Sleeping Withthe Toucans
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100 GREAT PLACES TO STAY IN COSTA RICA Web Edition v. 2.0 February, 2009; Copyright © 2007 - 2009 HayFields Science Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
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Past the dam, newly-paved Highway 142 skirts the entire length of lovely Lake Arenal. The Costa Rican electric company – ICE – generates power from the lake, and restricts other uses so, other than the informal marina right under the dam, you won’t see much in the way of boat traffic or the usual kinds of lakeside tourist development. Some of the prettiest spots in Costa Rica are on this road, many of them occupied by small hotels or B&Bs. While many of the lodgings nearer the volcano are close together on the highway and can seem over-run with tourists on dry-season weekends, most of the lakeside lodgings are widely-separated and set back from the highway. They are oases of calm even in the high season. Fire and water, excitement and tranquility – take a couple of days and experience both sides of this strikingly beautiful area.
The biggest town on the lake is Nuevo Arenal, sometimes just called Arenal, to which the residents of the valley were moved when Lake Arenal was created in 1973. Aside from La Mansion Arenal for dinner and the adjacent Toad Hall for lunch, most area restaurants as well as shops and the gas station are in Nuevo Arenal. The road from the dam to Nuevo Arenal used to be a nightmare but was paved in late 2006 and is now a joy. But don’t drive too fast – we’ve often seen coatis crossing the road and occasionally howler monkeys as well.
The slopes north of Lake Arenal are sparsely populated, and above Nuevo Arenal they are protected by Tenorio National Park and the adjacent private reserves. Many hotels can arrange horse tours into these mountains. For a more off-beat adventure, at least for volcanic Costa Rica, head up to the tiny hamlet of Venado, turning north on the dirt road right across from Toad Hall. Here there are limestone caverns, with stalagmites and stalactites. Nearer Tenorio, the Lake Coter Ecolodge offers hiking and a canopy tour in primary forest. This is the only place in Costa Rica where we’ve seen an olingo, a fairly rare arboreal relative of the coati.
Some of our maps show a road all the way around Lake Arenal, but we don’t know of anyone who’s done it. The main highway – still CR 142 – turns sharply west just past the northwest end of the lake and climbs the ridge to the agricultural town of Tilarán. ICE’s windmills turn lazily in the constant breeze awaiting their Quixotes. From Tilarán, Highway 142 continues on to join the Interamericana at Cañas; go this way if you are heading to Nicoya or back towards San José. Otherwise, follow Highway 145 – paved for a little while – toward Monteverde.
North Side of Lake Arenal
Keyword: Horseback riding
Photo © Alison Tinsley
Contact Information:
506-2692-8050 (voice)
ceibaldg@racsa.co.cr
www.ceibatree-lodge.com
Essentials:
6 Rooms, Honeymoon Suite
English, Spanish, German
All major credit cards accepted
Secure parking
Breakfast included
Room Amenities: Semi-private outdoor space
How to get here:
From the Lake Arenal Dam, go northwest on Highway 142 toward
the town of Nuevo Arenal. The Ceiba Tree Lodge is on the north
(right) side of the road, nine km northwest of the dam.
Every year the Costa Rican Biodiversity Institute – INBio – selects a tree to honor on June 15, El Dia Nacional del Arbol (National Tree Day). In 2006 Costa Rica’s national tree was the gigantic 400 to 500 year-old ceiba tree that overlooks Lake Arenal from the Ceiba Tree Lodge. With their towering trunks and near-perfect symmetry, ceiba trees were sacred to indigenous cultures throughout Central America and the Caribbean. For the Maya, the ceiba was the Tree of Life that held up the sky. Gazing up at the bromeliad- and orchid-hung limbs – each one the thickness of a mature tree in a typical North American forest – one can appreciate why. These are trees that support the world.
The Ceiba Tree Lodge feels a bit like a ranch. It’s perched high above the lake with several horses, a couple of dogs, and a black cat named Anastasia roaming around. Five guestrooms occupy a long bungalow at the top of the driveway with a broad shared verandah overlooking the huge tree and the lake below. The rooms are large with a queen and two single beds and carved, Mayan-themed wooden doors. There are tables and chairs on the verandah for admiring the view. Up the hill is the main house where Malte, the Bavarian owner, lives. This is a beautiful, contemporary-style structure with an open-air kitchen and breakfast area and the best two guest rooms. The ground-level honeymoon suite has a raised, curtained king bed, a big bathtub, and floor-to-ceiling windows on the two sides facing the lake. Upstairs is a smaller room with a queen bed, also with windows on two sides. These rooms have style – African-print curtains, Erte-style brass table-lamps, a European-Bohemian feel.
Uphill from the Lodge are 15 hectares of forest for walking and birdwatching. It was the lake below, however, that held Malte’s attention on the day that we were there. Little ripples revealed a good breeze pouring up the lake from the east. The northwest shore, where this near-constant breeze is focused by the surrounding mountains, is famous for windsurfing. Here, in the broader middle of the lake, there was not quite enough wind for chop. “Perfect for sailing” was Malte’s analysis. A friend is building him a boat. If ICE ever lifts its restrictions on marinas and watercraft, we’ll expect to see Malte offering a sailing school as well as the Ceiba Tree Lodge.
North Side of Lake Arenal
Keywords: Yoga/Meditation, Relax/Get-Away
Photo © Alison Tinsley
Contact Information:Essentials:
6 Rooms, 1 Casita, two 2-BR Houses
English, Spanish, Italian
All major credit cards accepted
Secure parking
Breakfast included, Restaurant/pizzeria serves dinner
Room Amenities: Semi-private outdoor space, Internet available in
reception area
How to get here:
From Nuevo Arenal, continue northwest on Highway 142, then turn
north at the Y-intersection at the northernmost tip of Lake Arenal,
half way between Nuevo Arenal and Tilarán. There is a sign for
Mystica at the turn. This road wraps around the western flank of
Tenorio; if you follow it, you’ll reach Highway 6 to Upala.
After our morning coffee, we strolled down to the meditation platform, a covered, polished wooden deck hanging over the river at the edge of Mystica’s property. The congos howled in the trees nearby, flights of parrots chattered overhead, a half dozen toucans played follow-the-leader through the trees. The platform is right next to a huge, sinewy, bromeliad-encrusted strangler fig – a reminder, maybe, of nature’s strong and inescapable grip on all of us. Unlike Alison, I don’t have the self-discipline for proper meditation, but it was a joy to just sit there with the water gurgling through my head, watching the birds and squirrels in the trees and noting the almost-imperceptible breeze running down with the water, wagging a single leaf here and there as it went.
Mystica sits on a hillside above the north end of Lake Arenal, three hectares of neatly-trimmed lawns, fruit trees, and brilliant red and purple flowering shrubs bordered by forest and river. Golden-tailed Montezuma oropendulas, crested blue jays, and innumerable little songbirds play in the trees. Horses graze freely. Two veteran dogs wander the property. Dante, evidently a little younger, will accompany you for walks, with Chaka lumbering along behind.
There are six rooms in a long, straight bungalow, a little casita, and two houses – the houses of the owners, Francesco and Barbara (for rent if their owners are away). The rooms have one or two beds, curtained closet and shelf space, light-hearted artwork, and brightly painted bathrooms. Our favorite, pato (the duck room), has a blue bathroom with red shelves and door and a painting of a winged cat in a field of flowers, clearly a deity of playfulness. Adirondack-style armchairs wait on the deep shared porch facing the lake. The casita is pale yellow with a kitchen and its own private porch; the two houses are full-size with two bedrooms, full kitchens, and nice private verandahs. On a clear evening, you can sit on the verandah and see Arenal volcano over 30 km away to the east. Any day of the year, you can sit and watch the lake, the flowers, and the birds.
Mystica offers thin-crust pizzas from its wood-burning horno and homemade pastas for lunch and dinner. Purists take heart: the carbonara here is done with no cream sauce and the pizzas are excellent. Breakfast is a feast of fresh-squeezed juices, plenty of fruit, and delicious homemade bread with jam from the guyaba trees just down the path; eggs are also available if you want them. The dining room and adjoining bar are open and light, with fairy lights for nightime and big windows for daytime sun and the view.
A lot of places in Costa Rica are about activities and adventures; we review a good many of them in this book. Mystica is about letting go, relaxing, and taking some time just to watch the world around you. For us, right now, that’s adventure enough.
North Side of Lake Arenal
Keyword: Birding
Photo © Villa Decary
Contact Information:
506-8383-3012 (voice); 506-2694-4330 (fax)
info@villadecary.com
www.villadecary.com
Essentials:
5 Rooms, 3 Cabins with kitchens
English, Spanish
Cash only
Secure parking
Breakfast included, Restaurants nearby
Room Amenities: Private outdoor space
How to get here:
From the Lake Arenal Dam, go northwest on Highway 142 toward
the town of Nuevo Arenal. Villa Decary is on the north side of
Highway 142, two km east of Nuevo Arenal.
Villa Decary was our choice the first time we drove up through Arenal. It was mid-March – high summer in Costa Rica. We had been roasting on the crowded beach in Tamarindo and were desperate for cooler weather. The big trees, cool white walls, and gentle lake breezes at Villa Decary were the perfect solution. Owners Bill and Jeff keep talking about selling this place, but then they troop off to Thailand again and come back refreshed. We hope they stay here forever.
You have a choice at Villa Decary between one of the five upstairs bedrooms in the main house with their private balconies overlooking the front lawn and the lake or one of three well-separated bungalows with two beds and full kitchens on the hill above the house. All the rooms have white walls, colorful Guatemalan bedspreads, and nature-themed artwork. The bright breakfast room downstairs opens onto a wrap-around wooden deck with bancos; this is where main-house guests hang out, drinking coffee, watching the songbirds flitting between fruit-piled feeders and thickets of palm trees, or just relaxing in the mid-morning sun.
Villa Decary was the first place we heard the weird, whistle-gurgle “oo-E-pl-WHEE-pl” call of the Montezuma oropendula and saw its meter-long hanging baskets of nests dangling from the palm trees. Jeff is a serious birder and claims over 400 species can be seen and heard in the environs of Lake Arenal. You’re pretty sure to hear howler monkeys here too; the troop on the west side of Villa Decary has regular shouting matches with the troop to the east. Cross the little creek and follow the 45-minute trail that loops around the back of the property. You never know what you’ll see. Our first morning, it was two white horses wandering through the lower yard in the thick white mist rising off the lake. Where are we – Avalon?
Villa Decary doesn’t have a restaurant, but you’re only two minutes from Nuevo Arenal and Bill or Jeff can provide suggestions. We liked the pizzas at Tramonti in Nuevo Arenal and hear that Gingerbread, the new place just up the road, is also good. For fine dining, head to La Mansion (see review next page) a few km back toward the volcano; it’s not a bad drive now that the road is paved. The guestrooms share an upstairs fridge, so you can also pick up imported German cheeses and beer, excellent homemade bread, and other supplies at Nuevo Arenal’s famous German Bakery and have a picnic. Don’t miss the apple strudel!
North Side of Lake Arenal
Keywords: Honeymoons, Horseback Riding, Destination Restaurant
Photo © Mansion Inn Arenal
Contact Information:Essentials:
17 Villas
English, Spanish
All major credit cards accepted
Secure parking
Swimming pool, Spa
Breakfast included, Restaurant, Bar
Room Amenities: TV, AC, Private outdoor space, Free WiFi
(restaurant/bar area)
How to get here:
From the Lake Arenal Dam, go northwest on Highway 142 toward
the town of Nuevo Arenal. La Mansion is on the south side, just past
Toad Hall.
La Mansion Arenal is a luxury hotel that has maintained a sense of intimacy and, even more importantly, a sense of humor. It used to be called “The Marina Club;” the old name is still on the sign by the road. Alison and I picked up paddles in the bar and strolled down to the marina – a couple of canoes drawn up on the sand, where the old road down to the submerged town of “Viejo” (old) Arenal enters the water. ICE doesn’t allow marinas at Lake Arenal, and La Mansion plays by the rules. The staff jokes that La Mansion Arenal didn’t have a marina when it was called The Marina Club and doesn’t have a mansion now. That may be the case, but we still had a lovely canoe trip, paddling east toward the still fog-shrouded volcano and lazily home again. Flights of white egrets skimmed the quiet water; the ubiquitous howler monkeys proclaimed their territory to all and sundry; horses grazed here and there by the shore.
La Mansion Arenal shares a name and marketing information with La Mansion Inn in Manuel Antonio, but the styles of the two hotels are completely different. At La Mansion Arenal, you have a spacious, stand-alone, private two-bedroom cottage. The furniture and decorations are grand but whimsical; tropical-themed murals and painted filigree by San José artist Daria Bruni grace the walls. The restaurant, bar, and public room with its pool table occupy the former milking barn of this 26-acre property where horses that were included when the original dairy farm was purchased still frolic on the deep-green slopes. Check at the bar to arrange a horse tour up into the mountains north of the lake, to visit the caves near the little mountain town of Venado, or to go on a canopy tour. There’s a nice pool overlooking the lake and a spa coming in 2007. Or, check out that marina.
In a part of Costa Rica with lots of lodgings but not much in the way of truly fine dining, La Mansion Arenal also boasts an excellent restaurant. The menu changes every night. We were lucky enough to catch chicken with rum and pineapple sauce and pork tenderloin with a not-too-spicy wasabi sauce. Several of our fellow diners had evidently come from other hotels in the area. Breakfast features fresh fruit and build-your-own omelets and will be delivered to your cottage at no extra charge.
The general manager can make or break a luxury hotel and Joey Duncan here at La Mansion is exemplary. He’s very low-key – not at all the field-marshal type – but he knows what’s happening every minute and seems to both know and pitch in on every job. Whatever we needed, even if it was a bit of arcana, he could instantly provide. If you like laid-back luxury with a personal touch, include La Mansion Arenal in your Costa Rica trip.