Hiking in the mud and sweat…

… to Cerro Chato, Arenal National Park

It was supposed to be a rather easy hike for a Swiss and a Japanese who are used to steep Swiss mountains. But the very humid, tropical conditions made the hike physically challenging. Philippe sweated (or rather rained) through the muddy and slippery rainforest, grumbling and unhappy…

As it is a rainforest, we got rained on during the hike (we had rain gear, of course) and it did not make our steep ascent easy. A lot of not-so-fit-looking tourists with funny equipment were also hiking up the slope.

At the top (1100 m) we saw down the green lake in the crater of this once-active volcano. At the front we got a glimpse of Mount Arenal (1900m). Due to the clouds we could not see the whole mountain but it was mystical anyway.

Easy start

Yasuko @ the beginning of the trail

Arenal volcano in the clouds

Hoping the clouds will clear