🇨🇷 Costa Rica · Guanacaste (North Pacific)
Miravalles Volcano is the highest peak in the Guanacaste range, in northwestern Costa Rica, its slopes split between the cantons of Bagaces and Guayabo. Its summit rarely shows up on the mass circuits, but its flanks hold one of the most active geothermal landscapes in the country: fumaroles, pots of boiling mud and hot springs that have turned the area into a destination for relaxation and clean energy.
Miravalles is famous for the geothermal field of the same name, where the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) generates electricity from underground steam at one of the most important geothermal plants in Central America. Alongside that infrastructure are bathing resorts and hot-springs centers that make use of the hot water and volcanic mud, such as Las Hornillas, where you can walk among bubbling mud pots, take mud baths and soak in thermal pools with the volcano behind you.
This guide covers the essentials of Miravalles with a practical eye: its geothermal and hot-spring attractions, the adventure and relaxation options at the area's bathing resorts, the background of the geothermal project, how to get there from Bagaces or Liberia and what to bear in mind when visiting a volcano that, rather than one to climb, is enjoyed for the energy welling out of its insides. It's an ideal destination to combine with Rincón de la Vieja and the Guanacaste beaches.
Miravalles is the highest volcano in the Guanacaste range, at 2,028 meters. Although it has no eruptions on record in recent historical times, its intense geothermal activity gave rise to the Miravalles geothermal field, developed by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) from the late 20th century onward. The first unit came online in 1994 and, at its peak, the field supplied close to 13-15% of the country's electricity from underground steam, making it a symbol of Costa Rican renewable energy. The area was historically tied to Guanacaste cattle ranching and farming, and only in recent decades did it develop tourism around hot springs and volcanic mud, quieter and more local than at other volcanoes in the country. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The North Pacific province that in 1824 voted to be Costa Rican: land of the sabanero and of tropical dry forest, cradle of the national folklore, home to steaming volcanoes and founding battles, and to the great sun, surf and longevity beaches of the Nicoya Peninsula.
Read the history of Guanacaste →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
There's a volcano in Costa Rica that almost never erupts and yet keeps lights on across the country: Miravalles. At 2,028 meters, it's the highest peak in the volcanic range of Guanacaste, in the northwest, but its real fame comes not from lava but from steam: the heat boiling under its flanks turns turbines and feeds one of the largest geothermal plants in Central America. It's perhaps the Costa Rican volcano that works hardest while barely roaring.
It's part of the long chain of volcanoes running northwest to southeast across the country, formed by the subduction of the Cocos plate under the Caribbean plate, the same geological process that gave rise to neighbors like Rincón de la Vieja and Tenorio. Unlike some of them, Miravalles has no significant eruptions on record in recent historical times and is considered dormant, though it keeps intense hydrothermal activity on its flanks: fumaroles, hot ground, thermal springs and mud pots that show the heat still throbbing under the mountain. This activity is concentrated especially in sectors such as Las Hornillas, where groundwater, heated by magma, rises as steam.
The mountain, forested on its upper reaches and ringed by pasture and crops lower down, is also an important water recharge area for the dry Guanacaste region. Its combination of altitude, forest and geothermal energy makes it a key piece of the natural and economic landscape of northwestern Costa Rica.
The great modern story of Miravalles is how its geothermal energy was harnessed. From the closing decades of the 20th century, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) developed the Miravalles geothermal field on the volcano's flanks, drilling wells to extract steam from underground and use it to drive turbines that generate electricity. The first units came online in the 1990s, and the complex grew into one of the main geothermal fields in Central America.
This development is part of one of Costa Rica's best known traits: an almost entirely renewable electricity mix. The country generates the vast majority of its electricity with hydro, geothermal, wind and solar power, and geothermal energy from volcanoes such as Miravalles and nearby Tenorio (the Las Pailas project, at Rincón de la Vieja) provides a stable, clean source that complements hydropower, especially in the dry season.
The geothermal field transformed the local economy and gave the area an identity tied to energy. The cooling towers and steam pipes today sit alongside hot-spring resorts and Guanacaste farmland, in a landscape where the volcano's force has been put, literally, at the service of the country's development.
The lowlands and flanks around Miravalles are part of Guanacaste, a region with a deep history distinct from the rest of Costa Rica. In pre-Columbian times, this North Pacific area was inhabited by peoples of Chorotega affiliation, culturally linked to Mesoamerica, who left a rich heritage in pottery, language and traditions. They lived off maize farming, hunting and the resources of the forests and rivers of the dry region.
After the Spanish conquest, Guanacaste was organized around large cattle haciendas, which defined much of its identity: the figure of the sabanero (the Guanacaste cowboy), cattle culture and the wide savannas. During colonial times, the territory was administratively part of Nicaragua, and only in 1824, through the famous 'Annexation of the Party of Nicoya', did it become part of Costa Rica by the will of its inhabitants, an event commemorated every 25 July.
The flanks of Miravalles, with their pastures, crops and forests, were folded into that rural ranching and farming economy. For centuries, the volcano's thermal springs were known and used locally, but the region stayed off the main circuits until well into the 20th century, when energy and later tourism transformed its role.
Harnessing the geothermal energy of Miravalles was the result of decades of study. From the 1970s, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) investigated the geothermal potential of the Guanacaste range, drawn by the intense hydrothermal activity on the volcano's flanks. Exploratory drilling confirmed a high-enthalpy steam reservoir suitable for generating electricity.
The plant's first unit, Miravalles I, entered commercial operation in 1994, marking the start of the geothermal era in Costa Rica. In the following years new units were added (Miravalles II, III and the binary-cycle unit V, among others), raising the field's installed capacity to more than 160 megawatts. At its peak, Miravalles supplied around 13-15% of the country's electricity, a remarkable figure for a single source.
The success of Miravalles made Costa Rica a Latin American reference in geothermal power and opened the way to new projects in the region, such as Las Pailas, on the flanks of Rincón de la Vieja. The plant showed that the force of volcanoes could be put at the service of a clean, stable energy model, complementary to hydropower and especially valuable in the Guanacaste dry season, when river flows drop.
Long before and long after the industrial geothermal development, the hot waters of Miravalles have been used by local communities. The thermal springs and volcanic muds on the volcano's flanks, in sectors such as Las Hornillas, Guayabo and Fortuna de Bagaces, became over time bathing resorts and wellness centers, first local in character and later touristic as well.
A visit to the boiling mud pots and the fumaroles, mud baths with supposed benefits for the skin and thermal pools are today the base of the area's tourism offer. Adventure activities such as tubing and canopy have been added, making use of the rivers and forests on the slopes. It's a more rural, quieter kind of tourism than at the country's big commercial hot springs, with a strong share of domestic visitors.
So Miravalles brings together three dimensions that rarely coexist so clearly in one place: geothermal nature you can walk through and enjoy, renewable energy that supplies the country, and tourism built on relaxation and adventure. More than a volcano to climb, it's a mountain to feel the heat of, whether in a thermal pool, in a mud bath or in understanding how Costa Rica harnesses the force of its volcanoes.