Rincón de la
Vieja National Park
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The Park extends over 14,083 hectares and protects
flora, fauna and watersheds around the Rincón de la Vieja volcano. It
includes semi-deciduous and very moist forests, and includes a barren
rocky terrain at altitudes that range from 650 meters to 1,916 meters
above sea level on the Caribbean and Pacific sides of the Guanacaste
Volcanic Mountain Range. The climate of this National park is so diverse
that areas with a very dry season lasting 4-5 month are immediatly
followed by others, near the summit or on the Caribbean side, where there
is constant rainfall, which gives rise to a forest mass rich of epiphytes. |
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Identifaction has been made in the park of about 257
species of birds, including the resplendent Quetzal, the Black Faced
Solitaire, the Great Curassow, the Montezuma Oropendula, the Emerald
Toucanet, the Elegant Trogon, the Blue-throated Goldentail, the
Spectacled Owl, the White-fronted Amazon, the Three-wattled Bellbird,
the Green Amazon and the Laughing Falcon. Mammals that find refuge in
this remote mountainous region are Cougars, Jaguars, Tiger Cats, Howler,
Spider and White Faced Capuchin Monkeys, Ocelots, Tayras, Kinkajous, Two
Toed Sloths, White Nosed Coaties, and Northern Tamanduas. Felines,
Tapirs, Bonaparte Tinamous and Black Guans abound in the cupey groves.
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| Rincón de la Vieja National Park also protects a vast
network of rivers and streams that feed the basin of Nicoya Gulf and the
floodplains south of Lake Nicaragua. On the southern slope, between 700
and 900 mts. above sea level, there is a faultline with a number of
fumaroles at the sites known as Las Hornillas and Las Pailas. Also has
to be mentioned the hot springs near the Park headquarters. San Roque
and Cañas Dulces, neighbors of the volcano, are dactic domes in which
the magma was unable to reach the surface as it solidified too soon. Las
Hornillas are kitchen stoves where colums of steam, sulfur dioxide,
hydrogen sulfide and other gases shoot our of cracks and fissures in the
earth's crust. Las Pailas are sites with geysers and bubbling mud pots
that are associated with hot-water underground reservoirs buried beneath
layers of mud. They extend over approximatley 50 hectares. |
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The volcano Rincón de la Vieja belongs to a larger
volcano structure of nine volcanoes of about 1 Million years of age, the
most spectacular being Santa María (1916 mts.) and Von Seebach (1985
mts).
(Text and pictures on this page were
taken from a public domain source and modified by Michael Dodson and
Denny Genovese)
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