Poas Volcano & La Paz waterfall garden: Tuesday 16 February
We were again both wide awake at 5:15am, just as the sun was coming up and with the birds in full swing for the dawn chorus!
We had arranged for a car to take us to our next hotel in the capital city of San Jose, via Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall garden.
It took about 45 mins to get to Poas Volcano, which is an active volcano standing just under 9000 ft tall. We walked 15 minutes from the car park to view the main crater which is almost a mile in diameter and although the crater's sulfuric pool still bubbles and emits smoke into the air the last major eruption was in 1910 so I think we were pretty safe
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| Poas volcano crater |
We were VERY lucky to get such a clear view of the crater as we were surrounded by lots of clouds and they often roll in and obscure the view so people may just get a glimpse at best! |
| We're above the crowds |
We then drove about half an hour to get to La Paz Waterfall Gardens (yep, we're all about the waterfalls at the moment!) which is located on the slopes of the Poas volcano at an altitude of around 4500 feet which means it is pretty much in the clouds! It is an ecological park which not only has waterfalls but it also gives a good introduction to the wildlife of Costa Rica.
Our first stop was at the avairy where you can walk in and have birds flying around your head - birds freak me out at the best of times so when Peter said oh there is a turkey vulture and I turned round I didn't expect the thing to be perched right next to me and I nearly screamed!
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| I was standing right next to this! |
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| It's as close as I am getting! |
We then went on to see the butterflies - there were hundreds of them and one even landed on my arm (obviously thought I was a flower!). This was definitely my highlight of the day and I took tons of photos!
Next stop was the hummingbird garden - you could actually feel them whizz past your head they were so close! They also had a snake enclosure, where some child decided to tell me all about a snake I was looking at and I had to pretend to be interested, a frog enclosure, monkeys and Jaguars.
We then did the main event - the waterfall trail! Being the gluttons for punishment that we are, we walked up and down even more stairs to view the waterfalls but it really was worth it - there were 5 in total and the noise and spray from each was so strong, but it was worth having the most achest legs and being thoroughly knackered to experience it.
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| Getting wet from the waterfall |
We finished off our visit by having some lunch and then back to the car and was taken to San Jose.
We are only in San Jose for one night, checking out early tomorrow morning, so I have chosen a pretty basic hotel. It is right in the centre on a pedestrian street and even though we are 4 floors up you can hear the street below quite clearly so hopefully we will be able to sleep ok! We had a walk round the streets - I had heard it was quite sleazy but it just feels very lived in, lots of people going about their daily lives, and we actually found it quite interesting just people watching.
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