Arenal Volcano from Lava Rock Trail, La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Arenal Volcano rises 1,657 meters above the Alajuela Province lowlands near La Fortuna, its symmetrical cone long ranked among the most perfect examples of a stratovolcano in the Americas. The volcano lay dormant for centuries before a sudden eruption on July 29, 1968, destroyed the villages of Tabacón and Pueblo Nuevo and killed dozens of residents; it then entered a decades-long phase of near-continuous activity, with lava flows and incandescent rock ejections lasting until 2010. It anchors Arenal Volcano National Park, established in 1991 and covering roughly 12,000 acres of rainforest and old lava fields at the volcano's base. Trails through the park's hardened 1968 lava flow lead hikers close to the base of the cone, which remains under monitoring by Costa Rica's Volcanological and Seismological Observatory.

Photo taken in February 2019.