Day 12: Rincón de la Vieja National Park

Breakfast today included Gallo Pinto (lucky me!) again, and after having devoured it I felt great.
Today was going to be a log day, with us walking the Rincón de la Vieja National Park for most of the day.

We started a small 3km track leading past several volcanic active places like fumaroles, mud pools, hot water pools, etcetera. This path leads through dense forest which means we are shielded from the heat: today it is well over 30 degrees Celsius again with high humidity. After completing it, the dark clouds have started forming on our left, right and in front whilst we have heard not so distant thunder for at least an hour. That means rain.

We were scheduled to walk a 4 hour round trip to some really lovely waterfalls where we would also go for a swim, but we decided this would probably mean walking in torrential rains for an extended period of time and thus not for us. After our “good” experiences with walking in the rain previously this year we were not quite up to it here. Instead, we walked about a third of the distance to a location where a river enters a hole in the ground to continue flowing underground. It sounds weird to go to such a place, but since neither of us has seen something like that before, it seemed like a nice thing to do.
And so it was! The walk up there was really steep and slippery but very rewarding in the end.

Right after returning to the parking lot, all the while with the thunder rolling in the distance, it started raining which was the signal for us to go back to the hotel and contemplate our next activity.
After getting at the hotel, the rain basically didn’t stop, and we settled in the waiting hammocks to just relax and read. We are on holiday after all.

Today, we encountered quite some wildlife on our little walk: ranging from a Turkey Vulture who was nice enough to perch on a pole at about 4 metres distance, via White-throated Magpie-Jays playing in the trees to a Nine-banded Armadillo happily foraging so close to us that the long zoom lens we were carrying could not even focus on it!

Tomorrow, we leave this NP already and head for another one: Manueline Antonio NP which is most well known for its beautiful beaches. Yes, we live the tough life over here. 😀