A Guide to Visiting Rio Celeste

Costa Rica has many magical and exciting places waiting to be discovered. Rio Celeste is no exception. Running through Tenorio Volcano National Park, Rio Celeste is a river that is particularly unique in that it has a brilliant turquoise color due to a phenomenon called Mie scattering. The aluminosilicate particles from one river and high acidic levels in another river meet at a point called Los Tenideros. The mixing of these particles gives the river its color. When choosing to study abroad in Costa Rica, Rio Celeste was one of the top 5 things I wanted to see.

Transportation

Getting to Tenorio Volcano National Park from San Jose can be a bit of a challenge. You can drive or take a bus to one of the two towns outside of the park, Bijagua and Guatuso.  (We took the San Jose-Upala bus and got off at the Bijagua stop.)  From there most hostels offer a shuttle service to the park if you do not have a vehicle. Since it is such a rural area taxis are not available. Note: I often used this site in order to figure out how to travel by bus around Costa Rica. For some reason this is the one and only route I found was incorrect in regards to where the bus station is located and times the bus leaves.

Accommodations

As for places to stay, I highly recommend the Backpackers Hostel in Bijagua. The hostel is cozy, clean, and the owners are very accommodating. They have a fully equipped kitchen and offer unlimited bread, jam and coffee for breakfast. There is a local grocery store within walking distance where we bought ingredients to make our meals. We took their shuttle from the hostel to the park. Along the way our driver stopped to show us hidden creatures we otherwise would have missed.

Tenorio Volcano National Park

Once arriving at the park, there is a booth where you pay the entrance fee ($12 USD for foreigners, 2 Colones for citizens). You can pay more to have a guide that tells you about the park and points out the flora and fauna. The start of the trail is right next to the ticket booth. Other than the trail being a little muddy at times it is really well kept. From the trail you can see different sections of the brightly colored river. There is a side trail that goes down to a view point of the iconic waterfall Rio Celeste is known for. One of my friends, McKenzie, and I ran ahead of a group of tourists being led by a guide so we wouldn’t get stuck behind them. Although it is not advised, there is an amazing photo spot if you climb over the railing near the waterfall or travel up river to the falls. Unfortunately for us, it had been raining the previous two days so the falls were not their typical bright blue color. Of course the waterfall was still magnificent.

Be careful though, the rocks are super slippery. Despite being fairly agile, I slipped and hit my head on the way back up to the trail. I was a little stunned but quickly recovered and hopped over the railing just before the guide came down.

There is one other side trail that was closed to the public due to the insane amount of mud. I had read about this trail on a blog and being me, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do a little more exploring. Once again, we waited until the guide was out of our sight and booked it down the closed trail. At first it wasn’t so bad. Then we arrived at a deep mud pit with a skinny log placed over the top. A poor attempt at making a foot bridge. I was over the mud pit and then lost my balance sinking into mud up to my knees. Crap! I thought as I tried my best not to lose my prized hiking boots in the muck. Finally, I made it to the other side of the pit with one mud caked boot on one foot and the other in my hand. We continued down the trail until it dead ended. I was really hoping to be able to swim in the bright blue water. After walking back a little I found a spot where I thought I could make it down to the river without having to maneuver through too much foliage. I decided not to risk my boots, so I took them off (stupid idea) and made my way down to the river.

The hill became a little steep and I slipped grabbing onto the nearest tree to stop myself from falling further. Just so happens the tree nearest me was completely covered with long, black thorns. I pulled my hand away finding two stuck in my palm. My hand was red and starting to puff up. I asked my McKenzie, who was in a botany class, if she knew if the tree was poisonous. Neither of us knew. At this moment I was a little hesitant to continue down to the river. After thinking, I realized if it was life threatening, I would be dead anyway before I would be able to get any medical attention so if I was going to die, I was going to at least swim in the river I had always dreamed of swimming in. So down I continued till I made it and put my feet in. The temperature was perfect.

I jumped in once my friend snapped a few pictures. After swimming for a little bit I made my way back up to the trail. We crossed the mud pit and wiped down with the towel I brought. Then we put our shoes back on a head to the main trail. Getting to swim in the river was worth every moment of treading through a foot of muck.

Other

If you do not feel like having mud caked to your legs, there is an area of the river down the street from the main park entrance where you can swim under a bridge. It’s a nice way to cool down on a hot day. Rio Celeste is an awesome weekend getaway that everyone should put on their bucketlist when visiting Costa Rica 🙂

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