Rincon de la Vieja
At the beginning of September 2003 we hired a car and left the beach behind, driving inland and north to the Rincon de la Vieja National Park. Driving times tend to be longer than expected as off the main highways the unpaved roads are badly potholed and very bumpy.
The National Park encloses the active Rincon de la Vieja volcano. As well as hiking to the volcano's summit, there are several walking tracks through different forest habitats to waterfalls, hot springs, mud pools and fumaroles.
We stayed three full days and did everything we wanted to except for the summit hike which weather conditions made it inadvisable to attempt. Most people seemed to stay only a day and a half.
Highlights
Caterata La Cangreja
About 3 hours return, this walk passes through a number of different habitats to end up at the hidden Crab waterfall. Coloured bright blue by dissolved copper sulphate in the water, the plunge pool is lovely to swim in and very cool after a hot walk.
Fumaroles
A shorter walk in the National Park leads past fumaroles, boiling mud pools and a boiling lake. We got up at 6.00 am so as to have the trails to ourselves and at that hour the steam really made the forest eerie. We saw a troop of spider monkeys, a few agoutis, a tinamou and several beautiful motmots, so the early start was worth it.
Hot springs
A short hike from Rincon de la Vieja Lodge a stream runs through the forest and forms warm and cold pools where it meets a hot spring. Advertised as being good for the health, the hot pools are quite pleasant to sit in but unfortunately did make me smell like rotten eggs for several days afterwards.
Eating
Rincon de la Vieja Lodge
There's nowhere to get food outside of your hotel without driving right down the mountain. The Lodge food was good - hot buffet breakfast and two different casados every day (or packed lunch). However, there was nowhere to get snacks in between meals, bottled water was expensive and the advertised 6.00 am breakfast never started on time.
Sleeping
Rincon de la Vieja Lodge
With rather a field trip air about it, the lodge was nevertheless quite pleasant. We especially enjoyed the hammocks.
