Guatuso · CR

Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio

Tenorio Volcano National Park (Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio) sits in Costa Rica's northern lowlands, a rainforest-swathed volcanic massif best known for one astonishing sight: the Río Celeste, a river that runs an almost unreal shade of turquoise. The park takes its name from the dormant stratovolcano at its heart, but the experience visitors come for is the electric-blue water, which you follow up a single jungle trail to a thundering waterfall, geothermal bubbling vents and the exact point where the colour is born. This is not a summit climb but a linear rainforest walk — the roughly 3 km "Misterios del Tenorio" trail (about 6 km round trip, three hours or more) links the park's wonders in sequence. It draws enormous numbers of visitors and carries a 4.6 rating on thousands of reviews, because the payoff, the Río Celeste Waterfall plunging into a pool of brilliant blue, is genuinely one of Costa Rica's signature landscapes.