La Fortuna
Days One & Two - Costa Rica - 2025
An evening of wildlife photography in the jungle beneath Arenal Volcano, followed by a rainy day exploring the Costa Rican adventure town of La Fortuna.
1. La Paz Waterfall
La Paz Waterfall is a 37-meter / 121-foot tall roadside waterfall 31-kilometers / 19-miles north of Alajuela.
I’m going to keep it a stack: I had zero intention of coming to Costa Rica in 2025. In fact, at the beginning of October 2025, I had no idea I’d be in Costa Rica two months later. But sometimes life circumstances dictate our actions, and I found myself booking the nine-day Costa Rica Quest tour by G Adventures on a whim. Why? Well, I had some vacation time to burn (somehow…) but could only take a trip on these exact nine days (for reasons) and I didn’t want to travel more than five hours (otherwise, was there really any point for just a week?)
Now if you peruse this website, you’ll notice two things pretty quickly: first, I don’t do beaches, and, second, I will never turn down an opportunity to photograph wildlife. Of all the inexpensive mid-December travel options I considered, this one at least didn’t lean too much into the former. That airfare to San José and the tour itself were both discounted didn’t hurt either. Pura vida, I guess….
My arrival into San José coincided with La Festival de La Luz, so my transfer into the city center from the airport took … well, quite a long time. All the same, I didn’t really have much planned for the day other than the requisite G Adventures Welcome Meeting with our tour guide Chief Experience Officer, followed by a get-to-know-you group dinner.
I can certainly say my fifteen co-travelers represented the most diverse group age-wise I’ve ever had on a group tour, ranging from college students all the way up to septuagenarian retirees. I sat smack-dab in the middle, in the usally-awkward “I-Have-No-Kids-But-Everone-Else-My-Age-Does-And-Therefore-Don’t-Travel” bracket, or IHNKBEEMADATDT. (That doesn’t work - maybe there’s an anagram? Does “DEMAND THAT BIKE” mean anything? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway….)
I’m programmed at this point to be able to spot fellow photographers at a glance, but as I looked around the welcome meeting, the glaring lack of shirt- and pants-pockets suggested to me immediately that I’d be on my own in this regard.
Our first full day would see us head out from San José to the G Adventures-sponsored Mi Cafecito coffee cooperative for a brief tour. The hotel didn’t provide free breakfast, so the group would have to be incredibly self-motivated in order to make our very early start time. Credit where credit is due, every single one of them arrived on-time; I knew I was traveling with a good batch!
Respect must also be given to G Adventures for the morning’s transportation - the vehicle was spacious (despite having our luggage piled into the back) and our driver very carefully scythed our large vehicle across the city and up the switchback mountain pass.
En route, we stopped for some much, much needed coffee followed by a quick pullover at a roadside waterfall.
The breakfast (and coffee) was great, and the waterfall stop a lovely add-on.
2. Roadside Coati
Coatimundis are diurnal animals in the same family as raccoons and -much like their trash-loving cousins- congregate in areas of human food consumption.
Nearby the waterfall was a coati, predictably hanging around by the local food vendor.
3. Mi Cafecito #1
Here is a coffee tree … no, I don’t mean the banana tree, but rather the green plant at the bottom right….
At Mi Cafecito, we were given a tour of the coffee producing facility and an extensive overview of the entire coffee-growing and -making process. This was an incredibly informative tour, arguably one of the best tours I’ve had while on a group tour.
4. Mi Cafecito #2
Coffee beans can be generally sorted into three categories: top-grade (like the beans seen above), mid-grade, and “depression grade,” which is what I drink.
Despite their efforts to convert me into a coffee snob, however, I still don’t really care too much that I drink F-Grade swill six or seven times a day. I like to taste the sadness and struggle in each cup.
5. Mi Cafecito #3
If you haven’t figured out already, I am hopeless addicted to coffee (one of many vices, I’ll admit), so I was jazzed when our CEO, César, alluded to the possibility of having a cup or two while at the facility. We were treated to a few shots of coffee-flavored liquor, as well as some cane liquor and cane juice and even lunch, but before long I felt like the Tyrone Biggums of caffeine addicts. I did consider channeling my inner Ian Malcom and ask, “Ah, now eventually you do plan to have coffee on your, on your coffee tour, right?” but we were only on Day One, and that’s a bit too early to tap into the voices in my head on a group tour.
I damn near cried tears of joy when the coffee pot finally made an appearance. No, I will not go to therapy….
6. Roadside Sloth
A sloth clings to a tree near the village of Tanque.
A short time later, we were on the outskirts of La Fortuna, our home for the next two nights. On the way, our CEO or driver spotted some three-toed sloths clinging to a tree off the side of the road. A neat sight!
7. La Fortuna Night Walk #1
A cloudy snail-eating snake sticks its tongue out during a night walk in the jungle beneath Arenal Volcano, La Fortuna.
There inevitably comes a time (or, let’s be honest, multiple times) where I make a tragic miscalculation while on a trip. You see, our first stop in La Fortuna would be at the office of Desafio Adventure, a company G Adventures partners with to furnish day tours in La Fortuna. Their menu of offerings is way, way, way more extensive than the mostly adventure-flavored offerings noted on the G Adventures tour website. Having seen this short activity list, and not knowing about the partnership with Desafio, I independently made some bookings for wildlife-focused tours both that evening and the next day. Oops! But I sincerely hope both you and G Adventures learn from my experience. Traveler: please know that there are many tour options not mentioned on the G Adventures website. G Adventures: I hope you see value in being more transparent with your customers about the possible day tours in advance.
The first of these independently-booked events was a night wildlife walk beneath Arenal Volcano. After checking-in at our lodge for the evening, I put my macro lens to good work (a very rare but enjoyable thing) while the rest of the tour group went to the hot springs.
The night tour -operated by Wildlife Tours Costa Rica- was top-notch, and -despite the fact that it was absolutely dumping rain- I had a ton of excellent animal encounters, mostly with frogs. This was one of the best activities during my time in Costa Rica, and I can say without exaggerating this collection represents some of the best photographs I have ever taken.
Sixteen additional photographs from my La Fortuna night wildlife walk follow.
8. La Fortuna Night Walk #2
The common tink frog is so named because of the same sound male frogs of the species make at nighttime.
9. La Fortuna Night Walk #3
There are dozens of species of flycatchers in Costa Rica, and my fun fact for this one is that I have zero idea which type this is!
10. La Fortuna Night Walk #4
11. La Fortuna Night Walk #5
Bush crickets have a fantastic ability to produce adaptive camouflage, ranging in color from brown to bright green.
12. La Fortuna Night Walk #6
Reasonably certain this is an olive snouted treefrog.
13. La Fortuna Night Walk #7
An incredibly tiny common tink frog.
14. La Fortuna Night Walk #8
15. La Fortuna Night Walk #9
A smoky jungle frog emerged from its leaf litter hiding spot.
16. La Fortuna Night Walk #10
The bright leg coloring of the Warszewitsch's frog, also known as the brilliant forest frog, is intended to distract potential predators when it jumps.
17. La Fortuna Night Walk #11
This male hourglass treefrog is inflating its vocal sac to make a mating call.
18. La Fortuna Night Walk #12
19. La Fortuna Night Walk #13
Red-eyed tree frogs have three eyelids.
20. La Fortuna Night Walk #14
The red-eyed tree frog’s brilliant colors are used as a defense mechanism to startle and confuse potential predators.
21. La Fortuna Night Walk #15
When its coloration fails, the red-eyed tree frog tucks its legs in and the remaining green color allows it to quickly blend into the jungle environment.
22. La Fortuna Night Walk #16
The yellow treefrog is notable for its creme-colored underside.
23. La Fortuna Night Walk #17
After our incredibly entertaining walk in the forest, I made my way back to my hotel and onwards to dinner before calling it an evening.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good hot spring … but, in this case I 100% think that I made the right call taking a flyer on the night walk. I had an off-script full day tour pre-booked the next day - would my luck hold out?
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24. Mistico Park Hanging Bridges #1
Before I answer that question, I’m going to have a quick rant (it’s my website, I can rant if I want to….)
The number-one unsolved mystery from my week in Costa Rica is: how does a prominent coffee-producing country that sucks so hard at the tourist teet my chest still hurts have such an alarming lack of in-room or in-lobby coffee in its hotels?
Perhaps to add insult to injury, this particular hotel had a coffee machine on my cabin’s veranda … but no coffee. When I awoke super early for my full day tour, I had no choice but to crack open a bag of the S-tier coffee I bought at Mi Cafecito. Putting that glorious coffee into that unworthy drip coffee machine felt like a war crime.
It is one thing to not have a coffee machine; it is another thing entirely to give your guests a coffee machine and no coffee. That’s just cruel. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Anyway, as mentioned I had also gone off-script for our full day in La Fortuna, booking a four-part “if-you-only-have-one-day-in-La-Fortuna”-style tour. This would make stops at some Hanging Bridges, an Arenal Volcano viewpoint, the La Fortuna Waterfall, and some time at the Relax Termalitas hot springs.
25. Mistico Park Hanging Bridges #2
Mistico Park features 6 suspended bridges along a 3.2-kilometer / 2-mile walking loop.
Our first stop was Mistico Park, home to La Fortuna’s hanging bridges. I had really high hopes for this place, but -unfortunately- the weather was mostly awful which not only meant the views from the bridges were incredibly limited, but so were the wildlife sightings. We did not see a single sloth or monkey or bird during our two-hour stay here, which was kind of a bummer. Oh, well - you can’t win them all. Walking across the swaying bridges was a lot of fun, however.
26. Mistico Park Hanging Bridges #3
We did see some ants … so there’s that!
Our next stop was a viewpoint of the Arenal Volcano. The weather had really deteriorated by this point, and I’m not even going to humor you with a picture of what I saw. The wind was incredibly strong at the viewpoint, as well, and I think everyone on the tour was just waiting for it to be over.
Next we had a quick lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading to La Fortuna Waterfall.
27. La Fortuna Waterfall #1
Well, it turns out the rain was so bad that the waterfall was closed. You read that right - a waterfall can close due to rain. Apparently the trail heading to the waterfall had some landslides and was no longer accessible. I’m not too upset about that, but it would have been nice to know before we made the hour-long round-trip journey to go see it.
28. La Fortuna Waterfall #2
At least we could see the waterfall from a distant viewpoint….
29. La Fortuna Waterfall #3
The one saving grace of the day -which you’ll recall has thus far featured a wildlife park with no wildlife, a volcano viewpoint with no volcano, and a waterfall with … well, no waterfall- was this sloth which showed up near the waterfall carpark. Life is kind of strange sometimes, and who would have guessed the only sloth I’d see that day would be there? A gigantic crowd of people amassed to watch it, probably similarly realizing that this would be the high point of their day.
Three more photographs of the sloth follow.
30. La Fortuna Waterfall #4
31. La Fortuna Waterfall #5
32. La Fortuna Waterfall #6
33. Arenal Volcano
Arenal Volcano is geologically quite young, estimated to be about 7,500 years old; it is currently dormant, most recently erupting in 2010.
Following the waterfall, we made our way to the hot springs for an hour-long soak. This was a nice way to cap off the day, if I’m honest. Irony of ironies: the weather had cleared since our encounter with the sloth, meaning we had bad weather when it mattered, and good weather when it didn’t.
Fortune did smile upon me, however, and the clouds around Arenal Volcano cleared just long enough for me to snap this photo (mad props to the tour bus driver for letting me out of the van to take it!)
Following this, we had a group dinner at a nearby barbecue restaurant where I got to hear about everyone else’s day. Several members of the tour group opted to do the Caño Negro River Boat Safari, the choice I would have went with had I known about it and not pre-booked my stand-alone day tour. They saw lots of wildlife from their boat, which -of course- made me wonder if I had made the right decision. I guess we’ll never truly know….
