Swimming a volcano

Anna McBrayer
Jul 18, 2016
4 min read

Written by Anna and Patrick

Anna:

So there’s something beyond thrilling with the idea that at any moment the water you were swimming in could be instantly vaporized and your entire family turned to ash and scattered across the countryside of Costa Rica. OK, so that didn’t actually cross my mind until after I got out of the water. Justin did bring that it up while we were drying off, so I wasn’t the only one thinking about it.

Arenal Volcano erupted for the last time back in the 60s and actually wiped out a little town that was developed at it’s base. Since then, the town La Fortuna has been brought to life a little bit further from the beast but let’s just be honest. If it blows, La Fortuna isn’t that fortunate after all. Maybe they are biding their time.

In the 90s, guests could watch the lava dripping down the sides of the volcano at night but it has decreased its activity since and I only glimpsed the very top corner of the cone for a brief few seconds before it was enshrouded in clouds again. It’s till too dangerous to hike the volcano but it’s neighbor, Cerro Chato is open to anyone wanting the thrill.

Here you can see the Cerro Chato with it’s lagoon in the shadow of the grander Arenal Volcano. We approached from the La Fortuna waterfall, the bottom right corner.

Left to right: Arenal Volcano, Cerro Chato, La Fortuna

Public transportation

The weekend adventure began with a ride on the public bus from San Ramon up to La Fortuna. About a 2.5 hour bus ride. We’ve been to Guatemala and thank goodness the public transportation is nothing like it. No chickens, no dogs, or other farm animals at all. Actually quite nice buses.

La Fortuna is a very touristy city. Everyone takes American Dollars as well as colones, speaks English and there is a lot of American cuisine there as well. Not exactly Costa Rican Authentic, but for the American tourist, a very comfortable place to be. We got a smoking deal on a great resort (there are dozens) with a waterfall shower and a private outdoor jacuzzi (see previous post).

We spent Saturday hiking the volcano. We weren’t really sure what to expect. The local Ticos said no way that kids can do it and it’s only for the most adventurous, but that actually drives the men in the family a bit harder. Tell them they can’t or shouldn’t do something and, by God, they will do it like their lives depended on it. The trail is muddy, slick and basically straight up the side of the volcano. Check out the trail on Google maps and you will see very few turns. I don’t think the concept of switchbacks has reached that far south yet. It goes from a rough super steep driveway type path, to what looks like a cattle path to an actual trail in the forest all of which head steadily to the sky in the most direct path possible. Instead of a trail it was much more like a inconsistent staircase made of tree roots and washed out mud. Some of the steps were 2″ tall and then some were 4′ tall. It was a lot of scrambling.

The clouds settle at the top of the volcanoes a lot of the time so every minute was so totally different, that the visibility was constantly changing. Before entering the clouds, we got a beautiful view of the valley below stretching all the way to the town of La Fortuna.

Patrick: Once you reached the top of the volcano, we were quite relieved but that was when we found out about the steep trail down to the pool. We were half way down into the caldera before we could actually see the surface of the lake but it managed to clear a few times to get a decent photo. The trail down to the caldera was very steep and slippery and you had to stop and inspect the trail and see which side was safer before you went on down. Step after step we were getting closer to the caldera and finally, we were there.

The pool was about 100 yards across but the first five minutes we were there, you couldn’t see the other side, but after a while, the clouds dissipated. The water was grey and dull and quiet. feet from the shore, the bottom slipped out from under you and who knows how deep it would get from there. We swam out about 20′ and the water could of been hundreds of feet deep below us. Justin had studied the volcano and had read that there were fish that were known to nibble on your toes. As he said that, Patrick felt something big brushing up on his foot in the water. How did fish get to the top of a volcano?!?