Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Anita's trip (part 2, Arenal)

If you go to see this volcano, I'll bet you see lava. We stayed at Arenal Paraiso for the 1st 3 nights of our trip. We loved the location and the grounds, and the service was wonderful. We only ate breakfast there, and were not thrilled w/ the food, but it was clean. The hotsprings pool looks dirty, but it's not. They empty and refill the pool daily. We had the guard wake us up during the night to view the lava flow. He woke us twice during the 1st night. The 2nd time was around 1:30am. The sky was crystal clear, and the volcano was spectacular. The 1st day we rode horseback to Fortuna Waterfall, and swam at the bottom lake. The water was cold but we were hot from the hike down. The falls are just beautiful. The 2nd day we visited the "Hanging Bridges". My husband was impressed by the solid looking steel construction. We were told that one of the bridges was broken, and they showed us the detour on the map. No problem. The walkways and trails were very well defined and stable. We saw lots of butterflies, a viper snake, all kinds of interesting plants, many waterfalls and streams etc. When we got to one bridge there was a guide leading us through the detour. At one point he pointed out the broken bridge. A tree had fallen on it the day before. It looked to us like the walkway had fallen, but the supporting structure was still in tact. He told us that 3 people were hurt. This was rather upsetting. Later in the week we talked to some people who said they heard there were 9 injured, 3 went to the hospital, and 1 became a fatality the next day. What a terrible freak accident! I still recommend this tour highly. I just hope they clear the trees that are close enough to the bridges to do this kind of damage. We ate at El Novillo the 1st night, good food. The last 2 nights we ate at Las Brasitas. This was great! We even had a view of the edge of the lava flow on the volcano on the last night. Although we did have significant rain (compared to our trip 2 years ago), there was still a lot of time where the clouds and fog cleared, and the volcano was always flowing somewhat. We also liked the many varieties of wild flowers and animals in the area. We had monkeys every morning out our back porch, toucans were in the trees also. Even w/ the rain, it was still fun during our down time to be by the pool and bar at Arenal Paraiso w/ the volcano view in the background. One more thing, this area of Costa Rica is so clean and well maintained. The restaurants were the cleanest of all the Costa Rican restaurants we visited. They bring your silverware wrapped in plastic, the tables are immaculate, (no small feat considering these are all open air establishments). We never felt uncomfortable about food and water safety.