We are leaving for our trip on Friday and have a few questions.
1)Do rental car companies give you a map? We are using Tricolor.
2)We'd like to do the waterfall hike and the national park hike in Arenal to see the old lava flow rocks. Does anyone know how long these hikes will take and if it would be too much for a typical 7 year old? Also, can they be done easily without a guide or should we really invest in one. (trying to save paying for a guide for our trips to MA and Monteverde.)
3)Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of Ecolodge San Luis?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Tricolor gave us a map but the B and b one was much better. www.mapsguidesandmore was very fast...
the hike should be about 4 hours.The terrain can be very steep.I think you are fine without a guide.
Enjoy,
Sandy

wanatryl

we are leaving saturday and had a similiar question. do you know anything about the penas blancas river trip/canoe? i am 5 mo. pregnant and looking for good ideas in arenal...i a little bit like a 7 yr old in capabiility.

While in Arenal you can take a day trip to the Rio Sarapiqui where there is a nice float trip to see the wildlife. another option would be a trip up to cano Negro.

the sky trek in Arenal also has a tram canopy tour that would probably be fine for you rather than the zip line. The Hanging Bridges is a nice walk with some amazing views of arenal.

Nuance,

We loved the sunset tours safari float. It was serene and beautiful. We saw lots of animals and stopped at the small finca of 93-year-old Don Pedro. He was inspiring and charming. We had coffee there while eating home-made cheese (you might want to avoid this), yuca bread and fried plantains his daughter made for us. The only thing to be careful about would be getting on and off the raft especially to walk up the slope to Don Pedro's. The hanging bridges were great.too. I think a guide would make it even better. The sky tram was wonderful especially with the knowledgable Delroy. But, it might be expensive for such a short ride up.

Enjoy! I was 5 months pregnant when I went to Mexico for the first time and it was a wonderful trip.