Liberia

I had booked a 7.15am shuttle up to Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja, but was told around 7am there wasn’t a bus running and if I wanted to go, I could take a taxi for USD40. I declined, thinking I would probably catch the bus up and then hitch out to the park. The Señora at the hostel, however, rang one of her friends, and arranged for him to pick me up from the hostel and take me up to Curubande, the closest village to the National park.

Offe ran a tourist operation out of Curubande so was going up there as part of his working day. I squeezed in the back of the car with two of his tour guides and we made our way up the mountain. Once there, Offe told me his daughter was coming up to hike with a friend in the National Park and could give me a lift there. So I ended up getting all the way to the park for free, albeit somewhat later than planned.

Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja has got a curious backstory. According to legend, in Pre-Columbian days, there was a powerful chieftain by the name of Curubande. He ruled his little part of the world and all was peachy. But then his daughter, Princess Curabanda, had the audacity to fall in love with a warrior from a rival tribe. This did not go down well with her Pa who decided to intervene. He tricked Mixcoac, the princess’s beau, into attending a party, got him pissed and threw him into the volcano. Problem solved. However, Princess Curabanda didn’t take it so well and took herself up to the volcano summit to await the arrival of her baby – one can only assume the romance had taken on a more carnal route than anyone realised. Once born, Princess Curabanda ‘reunited’ her son with his father by throwing the infant into the boiling lava. She then spent her remaining days in the nearby jungle, mourning her beloved.

These days, the crater is off-limits to the public for safety reasons, but one can do a 3.5km loop further down the slope which goes past areas of high volcanic activity. After a short walk from the park entrance through picturesque rainforest, resplendent with spider monkeys and multi-hued birds, the trail spits you out onto a barren plateau covered with active volcanic mud pots and remnant volcanic debris. You follow the trail around to a volcanic lake, more mud-pots and then to a large, extremely active volcanic mud-pot resembling boiling gruel, and a very impressive fumarole.

The trail then continues through rainforest to a volcancito (little volcano) and some impressive fumaroles. Steam can then be seen rising through the jungle here and there from the trail until you reach a section of fumaroles and a volcanic steam fed spring. The sheer power of this volcanic energy was evident everywhere, as were the volcano evacuation signs should your visit go pear-shaped.

The trail continued on through rainforest back to the start. I was hoping to hike out to one of the waterfalls, but was disappointed to find they closed those trails at 1pm. As I had planned to spend the day in the park, I decided to walk the 11kms back to Curubande.

The road back down to the village was primarily rainforest with some plantation in patches. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of traffic so I could just enjoy the ambiance and not have to worry about dodging traffic on the narrow roads. I passed the two geothermal plants which combined with other geothermal plants in the region provide neatly 14% of Costa Rica’s energy needs. There is an ecological debate over this ‘free’ energy in that all the volcanos are in National Parks and National Parks cannot be exploited for commercial gain. It’s an argument that needs careful consideration as Costa Rica moves forward in its efforts to become carbon neutral by 2050.

I was two kms shy of my destination when an SUV pulled up and asked me where I was going. When I told the hombre, he told me he was heading that way and to hop in. I gratefully took up the offer and was able to return to Liberia in air conditioned comfort. Leo dropped me off at what he referred to as ‘American Corner’, an intersection where all the American fast food chains had restaurants. It was close by to my hostel so I only had a short walk back.