#8   Arenal Volcano

Following the "Foresight" retreat, I shared a 2-hour shuttle to Liberia Airport with most of the other departing retreat participants. They got on planes.  I went to the Hertz counter, rented an AWD SUV, and drove east toward the mountainous 'spine' of northern Costa Rica. Part of the drive was on the "carretera", the Panamerica Highway that runs the length of the country, from Nicaragua to Panama. It's not like the U.S. Interstates, as the speed limits can be as low as 40 km/hr... and the lanes occasionally narrow to just 1 in each direction.  But it's reasonably well maintained and sign-posted, and it has no stop signs or traffic lights.

Leaving the carretera, the roads quickly degrade. Pot-holed paving quickly gives way to unpaved roads. Curves and verges can be treacherous.  But I managed to reach the Arenal region in the course of an afternoon.  Arenal has a famous volcano, now protected as a National Park.

I stayed at the Arenal Lodge, on the 2,000-acre site of a defunct macademia nut plantation.  At the guard-gated entrance to the Lodge, one makes an impossibly steep, impossibly twisty 1st-gear drive for 2 km up the side of the mountain... eventually arriving at this most remarkable family-run Lodge.

Surrounding the Lodge are number of trails that lead deep into the mountaintop jungle. It's quiet.  Filled with lush landscape and colorful birds. At this time of year, blooms are few, but beautiful.

Dinner at the Lodge can be enjoyed watching the light of day disappear over the distant Arenal Volcano.  IMO?  This is a far more 'real' and majestic side of  Costa Rica than can be found on the beachy, tourist-centric Nicoya Peninsula.