La Fortuna
4-day itinerary
Day 1: Land in San Jose airport at 4pm, transfer to La Fortuna
Day 2: Bogarin sloth trail and Mistico hanging bridges
Day 3: White water rafting with Arenal rafting
Day 4: Walk to Arenal volcano viewpoint, leave La Fortuna via Lake Arenal
Day 1
Arrive in San Jose
Travel from San jose to La Fortuna, and check in to Los Lagos Hotel
We were delighted to arrive at Los Lagos Hotel in time for a quick dinner before bed. We had to get a shuttle to and from our room, which wasn’t a problem as it only takes a few minutes to come, and gives you great views of the beautiful hotel gardens and Arenal volcano.
Day 2
Explore the Bogarin trail
The buffet breakfast at Los Lagos was delicious – there was so much choice! After this, our day began with a pre-booked tour at the Bogarin trail. When we woke up that morning it was raining HARD. So we asked the tour provider if we could reschedule and they swiftly reminded us that we were in a rainforest, and you can’t avoid the rain. So we bought some ponchos and got an Uber to the trail. There were lots of Ubers available in La Fortuna, but we struggled to find them elsewhere in Costa Rica. A five-minute journey worked out at about £2. Be warned though: some Uber drivers try to message you and ask for a higher payment, outside of the app. If they try this, you can just cancel and wait for the next available Uber.
At Bogarin, we paid $35 each for a guide and joined a group with 6 other people. At the entrance, we were met with the sight of lots of brightly coloured tropical birds feeding on a platter of fruit. Our tour guide, Jason, led us round the trail in search of sloths. We saw five, as well as a couple of poison frogs, including the famous ‘blue jean’ which can produce enough poison to kill two fully grown elephants. Overall, the trail was quite small. But it was a great start to our trip, and brilliant to see so many sloths on our first day. Oh – and if we hadn’t paid for a guide, we would have literally only seen the leaf-cutter ants. So I’d definitely recommend going with a guide.
Mistico hanging bridges, Arenal
We then got an Uber straight to Mistico Hanging bridges in Arenal. There were no Ubers available up in the park, so we were grateful that we’d got our driver’s details for the return journey. The park has 11 hanging bridges and entry costs $25 per person. Some bridges are just a few metres long, but others are much longer, and much higher! Now, for someone who’s afraid of heights, be warned, it does feel a little scary (and shaky) at times. But the views are astounding and definitely worth it. We didn’t pay for a guide in the park as we’d had one in the morning, but still saw lots of wildlife: including, pigs, agoutis, vultures and even a howler monkey that came and sat on the last bridge! I’ve heard it’s worth going early with a guide to see more, but we didn’t feel like we missed out without one. Most people were without a guide at the park.
Day 3
White-water rafting
The next day, we decided to do white-water rafting with Arenal rafting, which cost $80 per person and was definitely worth it. We were picked up from our hotel at about 9am, and driven to the starting point along the Balsa river. Everyone was organised into groups of four, and given their own guide to lead their raft. We’ve done rafting before, but this was by far the best set up we’ve experienced. The rapids were Class 3-4, and lots of fun. Our guide gave us clear instructions about when to paddle, what side, and for how long, so we conserved plenty of energy and enjoyed the trip as much as possible.
After the trip we stopped at a soda (a traditional Costa Rican restaurant) and ate some traditional food (rice, beans, corn and meat) to refuel. We had the opportunity to buy photos from our trip, which I know my boyfriend is very glad we did, in particular, this picture…
Los Lagos Hotel hot springs
That evening, we decided to use the hot springs provided by Los Lagos. The hotel has several hot pools, all at varying temperatures. One even has a swim up bar where we got a couple of drinks. We spent some time in a small one for the two of us, which was almost like a hot tub with bubbles. Personally, I overheated and didn’t feel like I could spend too much time in them, but they also have a normal, cool pool, which had its own slide and towering views of Arenal volcano.
Day 4
Arenal volcano viewpoint
Due to a lot of cloud cover, we didn’t see the top Arenal volcano for most of our stay in La Fortuna. But on the last morning of our stay, the top of the volcano finally emerged. We hiked up to Los Lagos’ very own viewpoint, which took about half an hour, and was a sweaty, steep, walk. A lot of people drove, and we can see why, but we enjoyed the hike.
Leaving La Fortuna via Lake Arenal
Our shuttle picked us up from our hotel at 2pm. We’d booked the jeep-boat-jeep shuttle with ILT, and at $30 per person, I’d highly recommend this. We had about 45 minutes in the first bus, before reaching Arenal Lake.
The boat took about an hour, and then we were met by our jeep that drove for another hour before taking us to our lodge in Monteverde. This was definitely the best journey of our trip, as it just seemed to fly by while we watched the sunsetting over the beautiful Monteverde cloud forest and its mountains. We also stopped at a small cafe just outside Monteverde, where we had a smoothie and took some more photos.
