TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
Inset photo: We were not the first Land Rover on this road, as Castillo has this fine yard art. One of three river crossings on the road to El Castillo.
Story and Photos by Michael Rudd
Road to El Castillo FEATURED ADVENTURE
Exploring La ke Arenal’s Southern Shore by La nd Rover
M We shifted into 4-low and eased into the raging current.
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y wife, Breck, and I secured our paddleboards onto the roof rack of our Land Rover Defender 110, left Playas Del Coco and headed toward Laguna de Arenal via the Inter-American Highway. Two hours later we reached the turnoff at Cañas in our well-equipped rig, eager to head into the much cooler highlands. We had our Waze set for Tronadora, a small town on Arenal’s southern shore where we hoped to find paddleboard heaven. Over the years, we have paddled everything from surf breaks in Hawaii to high-altitude lakes in Colorado but had longed to SUP on Costa Rica’s largest lake, located beneath Volcán Arenal. We got out of our Land Rover, glanced at the washedout bridge on the road to El Castillo, and realized that getting there was all part of the adventure. We had set up the vehicle rental three weeks earlier, and when we landed in Liberia our Land Rover was waiting in the parking lot. We loaded up our gear and headed to the beach, only 25 minutes away. We rolled into Playas Del Coco and quickly found our reservation at Café De Playa, a hip boutique hotel, just in time for happy hour. The next morning we had breakfast at Soda Jardín Tropical, a local favorite, then hit the beach for some amazing paddle-boarding in the bay. After a couple of days in Coco we decided to head for
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a cooler climate and set our GPS for Laguna de Arenal, where we had planned to camp and paddle for the next few days. Costa Rica is a relatively small country, roughly the size of West Virginia. Even though it accounts for only 0.03 percent of the earth’s surface, it contains nearly 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity — more than 500,000 species in all. The varied terrain shifts between forests, valleys, mountains, volcanoes, plains and wetlands, making it one of the best places on the planet for exploration and adventure. Laguna de Arenal is rated one of the best windsurfing spots in the world, so we knew it would be a stretch to find calm waters for our SUPs. After studying a map of the lake, it was apparent that the southern shore near the volcano could offer the calmest waters. What we didn’t know then was that the road along the southern route was rugged, not well marked and frequently closed due to treacherous river crossings. We arrived in Tronadora, stopped to get our bearings and then headed east toward the small village of El Castillo, where we had planned to set up camp. A wrong turn set us back several hours as we found ourselves lost in the mountains heading toward Monteverde. We retraced our tracks from a cattle ranch high above the village of Río Chiquito and asked a local for directions. He
