When you drive from San José City to Arenal located before the Arenal Lagoon in the Province of Alajuela you will pass a couple nice hotels on the way, that might me worth while stopping even if you don't want to spend the night there. The first is the Tilajari Resort located in Ciudad Quesada. It has a beautiful large Restaurant and you should have a look at the big Butterfly Farm there.

Once arriving in La Fortuna if the weather allows it, you will see a picture perfect Volcano. Arenal is 1,633 meters high and looking at it from the town La Fortuna it shows a perfect cone.

With eruptions about every 15 Minutes it is one of Costa Rica's main tourist attraction. Arenal was sacred for the pre-Columbian Indians, but it was inactive during this colonial era. Until on July 29th 1968 it woke up with a fateful earthquake. The massive explosions wiped out the villages Tabacón and Pueblo Nuevo, whose entire populations perished. The eruption was felt as far away as Boulder Colorado.

In the last 20 years there were no more such serious eruptions but the volcano is still considered as one of the most active ones in the world. Its small eruptions and lava flows have been constant and everyday one can see smoking cinderblocks tumbling down the steep slope. Some days the volcano blows several times in an hour, spewing house size rocks, sulphur dioxide, chloride gases and red-hot lava.

Some of the best views you'll get from the Arenal Observatory Lodge, which is also located in a safe area. But of course the hotels, that are right at the base of the Volcano like the Tabacón Resort and Hot Springs and the Hot Springs Los Lagos Hotel offer closer observation and one can enjoy the wonderful thermal waters. Of course, to be so close is not without a certain risk, but people seem not to mind that, since the closer places are the most popular vacation resorts.

Monteverde and Santa Elena

Drive around the Arenal Lagoon and the volcano the bumpy road will lead you eventually to Monteverde. The so called Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde is one of the most outstanding wildlife sanctuaries in the world. It extends down both sides of the Cordillera to the Pacific and the Atlantic encompassing eight distinct ecological zones.

Temperatures and humidity change dramatically over relatively short distances, producing a great diversity of forest types. Another Conservation Project of Monteverde is the Children's Eternal Forest or el Bosque Eterno de los Niños. In 1987 primary school children in rural Sweden.

A boy called Roland Teinsuu organized a campaign to raise money to help the Monteverde Conservation League to buy and save threatened rainforest in Costa Rica. With the guiding hand of teacher Eha Kern and her husband Bernd, and the assistance of tropical biologist Sharon Kinsman, they raised enough money to by 6 hectares of rainforest. The whole idea swept around the world and today the forest has many thousands of hectares.

There are several beautiful places to stay in Monteverde. At the top of course rains the splendid hotel El Establo, followed my many nice places like Heliconia , the Trapp Family Lodge and the famous Sapo Dorado with its comfortable cabins.

Santa Elena is the town with the necessary infrastructure of the area and five kilometres north of it there is another 600 hectare cloud forest reserve owned by the Santa Elena community. You may see there just about everything you can see in the big reserve plus spider monkeys. You need a 4 x 4 to get here and bring some additional cloths because the weather is cooler and more humid due to its higher elevation.

Enjoy this beautiful country, its outstanding Deluxe Resorts, Vacation Accommodations, Cabins, Mountain Lodges, Golf Courses as well as its Nature, the Rain-forests with an abundance of Flora and Fauna, and the many Biological Reserves and National Parks. Go Fishing or enjoy some of the many other Costa Rica Tours, Activities, Entertainments and Sports available. Let us be your Guide to help plan your trip to Paradise.