you can not come to this area and not do a volcano hike. It is truly awesome. Not only did we hear the volcano, but we also saw wildlife in the forests. One such amazing bird we saw was the Montezuma Oropendolas. They were out in number. The sunset on the way back was awesome.

To see the volcano, we went on the Volcano Hike with Sunset Tours. This is a great way to see the flora & fauna of the rainforest. Our tour started off at an observation point of the volcano, followed by a hike of approx 1.5h. We had a really good tour guide, who was very friendly, knowledgeable, and spoke pretty good English. He gave lots of interesting information (but we weren’t stopping every minute either).

The hike is a fairly easy, so you shouldn’t worry about whether or not you’re in good enough shape for it.

There wasn’t as much wildlife to see as I was hoping, but we did see a couple howler monkeys, some birds, and lots of leaf cutter ants.

After the hike, we drove to the active side of the volcano as it was getting dark. It was clouded most of the day, but we were lucky and it cleared up considerably by the time we got here. We were able to see lava rocks coming down the side. It was pretty exciting. Our guide told us that even in the dry season, it’s still only a 50/50 chance of being able to see this, so we were pretty happy.

I would recommend this tour, but if you can only do one hiking activity, I would recommend doing the hanging bridges tour over this one, and just driving over to the active side of the volcano by yourself in the evening if you have a car.

We got a ride here with company "Cab Serrano", he spoke great English, had a scope so we saw the rocks fallling off the volcano. Knew other locals so we saw a yellow eyed viper here. He took us to the lookout and waited while we walked the trail to the 1992 lava flow. Very neat experience, also saw howler monkeys in the trees. Really enjoyed this park.

The Arenal National park should be first on your to-do list in this region! I was unsure about going as I had not read much on the park, but was so glad we did.

We arrived at about 2 in the afternoon, and the park shuts at 4.00 to general tourists (after this time you have to be on a guided tour). We had just enough time to do both walks in the 2 hours.

Our taxi dropped us at the observation point, and from here we walked back down the road and took the 6k trek to the old lava trail from 1993. This trek involves a little scrambling over rocks towards the end. When you do come to the end and get the view of all the old hardened lava in front of you and Arenal Lake behind you it is magnificent!

While you are walking you can hear the volcano rumbling away, which is slightly unnerving! We were keeping our eyes on the birds as apparently animals know to get out the area before humans know!

After making our way back we also did the 2k trek which takes you back down to the main car park and entrance, and saw lots of birds and leaf cutter ants on the way.

Definately to be visited!