Day Trips Guanacaste

We received this wonderful review from our tours from a group of journalists, and we wanted to share it with everybody

“…..

Day trips
Outings are easily arranged with the local tour operators who eagerly welcome bookings at the lobby. Then there are those amiable tour reps who like to hang by the beach practicing their English as they ask what country you are from.

One day local tour operator Swiss Travel took us to Rincon de la Vieja, the largest active volcano in the country’s northwest and the closest to the beach. It’s part of a national park of the same name, which translates roughly to “old woman’s nook.”

In the morning we rode horseback through lush tall grasses bearing spiny Pochote trees. This stretch of heaven is the remnant of volcanic activity eons ago but the region is still very active. Guanacaste is located like much of Costa Rica in a volcanic zone. Just around us nine craters are visible.

Locals call this place “Little Yellowstone” because of the rich biodiversity and its numerous boiling mud pots. It emits an otherworldly ambiance as the sulphurous fumaroles cast small mushroom clouds over the terrain in some parts.

By the Rio Negro (so named due to the black lava rock), we bid the horses adios then resumed the next leg: white water tubing.

Churning around and around, laughing in hysterics the entire way, I couldn’t get over myself. I mean I’m no shrinking violet when it comes to battling rapids. A Niagara Falls-born gal I am, so hitting the infamous Niagara Gorge in a turbo jet is done on a lazy afternoon (okay I was a passenger on that one, but still) and splashing around rapids outside Ottawa I’ve done in a day.

But this one was like nature’s amusement ride. It helps its dry season from December through April so water levels are low. Still the turning action as I spun around this tempest in a teapot got my heart pounding as I twisted and turned through this jungle canyon.

Giddy with excitement, I snuck my neck inside the tube like a cautious turtle bracing myself for the unknown. Instead as I looked above a heavenly blue butterfly fluttered watching over me.

That night at the resort we laughed and reminisced on how we conquered the Rio Negro.

Boy would I do it again. ”