Arenal Volcano: Fortuna de San Carlos, Monteverde Vacations and Luxury Travel Packages


The small town of Fortuna de San Carlos, with its approximately 5,000 residents, is located 250 meters above sea level at the foot of the six-kilometer-distant Arenal volcano, which is best viewed at sunset from a bench on the plaza. Until the 4980s, there were hardly any tourist accommodations in the village. Today it has some 20 hotels and inns, and virtually every private home rents rooms during the peak season.

The Cataratas de Fortuna, a waterfall, plunges off the mountain about five kilometers from the town. Signs along the marked path which begins at the village church show the way. By car the waterfall is reachable along a rocky road that is not exactly a pleasure to drive. From the road a steep trail (10 minutes on foot) leads to the bottom of the idyllic, narrow waterfall.

Destinations in Fortuna de San Carlos

Tilaran

Less than six kilometers away, on the road to Arenal, is the Los Lagos Preserve. It has a crocodile farm where young alligators and crocodiles are raised - not for commercial purposes - but to be released into the wild when they are fully grown.

An excursion to the rim of the 1,633meter-high Volcan Arenal is part of the reason for going to Fortuna. Tours organized by hotels in the area usual begin at dusk (around 7 p.m.). On clear nights it is possible to see streams of red-hot lava as they shoot into the air and roll down the mountain. The local residents are happy to show off their volcano, which has been the earth's most active since its violent eruption on July 29, 1968. That eruption buried the town of Tabacon under molten lava, and the volcano has continued spewing lava ever since. Before 1968, Arenal had been dormant for 500 years. Small explosions from within the mountain, audible as far away as Fortuna, can be heard almost every day. A particularly violent eruption in 1998 once again won Mount Arenal a place in news headlines.

The Cavern of Venado is a day's excursion from Fortuna. It was first discovered in 1945 by local residents, and lie 15 kilometers north of Lake Arenal, near the village of Venado. The entrance to the limestone grotto is 300 meters high. A small stream flows through the two-kilometer-long cave, which is only open to visitors with guides and which cannot be explored for more than a couple of hundred meters. Here you will see stalagmites and stalactites, as well as salas (hollow chambers) and small cascadas (waterfalls), limestone "curtains," and openings in the cavern's ceiling in which bats make their home.