Elizabeth's Secret Garden

    The Arenal Festival in Nuevo Arenal is a big celebration that is held yearly. This year the event was held March 17 – 21. As the event approached, I began to notice more action around town.  Posters began going up, the road was paved down to the arena, and community areas were cleaned.     Vendors were set up outside the Arena serving food, drinks, and merchandise to purchase. On Sunday, March 20 the city hosted a horse parade. For the parade, horses arrived many different ways. To bring the hundreds of horses into town it took multiple trucks, individual horse trailers, and those who chose to arrive by horseback.   My favorite was the horse that looked like a spotted Dalmatian! The parade started organizing around 1 p.m. and for the next three hours riders enjoyed the day showing off their horsemanship. This man took advantage of the opportunity by selling cowboy hats . Just as I thought the festivities were starting to l...

  While living in Nuevo Arenal, my family and I experienced one of the most important events that passes through Arenal annually. It was the Vuelta al Lago mountain bike event which translates to “Around the Lake”. This year was the 20th year and annually it continues to attract riders from around the world. A friend of ours in Arenal, said that about 2,500 registered for the event this year. The length of the event was 2 days with March 5 as the starting day. The bike circuit is 175 kilometers to ride around Lake Arenal. Many of the roads are gravel and steep which is difficult even for motorized vehicles to ride. Bikers who know the terrain come prepared with their hybrid and mountain bikes. Once the riders were geared up, they left Tilaran at 9 a.m. on March 5 and rode to Central Park La Fortuna. The following day bikers returned to Tilaran by taking the highway on the east side of Lake Arenal. The highway took the bikers right through Nuevo Arenal. I was ready with my camer...

  The picture to the right is the main entrance building for La Fortuna Waterfall. There is a gift shop, information center, and restrooms as well. Admission into the Ecological Reserve is around $10 per person. The money goes to a local non-profit who reinvests it for maintaining the reserve surrounding the La Fortuna Waterfall. After becoming accustomed to living in Nuevo Arenal, my mom, siblings, and I decided to venture out of town on a trip to La Fortuna. We had high hopes for this trip since we were anticipating getting to see the La Fortuna Waterfall and find peanut butter for my brother Joshua. To reach La Fortuna it required of us taking multiple forms of transportation. First, we rode on the public bus for an hour passing over several narrow bridges, bumps, and even a washed out road. The travel from Nuevo Arenal to La Fortuna cost 2,000 colones ($4) per person, so a round trip for my family was $32. After reaching town, we went to the Arenal Evergreen Information...

The town of Nuevo Arenal where my family and I are staying offers a spectacular view of the Arenal Volcono right from our sidewalk! With the closing of rainy season, we have been able to enjoy a clearer view of Arenal Volcano’s peak along with its striking conical shape. One of our recent adventures was traveling to La Fortuna where we were able to see a close view of the volcano (picture above), shop in town, and visit the Catarata La Fortuna Waterfall. I will share our adventure along with pictures in a future blog entry. Since the Arenal Volcano is such an important landmark to the local area, I decided to learn more about its history. It was interesting to learn that Arenal is the most active volcanoes in Costa Rica and one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world! The largest recorded eruption in Arenal’s history occurred in 1968. This explosion happened abruptly after being inactive for 400 years and destroyed the small town of Tabacion as well as the original Arenal town...