La Fortuna is a small, peaceful town in the north central part of Costa Rica in the shadow of the majestic 1,670 meter (5,480 foot) Arenal Volcano. It’s known as being one of Costa Rica’s best locations for doing adventure trips like white water rafting and zip lining. It’s a nice, relaxed place with good restaurants and a ton of tourists cruising around who, like me, use it as a base for other activities. La Fortuna means The Fortune in Spanish and was named because of its rich, fertile soils.
As the pictures of the town and the activies I participated in below show, it’s an incredibly lush and scenic area of Costa Rica.
I did a really peaceful jungle cruise on the Penas Blancas River the first morning I was there. It was a relaxing experience as we drifted down the river and saw sloths, a number of birds and a couple of troups of howler monkeys, one of which serenaded us with their deep, echoing booms. They have one of the loudest sounds in nature and can be heard up to three miles away.
On my second day I did an 11 hour tour which included a hike at the base of Arenal Volcano, a swim by the La Fortuna Waterfall and a couple hours in the jungle hiking over a series of hanging bridges.
Arenal Volcano was dormant for hundreds of years before suddenly erupting in 1968. Per Wikipedia: “The eruptions continued unabated for several days, burying over 15 square kilometers (5.8 sq mi) under rocks, lava and ash. When it was finally over, the eruptions had killed 87 people and buried 3 small villages – Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luís – and affected more than 90 sq miles of land. Crops were spoiled, property was ruined, and large numbers of livestock were killed. At the height of its ferocious activity, the volcano flung giant rocks – some weighing several tons – more than a kilometer away at a rate of 600 meters per second.”
It had continual small eruptions through 2010 and has been inactive since then. The fascinating part of the hike we went on was that all the forest we hiked through has only been in existence since 1968. The volcano destroyed the entire local ecosystem. It’s amazing to see how much has grown out in just over 50 years. No one is allowed to hike to the top of the volcano and the trail we took weaved around an area next to the volcano.
After hiking around the volcano most of the group journed onward via our van to the La Fortuna waterfall. It drops about 70−75 meters and is fed by the Arenal River. No one was actually allowed to swim directly under the falls, but there were some wonderful, cool pools nearby that we could relax in.
After our swim we had a nice traditional Costa Rica lunch then drove off to the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges. It’s a series of trails going through both a lowland and highland forest environement. It’s an original old growth forest, so there is a ton of wildlife. It also includes six long, very bouncy hanging bridges that, besides being fun to walk across, provided amazing views.
My third morning I headed off to Eco Termales Hot Springs. There are a series of hot springs all around La Fortuna that are created from the heat generated from the Arenal Volcano. There’s a free set of springs just outside town, but on a Sunday I thought they’d be packed. So I opted for one of the private ones. I chose Eco because they only let in a certain number of people per day in morning and afternoon sessions. It was also less expensive than many of the nearby resort based springs.
It was a wonderful experience as I moved from a series of increasingly more hot pools as the temperature rose from around 90 degrees fahrenheit (32 celcius) in the first one to around 105 degrees (40 celcius) in the last one. As you can see below they are set in incredibly lush surroundings.
I stayed in a nice, roomy Airbnb right inside the town.
