Well folks, here it is, the final Costa Rica installment. Just in time to make room for canoe trip recaps!
On our return to the coast from Monteverde we detoured to Tenorio Volcano National Park, which we highly recommend! It has a super 6km hike (round trip), which we were fortunate to hit on a not-too-blisteringly-hot day.
The hike followed the Rio Celeste, and the first attraction en route was a beautiful falls. And beautiful stairs to get it to it. Many, many stairs.
From there the trail continued to the next look, which provided a view of the Tenorio Volcano Complex, which is part of the Guanacaste Volcanic Mountain Range. The Tenorio Complex consists of Tenorio One, Tenorio Two, and Cerro Montezuma.
After admiring the volcanos we continued along through the woods and over some bridges to the turn around point, where there is a very cool phenomenon occurring in the river. Two rivers (Rio Buenavista and Quebrada Agria) meet at this point, and the bright colour is caused by the mixing of two non-coloured effluents. The pH change in the mixing point increases the particle size of a mineral present in the Rio Buenavista. Some of these aluminosilicates rest on the river bottom (the white sediment), but most remains in suspension in the water. These suspended particles scatter sunlight in such a way that the river becomes a gorgeous sky-blue.
In the physics word, this optical phenomenon is called Mie scattering (for the record, physics bores me to tears. I included this sentence purely to make my physicist Dad proud. Or maybe to poke fun at his love of physics. Hi Dad!).
And thus conclude my Costa Rica recaps. Sad, I know. Time to change channels back to spring and summer canoe trips…guess I don’t have much to complain about!
