As Canada is a land of lakes (more than a million of them identified by satellite), Costa Rica is a nation of volcanoes, divided into two distinct mountain ranges; the Volcanic Ridge of Guanacaste and the Central Volcanic Range. To the south, in Talamanca, there are no volcanoes but the forest is one of the most dense in Costa Rica.

However, this fits perfectly with the theme ‘official or unofficial volcanoes’, as defined by the various geographers and volcanologists who have studied, in minute detail, Costa Rican topography. That is to say that the volcanoes have been exactly located, their height and activity measured, and their history, their tourist attraction potential, their accessibility and whether there are restaurants and look out points, have all been accessed and recorded. They all have names that are well known throughout Latin America.

IMPOSING AND WORTHY OF RESPECT

The volcanoes in Costa Rica are really worth admiring, like all the other famous volcanoes in the world Vesuvio, Etna or Karakatoa, as well as many others. Their cones are majestic, rising up into the sky. They are surrounded by their own unique dense vegetation not found in other parts of the country. These plants and trees have flowered in the rich and fertile lava soil, as expelled by the erupting craters. The most well known volcanoes are Arenal in the Guanacaste mountain range; Irazu, the highest volcano in Costa Rica and Poas located in the Central Mountain range. These are considered the ‘official’ volcanoes, at once respected, feared and admired by local people as well as tourists. Poas, in Alajuela province, boasts the widest crater in the world with sustained activity, that is to say that it has expelled regular sized rocks for the last decade or so, and acid rain, which has affected the surrounding vegetation.

Irazu last erupted 60 years ago, coinciding with President Kennedy’s visit to Costa Rica. He experienced the tremors and rumblings of the earth caused by this volcanic activity. He also witnessed the enormous quantities of ash that fell all around San Jose, Cartago, Heredia and Alajuela. Today Irazu is considered to be ‘dormant’ as there has been no recent recorded activity. There is good road access for tourists.

MORE THAN 100 ARE STILL UNKNOWN....

The ‘unofficial’ volcanoes are not known for any major eruptions, but they exist all over Costa Rica. They have ‘deceived’ both visitors and farmers alike. The innocent farmer has always lived in the nearby fields precisely because the volcanoes look like inoffensive mountains, whose craters have been covered over with time by earth, mud, rocks and trees. But the day they erupt, the National Institute of Volcanology may a lot them a name and a place on the map.

The most famous of these ‘unoffical’ volcanoes, ‘Misti’, stands in the province of Cartago. It is a major tourist site because of its bareheaded crater. ‘A giant and impressive dead eye’, claimed Roberto Zúñiga, a Chilean visitor, who was very impressed by the sight when he visited.

The list of these volcanoes can easily top 150 or maybe more. There are also those that exist in the Pacific Ocean, on the continental shelf or ‘hidden earth’.

It has been calculated that in the Costa Rican maritime zone (more on the Pacific side than on the Atlantic side) there are other volcanoes that have never been seen and whose activity belie their existence. The activity of these ‘unknowns’ manifests as huge waves, underground earthquakes and coastal flooding. Volcanologists have no idea and are unable to even guess, and it would be presumptions to do so, how many of these volcanoes exist on the Costa Rican seabed.

DANGEROUS OR WORTHWHILE?

This is the main question. The majority of the Costa Rican population during the 60’s and 70’s, considered the volcanoes as ‘highly dangerous’, thus making them omnipotent, because the people were powerless against them; they couldn’t divert their path like rivers, or cover their enormous openings to contain the eruptions that destroyed so much of the land and sometimes entire villages.

However, as time went on, Costa Ricans began to understand that volcanoes could be dangerous or worthwhile, depending on which looking glass you looked through. And it could be possible that they were ‘friendlier’ than previously thought.

Certainly, after a terrible explosion that left in its path the death and destruction of cattle and people, there remained an extraordinarily mineral rich and fertile soil in which to plant crops. Naturally, if the eruptions persisted the surrounding area would end up looking like the area around Arenal volcano, which is full of rocks and in some parts it is really bleak.

There have been cases in other countries where islands have formed as a result of seabed eruptions, such as in Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. These islands are perfectly habitable, beautiful and 100% scenic.

Experienced farmers have come to the happy conclusion and agree that the land around the volcano is ideally suited for agriculture and makes for excellent cattle land. And the woods that have sprung up in those areas are denser and richer in flora and fauna than anywhere else. To see this, you only have to visit Rincón de La Vieja, which is full of the biggest and leafiest trees around.

TOURIST RICHES

Perhaps the best way to describe the benefits of this phenomena is as follows: ‘the village that discovers the riches of the volcanoes, will touch the sky with them’. And from the tourist point of view, this saying will be completely vindicated. A country can be successful or not if it can show it’s foreign visitors the beauty of it’s ‘columns of fire’. It was in the 60’s when Irazu was erupting, that Costa Ricans began to understand that if they so chose, it’s volcanoes could be fountains of permanent attraction. The tourist boom that Costa Rica is experiencing now began when they started building the roads leading to the volcanoes. Thus, these ‘giant chandeliers’, that spit fire, rocks and lava, are part of this country’s enormous attraction, though everybody thought that they were ‘asleep, quiet and at peace’ for centuries and centuries.