Rincón de la Vieja National Park

Rincón de la Vieja National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Rincón de la Vieja is the volcano park an hour north of Liberia in Guanacaste, and it is sold in two different ways that share a name: the national park itself, with its ranger stations, trails and entrance fee, and the adventure resorts on the volcano's lower slopes, whose day passes bundle zip lines, tubing, horse riding, mud baths, hot springs and waterfalls on private land outside the park. The passes sold as one-day nature passes, adventure passes and twelve-in-one days from Liberia and the Papagayo and Tamarindo beaches are those resorts, and they are what most beach visitors buy; they are fun, well run and not the park.

The park itself is entered at the Las Pailas sector, where the entrance fee is paid by card at the station, and the guided hikes from Liberia and the coast walk the Las Pailas loop past the boiling mud pots and fumaroles, or continue to the La Cangreja and Escondida waterfalls on a longer day, with a naturalist who finds the monkeys and the birds; the Santa María sector on the other side of the volcano has a quieter trail to hot springs in the forest and far fewer visitors. The birdwatching tours in the park's dry-to-wet transition forest are for people who want the bellbirds and the toucanets. The summit trail has been closed since the volcano's eruptions began in 2011. Independent visitors drive the gravel road from Liberia via Curubandé to Las Pailas; there is no public transport, and the park limits daily numbers at the station.

Visiting Rincón de la Vieja National Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1973 and covers about 144 square kilometres of the Rincón de la Vieja and Santa María volcanoes and the dormant Von Seebach cone, a twenty-kilometre ridge of nine craters rising to 1,916 metres in the Guanacaste range, and it is part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area listed by UNESCO in 1999. Rincón de la Vieja is active, with steam and ash eruptions in most recent years and a hot acid lake in its crater, and the volcano's heat surfaces on its southern flank in the Las Pailas sector, where the loop trail of three kilometres passes boiling mud pots, steaming fumaroles, a small volcancito and hot streams in the forest, the most accessible volcanic landscape in Costa Rica.

Beyond the loop, the trails run to the Escondida waterfall and to La Cangreja, a white fall into a blue pool that is the park's best swim, through a forest that changes from the dry Guanacaste woodland of the lowlands to the wet cloud forest of the upper slopes, with 300 bird species including the three-wattled bellbird, the emerald toucanet and the quetzal high up, and howler and white-faced monkeys, coatis, agoutis, tapirs and the rarely seen cats. The Santa María sector, the old hacienda of a former president, has a trail to sulphur hot springs in the forest, a lookout over the plains and the Bosque Encantado waterfall. The slopes below the park hold the geothermal plant and the hot springs of the resorts, and the mud baths of the Guanacaste tradition are the park's gift to them. The name means the old woman's corner, after a legend of a healer who lived on the mountain.

Rincón de la Vieja National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open from 7 am to 3 pm for entry, with visitors out by 5 pm, and closed on Mondays. The dry season from December to April is the walking season, with clear skies, hot days and the Guanacaste forest bare of leaves; the green season from May to November brings rain from the afternoon, full waterfalls and a green forest, and the Las Pailas loop is fine in the morning throughout it, though the waterfall trails close after heavy rain.

Volcanic activity closes trails at short notice. Arrive at opening, before the resort buses. Allow a half-day for the loop, a full day for the waterfalls. Liberia is an hour away, the Papagayo beaches an hour and a half, and Río Celeste in Tenorio park is the next volcano east.