Hiking Arenal Volcano

I walked around the hotel grounds this morning before breakfast.  The area is beautiful and very well kept.  It's really a great place to stay. In addition to the incredible view from our room, the area around it is super serene and beautiful.

After a great breakfast at our hotel, we went to the Arenal Volcano park.  It amazes me how much privately owned land there is near national parks as there are always people selling tickets to hiking trails and such near parks in Costa Rica because those trails are privately owned.  Of course, the national park has tickets too.  It's surely a very lucrative tourism industry.

We hiked the Sendero Las Coladas which led to this great viewpoint where the lava flow of 1993 was.  It offered an excellent view of the eruption side of the volcano as well as Lake Arenal.

Along the hike we saw a green and red parrot, some black birds with yellow wings, and a white nosed coati. The hike was great, not too strenuous and well shaded.  We saw some really cool trees and even swung from a sturdy vine.