Rincon de la Vieja and more active volcanoes

March 13-15, 2016

After the forests of Monteverde it was down to flat, hot, dry Liberia for my last stop in Costa Rica. My objective was Rincon de la Vieja National Park, for hiking and volcanic activity. (That translates to Old Lady's Nook in case you were wondering) In the meantime I had to deal with 85 degree weather.

I arrived on a Sunday, just to discover the park is closed on Mondays. So I killed a day sitting in my hot hotel room. Once the sun dipped down I forayed out, and found a music festival happening. It was a Jesus festival with live bands and dance performances in the park, and I watched for a bit after getting a smoothie.

Tuesday I was up early to catch the hotel shuttle to the park. Once there, I decided to take our shuttle driver up on his offer of guide services, since guides mean getting so many more tidbits of info, and the price was reasonable.

We did a three hour loop first, and not 5 minutes in, found a spider monkey, one of 3 species that live in the park. (Costa Rica has 4 species all together)

I promise the brownish blob is a monkey. Again, zoom doing its best. He was swinging through the branches using all four limbs plus a tail.

There was a barranquero, my favorite.

You can see what a beautiful blue he is, even if his awesome tail is hidden. They call him a mot mot here, but I like the Colombian name of barranquero better.

And a waterfall, more impressive I'm sure in the rainy season.

The rest of the forest was pretty too.

Trees made fantastical shapes

Then on to the fumeroles, evidance of the volcanic activity in the area.

Just as we arrived we found a baby anteater in a tree. He was so cute, climbing around on his hunt for ants, sometimes entirely wrapped around the limb.

Not the closest picture, but he's all wrapped around the branch and its adorable!

Clambering around, eating ants. Being an anteater.

The fumeroles were great too, billowing sulphurous steam, and boiling water. The wind was in our favor mostly, so the smell wasn't very strong. One plume wafted over me though, and it was HOT!

A couple places had steam coming from cracks in the ground

And this one had a pool of boiling water in it. And fun green deposits.

We went next to the volcancito, little volcano. You could hear the bubbling, not visible but clearly just below the surface. There was fun alteration around the vent too.

Back to where we started from, and there was just time for me to do the 10km loop to the prettier waterfall before the shuttle left.

Best bridge with a rope to follow.

The landscape was fascinating, going from forest to scrubby plains to open desert and back again.

We found more bands of monkeys, white faced cappuchins this time (read in the voice of Jane from Tarzan, it was an ARMY of monkeys, daddy!)

There were two others farther along in a tree, plain black so I'm pretty sure they were howler monkeys, the third and final monkey type in the park. Doing so good on Costa Rica Bingo!

The view out north was incredible. On a clear day you can see Lake Nicaragua, just across the border.

Down again into the forest, and lo and behold there was a beautiful waterfall. I failed with my planning this time and wasn't fully aware of the waterfall, so I hadn't brought a swimsuit. I would have loved to swim in the cool water, but had to settle for feet dipping.

I celebrated with a juice box, as any kid trapped in a 24 year old body would do.

The rock formations at the top of the falls were beautiful

And the local trees showed great ingenuity in how they kept from falling off the side of the rocks they grew on.

On the hike back, I found my favorite strangler fig yet.

I enjoyed my day and return hike, and I got back to the van just when I wanted. I got dropped at my hotel door, and was very ready for a shower.

The next morning I stopped at the bank to change all my leftover colones to USD, and hopped a bus for the border. Its a hot, dusty, ugly one filled with waiting semi trucks, but I paid my fees and taxes and got stamped out and in just fine. The Nicaragua customs official was definitely flirting with me, which I decided is much better than dealing with a grumpy impatient official. Then back on the bus to go to San Juan del Sur, my first Nicaraguan stop, and also a beach.

Spoiler: get ready for sunset pictures.