La Fortuna: Bogarin Trail
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La Fortuna
February 19
Monteverde to La Fortuna
The drive to La Fortuna from Monteverde was exactly what we expected—hilly, serpentine, narrow, unpredictable, and at times a bit treacherous. As usual, I handled navigation (or as someone we met on the trip put it, “naggrivated”), while Emilie drove.
About an hour and a half in, around 1:30, we stopped for lunch in the first real town we came across, Tilarán. We found a rooftop spot called Vento Bistro. I picked it for one simple reason: it was the first place on Apple maps that actually had a website. Plus, “rooftop” just sounds inviting.
It turned out to be a great choice—nice park and mountain views, and Ann ordered what we all agreed was a very reasonably sized drink.
Back on the road.
Close to 3:00, we got our first views of Lake Arenal, which we ended up driving almost completely around on our way to La Fortuna. We should have also gotten our first glimpses of Arenal Volcano—the main attraction in the area—but the clouds had other plans.
Arenal Volcano last erupted in 1968, sparing the community now known as La Fortuna—hence the name, meaning “fortune.” Since then, tourism has flourished, with the volcano as the central draw. Over the next three days, we caught occasional glimpses of its lush green slopes and lava-scarred mountainside, but the clouds stuck around just enough that we never saw more than the lower two-thirds.
We arrived at Arenal Paraíso Resort & Spa just before downtown La Fortuna around 4:00 p.m. We had saved the most luxurious stay for last—and the longest, too—four nights.
After checking in, we headed straight to the hot spring-fed pool bar. From there, we were supposed to have a clear view of Arenal Volcano… but once again, the clouds won. Oh well—we managed to suffer through it.
We ordered dinner from the poolside restaurant and then made our way into the hot springs. The resort had a series of six cascading hot spring pools connected by a walkway. The hottest pool sat at the top, gradually cooling as the water flowed down toward the main pool. Each one was about the size of a large hot tub, surrounded by lush forest landscaping. We slowly worked our way down over the next hour or so.
Ahhh.
After our first of many relaxing hot spring sessions, we all headed back to our rooms and called it a night. We had no plans for the next day—we’d figure that out over breakfast.
Our room was fairly basic—no high-end resort extras and nowhere to sit except the second bed—but it was comfortable. There was also a back porch that would have offered a great view of the volcano… if it had decided to show itself
February 20
Bogarin Trail
Breakfast at the resort was buffet style with coffee service at the table. The food was good, with ample selections.
Sue and Ann decided to make it a resort day, with spa treatments and hot springs. Hard to argue with that, but Em and I chose to do some nearby adventures.
Our favorite online reference when we travel, Earthtrekkers recommend a couple of things right in La Fortuna: Bogarin Trail for a short hike offering good chances to spot sloths in the wild; and a swimming hole/waterfall with rope swing, El Salto.
First stop was Bogarin Trail about a 10-minute drive from the hotel. Actually, the first stop was laundry drop-off at a place in downtown La Fortuna that we found online called Blue Laundry Service. The hotel was charging by the article, not by weight so we opted to bring our dirty laundry elsewhere. Sue and Ann joined us on the laundry run. After dropping it off at what looked like somebody’s home we took Ann and Sue back to the hotel for their spa day, then Em and I headed back toward Bogarin Trail.
The entrance to Bogarin is along the busy main road to, and through La Fortuna. There are lots of tourist-centric activities and offerings along this road. It is all still quite rustic with a hodge-podge appearance of disarray. There are no sidewalks along this busy stretch (there are in the main downtown area ) and so there are people creatively parking and walking along the road to get to art galleries, shops, restaurants, outdoor adventure store fronts and tours, and actual entrances to adventures, like The Bogarin Trail.
Interestingly, the infrastructure along this stretch of road goes only one building deep. So, behind each first roadside restaurant for example is vast farmland and forest on both sides. Upon entering past the gate into the Bogarin Trail we felt like we were in remote forest…because we were. After we parked we headed into the trail visitor center where we paid $20 each to enter.
Right at the visitor center after paying, there is an amazing bird feeding pond with chairs to sit in while watching all sorts of tropical birds feed on the mangos and bananas the staff puts out. We stayed here about 15 minutes hoping to see our first toucan. We saw lots of cool and colorful bids, but no toucan…yet.
Onto the trail. This is a well-marked, very easy walk through a swath of forest, with packed dirt pathways. I pulled the trail up on All Trails too, to help guide us through the maze, and to be sure we didn’t miss any sections of the interconnected loops.
A guided hike was an option but we opted out, and instead searched for sloths and other wildlife on our own…with an occasional assist from guides stopping and showing their tour groups something or other. We got an assist from an unguided family who pointed out some leaf-cutter ants and poison dart frogs to us! Very cool!
We saw a couple of sloths way up in the trees (pointed out to us by others on a tour), but nothing close up or easy to see. That is until near the end of the hike when a couple of Dutch women alerted us to a sloth actively climbing a vine! This was the best view of a sloth in the wild we got so far.
So exciting this was that Em rushed toward the scene looking up, and failed to see an embedded rock in the path and tripped and fell hard. She scraped her knee and arm pretty badly, with blood and dirt down her leg. But it would take more than that to stop Em from enjoying this sloth encounter! In fact, it was a double sloth encounter. There was another one in an adjacent tree as well!
After this we were pretty much done with the trail so we headed to the visitor center. Em cleaned up and got some bandages from the staff. Her knee was bruised and swollen pretty good under that blood and dirt. We got an ice cream and a sandwich from the cafe there and watched the birds again for a bit, then got the pic that everyone needs before heading out.
El Salto Rope Swing
About another 10-minute drive brought us to the El Salto swimming hole. There are no signs for this place, it is just a pull-off from the road on the outskirts of town…we really don’t know how people find out about this place other than seeing a flurry of activity off the road as you drive by. There appeared to be a rough parking area a short ways before, but we knew we’d be able to park closer along the road. As noted by Earthtrekkers there was a guy in an orange vest guiding would be parkers to spots off to the side…he certainly looked and acted official…who knows. But, he was very helpful to us. He guided us into a spot close to the waterfall, and nicely explained how to enter the falls area. He then said it would cost $4 to park here. Whatever. We were happy to be so close, and parked.
We walked across the bridge that overlooked the swimming hole in the Rio Fortuna and found the pathway to the rugged rocks where people were hanging out watching the falls and watching the people rope-swinging from across the way. The lush jungle scenery and clear, inviting water added to the intense beauty of this scene.
We made a bee-line for the rope swing (“El Salto” translates to “The Jump”). There were maybe 20 or so people hanging around the rope taking turns and helping one another. There was always someone holding the long wood stick used to retrieve the rope from over the edge. Em went first.
I waited to be sure she got out and back up the slick bouldered hillside ok…plus, I forgot my water shoes and needed to use hers.
Then I went. The water is warm here, and the falls create a beautiful surrounding while flying through the air and swimming back.
I did it twice, then we retreated to a dry boulder to dry off a bit, watch others, and just enjoy the beauty of the place.
Back at the car we waved goodbye to the local extortionist , um…I mean “parking attendant” and headed to town. It’s about 3:00 at this point and the laundry wasn’t to be ready until 4:00. So, we killed the time at the Monteverde Brewing craft brew pub in town.
At around 4:00 we headed up a couple of blocks to pick up our clean laundry, and then headed back to the hotel.
Winding down, we hit the hot spring pool bar, and had dinner by the pool with Ann and Sue…who had very relaxing spa treatments!
Off to bed.
