Rio Celeste Waterfalls

February 3^rd, 2015

Peter was kind to offer a ride to me and Taylor in his rented car to get to Monteverde, a cloud forest region not too far from La Fortuna as the crow flies but the closest road goes around the massive Lake Arenal.  Most backpackers take a “Jeep-Boat-Jeep” option which gets you there in about 3 hours, bypassing the circumnavigation of the lake.  Peter however, through his meticulous research, had discovered a hidden gem known as Rio Celeste which would took us on an even longer detour around the lake, but a well worth trip.  It’s a waterfall with bright blue coloured water caused by the mixing of a couple of small rivers with some hydrothermal activity.  I won’t get into the chemistry here (since I don’t really understand it) but needless to say it was a pretty sight.  The hike in to the falls was fairly easy although it did get a bit muddy later on.  After the waterfalls the map mentioned that there was the “Borbollones” followed by the “Tenederio”.  None of us knew what that meant but the Borbollones was bubbling water rising up from the water near the bank of the river, I assume from a hot spring while the Tenederio was where the two rivers mixed and formed the lovely sky blue colour.  The rain started to pour down from the sky making our hike back a bit messier, but all in the name of good fun.

The first view of the falls:

Knuffle down at the bottom:

The Borbollones:

A rickety bridge:

The mixing of the streams, not the white border in the middle:

Blue...not so blue...

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Some rain caused it to be muddier on the way back:

Afterwards, we headed west on a gravel road, stopping to check out a sloth in a tree that a busload of French tourists had spotted, then made our way down to the Panamanian highway and eventually up to Tilaran where I had been stranded just 5 days prior.  Next was 30 some kilometres of dirt road to reach Monteverde.  Close to town there was a vehicle pulled over and one guy was looking at something on the road.  As we slowly passed by I could see that it was road kill of some sort.  We stopped and got out to check it out and it was a small four legged animal with a long tail and light brown fur, about the size of a cat.  The young German guy checking it out stated that it was a monkey but it definitely wasn’t but I wasn’t sure what it was.  We’d later find out, and thankfully see a live one in the forest, that is was a kinkajou which is a small rainforest mammal related to raccoons and coatis.

Hard to tell the perspective here, but that's a massive tree:

That fuzzy ball in the middle is the sloth:

Kinkajou roadkill:

Peter and Taylor had made a reservation at the El Golfo Hostel but I had decided to take my chances.  Luck would have it that they had just one bed left in a four bed dorm but after unpacking some of my stuff I noticed that there were already four big backpacks in the room and sure enough when I returned to the front desk they alerted me to their mistake, they had overbooked.  No biggie.  I ventured down the road to the Monkey Hostel just 200 meters away and a forty something latin woman who didn’t speak any English showed me a room for just $10, a couple bucks cheaper than El Golfo.  The place seemed alright, a bit small, plus it was empty which set off a few alarms in my head.  So I continued my look but the next two places were completely full.  Hmm, why is the Monkey totally vacant while the others are all full?  I decided to roll the dice and stay at the Monkey and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  The manager Vivian was very accommodating and I had a small dorm room with a bunk bed and single bed all to myself.  She even had a small hair dressing salon so I got a much needed haircut while staying there.  The only thing lacking at the hostel was somewhere to sit outside but I just ventured up to the Golfo to hang with Taylor and Peter so it was no issue.