the bats and spiders and other creepy critters, and having an absolutely marvelously muddy time.

Julia got the photo CD, so you´ll have to wait till she gets back to Miami and sends me the pics for the evidence, but trust me when I say that this was one of the most fun tours we´ve done so far. The "Totally ´80s" videos on the ride home brought out some hilarious commentary from our spelunk-mates... my favorite being "Yeah, they´re the one-hit wonder band without the one hit." Good times, good times.