The Tenorio Volcano National Park is only about two and a half hours from Tamarindo. For the first two hours of the drive, the view out the car window looks the same…dry and hot. About 20 minutes after you turn off Hwy 1 (Costa Rica’s main north/south transportation route), the surroundings change drastically and within minutes you are in a different world. After climbing a mere few hundred feet, the grass and vegetation goes deep green and dense. It felt like Kauai on steroids or Oregon in the late Spring, if we had palm trees.
As we continued to climb, I noticed water pooled up in places. It must have rained here! It’s a bit strange, but for us Oregonians, rain has taken on a novel, almost mythical fascination after two months in the dry heat of Tamarindo. There were even some clouds in the sky. Amazing. Luckily, the paved road took us all the way to our hotel this time (unlike last month’s crazy ascent to Monteverde). We turned into its driveway and immediately noticed the spectacularly lush landscape. This was obviously a laboriously created and maintained environment, but it was gorgeous. The main lobby and restaurant was all open air. The rooms were located in separate bungalows scattered among the landscape, so everywhere you went on the property you walked down beautiful stone paths with vibrant tropical plants and flowers flanking both sides.
A short time after our arrival, I started to notice they had baskets at all the bungalow doors and at the restaurant entry points full of umbrellas, the conclusion being that it rains enough that you will need an umbrella to get from point A to B. Could it possibly rain that much here or are tourists just wimps? Being from Oregon, I thought they might be wimps. I was wrong. Over the course of our three night stay, it rained! It rained a couple times throughout each day, usually in an intense monsoon like cloudburst that lasted for 10-15 minutes. But that was nothing compared to the rain at night. Each night I woke up to the sound of what could have easily been gravel shot at our roof through a cannon. It was SO LOUD. I put my pillow on my head, which is usually enough to drown out Matt’s snores, but apparently not enough to block the sounds of the rain.
On our first morning, the boys delighted in the hotel’s breakfast buffet before we headed to Tenorio Park for a hike to the Rio Celeste waterfall and the confluence of two rivers where a chemical reaction between the two turns the water a vibrant milky turquoise. Science-y explanation from Amusing Planet at link to the left or at the bottom of this post.***
The 3.7 mile hike had great things to see along the way, a family of coatis on the trail (see Instagram for the video), the waterfall which we climbed 270 steps down to (then back up!), a beautiful wide aqua pool, a place where the sulfuric gases from the volcano bubble up in the river giving it a jacuzzi like vibe and finally the confluence of the two rivers where the beautiful color originates.
After hiking all morning, we delighted in lounging by the pool, ordering drinks at the swim-up bar and hopping in and out of the hot tubs to stay warm enough to be in swimsuits outside.
On our second day, we managed to get lost on our way to go tubing down the Rio Celeste River, but thanks to being able to turn on our cell phone and pay $10 for data for a day, we found the meeting point…we NEVER would have found it otherwise. We arrived 15 minutes late, but Pura Vida! These two really charming Ticos helped us get down the river, pulling us off of rocks, spinning us and pushing us into place so we could catch the right line down the rapids. They invited us to stop and swim for a while in a deep swimming hole (12-15 feet, they said). It was a blast and everyone left the river with big smiles.
I tried hard to get the boys to stop and see sloths on our way back to the hotel, but the pool area was calling them and I could not lure them out of their barn sour state. After another afternoon of lounging (geez…this group likes to lounge poolside!), Matt and I coerced the boys to do the hotel’s free night walk right on their property. Matt got some great photos of all the frogs and critters we saw…check out his Instagram. It was a cool experience, but I will admit the rain forest at night with all it’s spiders and such was a tad creepy.
On our last morning, after breakfast, I was thrilled to see that the coati we had seen on our first day had returned to snack on the fruit left out by the hotel. He stopped eating to take note of my approach, but didn’t seem too concerned by my presence.
We were a bit sad to leave, but deeply satisfied with the amazing experience had by all. We made a pretty quick exit after breakfast in order to get back to Tamarindo, buy a bunch of groceries and get ready for our second group of visitors. We were all abuzz with excitement to see the Pyle family. Their son, Wyatt, is one of Sam’s best buddies and he is over the moon excited to see him. Seeing faces from home feeds our souls and keeps us going…thank you Pyles!
***Science-y Explanation of Rio Celeste’s Color
Río Celeste is fed by two rivers — Sour Creek and Good View River. The Good View River carries significant quantities of a type of whitish mineral known as aluminosilicate, that is composed of aluminum, silicon and oxygen. This is the mineral that is responsible for reflecting the blue color in sunlight. But if the mineral is also contained in the Good View River, why doesn’t it appear blue like Río Celeste? The answer lies in the size of the particles.
Researchers found that Good View River particles have a size of 184 nanometers, while in the Río Celeste the particles are much larger at 566 nm.
“This increase in size is what causes the scattering of sunlight, such that it occurs principally in the blue region of the visible spectrum. So that’s why we have that spectacular light blue color of the Rio Celeste” said Dr. Max Chavarría Vargas, lead investigator.
But why are the aluminosilicate particles in Río Celeste bigger than those in Good View River, when the particles itself came from the Good View River? It so happens that Sour Creek, the second river to join Good View River, is highly acidity due to volcanic activity (which is why it’s called Sour Creek). When these two streams mix to form Río Celeste, the drop in pH causes the aluminosilicate particles to aggregate and enlarge producing Mie scattering which gives the river a strong turquoise color.
“It’s one of those quirks of nature where one of the rivers provides mineral material with one size and the other river provides the acidic environment so that those particles grow,” said Dr. Max Chavarría Vargas.