Tomorrow (Friday the 14th) is a one-day photo trip, my only planned trip for January, to get photos of two special waterfalls. The first is . . .
The Llanos de Cortes Waterfall I caught from a Sansa small plane flight between Liberia and San Jose Airports in 2019 and finally tomorrow I get to photograph it up close! Llanos de Cortes Waterfall is . . .
near Bagaces, Guanacaste, and my driver chose to go there first in the morning, getting there soon after they open at 8am. It will be a 3 to 3.5 hour drive depending on traffic, so we will leave at around 5am. From there (after I get my photos) we will travel an hour and a half northeast to Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio where I will photograph the famous turquoise waterfall called Rio Celeste Waterfall. Or just see their video on YouTube, one of many videos of this falls on YouTube.
I have been to this park before, in 2017, and saw the turquoise river, but the trail to the waterfall was closed because of trees down from that hurricane that swept across northern Costa Rica from the Atlantic to the Pacific that year. 🙁
After I get my photos of these 2 waterfalls, we will go somewhere in the area for lunch and then back to Atenas in the afternoon. It will be an invigorating day! 🙂
This one-day trip will give me the last two photos I need for my next photo book I’m titling WATERFALLS: The Music of Costa Rica based on the quotation that will be on the back of the book: “There’s no better place to find yourself than sitting by a waterfall and listening to it’s music.” ~Roland R. Kemler
This will be a fun and beautiful new book with photos of 44 different waterfalls from all over Costa Rica, East to West and North to South! 🙂 The waterfalls of this country are many and gorgeous, but often overshadowed by the beaches, rainforests colorful wildlife and other adventure activities like whitewater rafting, zip-lining, hiking and rappelling. Yet some of these waterfalls actually offer all of that! 🙂 Plus “The Music of Costa Rica!” 🙂 This new book will soon be available in My Blurb Bookstore. Next week! Making it #72 of my photo books offered and of course I will announce the release here on the blog! 🙂
Or you can see all of my waterfall photos in CR Waterfalls GALLERY.
“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.”
~John Muir
¡Pura Vida!
Looking forward to the photo’s!!!
Charles – which of the many waterfalls in Costa Rica you have visited are the most accessible, i.e. easy to walk to?
Howard, good question for people our age! The truth is that most of the best ones require a long downhill climb and it seems especially the most beautiful ones! 🙂 Plus some I’ve been to require wading in a stream. But there are exceptions:
My favorite falls, Nauyaca near Dominical, would be a long hike but they give you the option of being taken there by truck, jeep or horse, then just a short walk to the lower falls but a more difficult climb up to the upper falls.
Danta Waterfall at Arenal Observatory Lodge is a mile or more walk but over mostly level ground which was easy for me because I walk a lot.
Also fairly level is the trail to all three huge waterfalls at El Silencio Lodge in Bajos Del Torro, but all the falls outside of the lodge require some serious climbing, though you can see the tallest one from above with a short walk through their butterfly garden at the one called Bajos del Torro Waterfall, but going to the bottom looked treacherous! 🙂 There are more than 30 waterfalls in that Bajos del Torro area!
The Bribri Volio Waterfall in Limon Province is right next to the parking lot. Easy! And fun to watch the indigenous teens jump off the cliff!
The waterfall at Los Campesinos Lodge up the mountain east of Quepos is right behind the lodge dining hall and if you want to go to the top there’s a swinging bridge. Easy.
If you can handle the hiking trail for a nature hike in Cloudbridge Nature Reserve (near Chirripo), you can see both waterfalls from the trail, one at a pretty good distance but still seen. Cloudbridge & Pacifica Falls.
Similarly the San Luis Waterfall is off the hiking trail in Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, though that trail is not totally level, but if you are on a birding hike you will go by it.
Manantial de Agua Viva Waterfall can be seen at a great distance from the Pura Vida Gardens on a mountain near Carara NP which you drive to.
La Paz Waterfall, the biggest of their 5, can be seen from your car on the highway. The other 4 falls there involve a lot of climbing and pricy admission.
Near La Paz, the San Fernando Waterfall requires only that you get out of your car and walk into the Soda y Mirador Cinchona and watch the falls while eating breakfast or other meal. 🙂
The Starbuck’s Alsacia Coffee Farm Waterfall can be seen from their coffee shop there. Not a particularly beautiful waterfall, but it is a waterfall!
You can see what all these look like in my Waterfalls Gallery at https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/Waterfalls
Charlie! What great info! Thank you!!!
🙂