La Fortuna

La Fortuna is an inland town in the northern lowlands, and the nearest real beaches on the Pacific coast are well over three hours away by road. There is no beach life here at all.

Swimming means the plunge pool below the La Fortuna waterfall, which is cool and churned by the falls, a few calm spots along the rivers, and the occasional lakeside corner of Lake Arenal. These are enjoyable on a hot afternoon, but none of them is a beach. Visitors who want sand usually add a few nights on the Guanacaste coast to the trip.

Eating in La Fortuna is simple and filling rather than a reason to come. The best local meals are at the sodas, small family-run eateries serving casados: rice, black beans, plantain, salad and a choice of chicken, fish or pork, with gallo pinto at breakfast and fresh fruit juices all day. Around the central streets there are also steakhouses, pizza places and international menus aimed squarely at tour groups.

The distinctive part is agricultural. Farms on the edge of town run cacao and coffee visits where you taste chocolate from the bean and coffee grown on the volcanic soil. Beyond that, the range is narrow and the town has no market or café culture to speak of.

La Fortuna has almost nothing in the way of sights. The town grew up as a farming settlement and then as a base for the volcano, so there is no historic quarter, no museum of note and no architecture to seek out. The main landmark is the white church on the central park, best known for the way Arenal's cone rises behind it in photographs.

Visitors interested in heritage find more in the Maleku indigenous communities to the north, which are a separate outing. In town, culture means the slow rhythm of a small Costa Rican place rather than anything to visit.

Evenings in La Fortuna are short. A few bars around the centre pour local beer and cocktails, some put on salsa or a band at the weekend, and there is the odd small dance club where locals and backpackers meet. Most visitors, though, are up at dawn for a hike or a rafting trip and spend the evening in a hot spring or at dinner. By late evening the town is quiet, and anyone looking for a real night out will not find it here.

Nature is the reason La Fortuna exists as a destination. The near-perfect cone of Arenal Volcano dominates every view, ringed by lava-flow trails in the national park, primary rainforest, and the long reservoir of Lake Arenal with the Tilarán hills beyond. The La Fortuna waterfall drops 70m into a green gorge a short ride from town, and suspension-bridge walks carry you through the forest canopy, where toucans, sloths, howler monkeys and poison-dart frogs are a common sight.

The outdoor menu is long: white-water rafting on the Balsa and Toro rivers, canyoning down waterfalls, ziplining, horse riding, kayaking and stand-up paddling on the lake, and strong winds at its western end for kitesurfing. Further out, the sky-blue Río Celeste in Tenorio and the wetlands of Caño Negro are within reach. Rain is frequent and the summit is often in cloud, so the drier months from roughly January to April give the clearest volcano views.

Most excursions from La Fortuna are into the landscape, and there are few other places to visit as such. The hill town of Zarcero, with its clipped topiary garden in front of the church, is a pleasant stop about an hour and a half away, and the Maleku indigenous communities near Guatuso offer an insight into one of the country's surviving native cultures, with crafts and traditional houses.

The cloud-forest town of Santa Elena, by Monteverde, is often reached by the jeep-boat-jeep crossing over Lake Arenal, but it takes around three hours and works better as a transfer than a day out. Otherwise the towns nearby are working farm and market centres with little for a visitor.

La Fortuna works well for families who like the outdoors. Children tend to love the hot-spring resorts, several of which have warm pools with water slides, and spotting sloths, frogs and monkeys on guided walks or from the hanging bridges is easy and exciting at almost any age. The waterfall, gentle horse rides, chocolate-making visits and the lake round out a few days without much effort.

The limits are practical. There are no zoos, aquariums or museums built for children, ziplining and rafting come with age and height minimums, and the steep stairs to the waterfall are hard with little ones. Heavy rain is common, and most attractions are a drive out of town, so a car or organised transfers make life much easier. The town itself is small, friendly and relaxed.

The town centre is compact, flat and easy to walk, with restaurants, shops and tour offices within a few blocks of the central park. Almost everything you come for lies outside it, though. The hot springs, the volcano trails and the hanging bridges are strung along the road west towards the lake, several kilometres apart, and the waterfall is up a steep road south of town.

Local buses are sparse and not geared to visitors, so most people rely on taxis, the transport included with tours, or a hire car. A car gives the most freedom, especially for the lake and Río Celeste, but rural roads can be potholed and slow in heavy rain.

Shopping is limited to a cluster of souvenir shops around the central park selling T-shirts, carved wooden bowls, hammocks and painted masks, along with bags of local coffee and chocolate. A few stores stock Maleku crafts and outdoor gear for rain and hiking. It is enough to pick up gifts, and nothing more.

La Fortuna is not a cheap place to visit, despite its small size. The basics are fair: family-run sodas serve hearty meals at modest cost, and simple guesthouses and hostels in town are affordable. What drives the bill up are the activities that are the point of coming. Hot-spring resorts, rafting, canyoning, ziplines and guided wildlife walks are all priced for international travellers, as are the comfortable lodges with volcano views.

Travellers on a budget can keep costs down by staying in town, eating local, using the free river hot springs and walking the trails independently, but a typical stay full of excursions adds up quickly.

There is essentially no performing-arts scene in La Fortuna. A bar may have a band at the weekend and some restaurants stage folkloric dance with dinner, but there are no theatres, concert halls or regular music venues. Evenings here are for hot springs and early nights.

The heat beneath Arenal feeds a whole string of thermal springs, and soaking in them is one of the defining things to do here. Along the road towards the volcano, resorts have shaped the warm, mineral-rich water into terraced pools, streams and cascades set among tropical gardens and rainforest, from large complexes with many pools at different temperatures to quieter, more natural ones. Locals and budget travellers also wade into a free stretch of warm river by the roadside.

The rest of the stay supports the slow pace: spa treatments, yoga in open-air pavilions, lodges where the only sounds are rain and birds, and evenings spent in hot water watching the volcano disappear into cloud. The town is small and unhurried, though the steady flow of tour vans means it is restful rather than secluded.