Rincon De La Vieja National Park

Welcome to the last day of our Costa Rica Trip! We ended the trip heading back toward Liberia (near the airport) and went to Rincon De La Vieja National Park. The park itself has many activities, ones that would take all day to do. Unfortunately we didn't get there as early as we would have liked to be able to do all of the activities which meant we had to make some decisions. We all chose something else. Francis' brother and girlfriend went zip lining, his parents went to the hot water springs and tubed down a river. Francis and I didn't do anything that crazy, we went hiking instead.There were a few reasons I chose hiking over anything else.

1.) I wanted to see waterfalls
2.) I wanted to see a mini volcano
3.) Francis doesn't like horseback riding so that was definitely out

Alright, here we go-- yes I said we saw a mini volcano. We will get to that. The hike was the cheapest of all the activities ($10/person), it was about 5-5.5 miles and there was a little bit of everything to see. The first spot we got to was a little stream, the best part about the stream was we got to see some different animals.To the right you will see one of two waterfalls that we hiked to. This was my favorite one, the water was crystal blue, the waterfall gorgeous and I really wish I could have taken a dip in it, but alas-- it wasn't the day for it.


Alright, on to the mini volcano. Which was amazing and scary at the same time! It was really hot standing near it, and it smelled like sulfur but the craziest thing was that it really felt like you were near something that could erupt at any point. We could hear the rumble from the volcano, we could feel it underneath our feet and see the smoke coming up from the crackling of the volcano. THIS is why I wanted to hike, I can't think of the next time I will ever be that close to a volcano, even if it was a mini one. We can tube down a river or zipline whenever we want, but to say you were at a railing looking down on a volcano (no matter the size)? That to me is a once in a lifetime experience.