Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall Gardens

We started our Saturday pretty early, heading out to Poas Volcano.  I’m sure you’ve heard of rain forests, but have you heard of cloud forests?  Well, this volcano is located in a cloud forest, so you have to get there really early in the morning.  If you can get there before the clouds build up, you can possibly see the crater.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get there early enough.  Even though we didn’t get to see down into the crater, the cloud forest was pretty cool.

 

 

And here are some of my friends!  I love these girls!  These are a couple of student teachers who are here from my university, too.  We hang out with them a lot and have loads of laughs!  From left to right…that’s Zainab, Anbreen, Shirley (Anbreen’s CT), then Layne and me.

 

After staring into the clouds for a while, we walked a cool nature trail that we kept comparing to Harry Potter’s forest.  It was very viney (is that even a word?) and creepy.  In 2009 there was a terrible earthquake and landslide here that destroyed a lot of vegetation and homes.

 

When we left the volcano, we made our way to La Paz Waterfall Gardens.  It was a really neat place, beautiful with lots of greenery, water, and animals.  However, since the animals were all in cages, I just felt like it was a glorified zoo.  Holding the toucans was fun, and them flying around me (yes, I got pooped on) was funny.

I absolutely LOVED the butterfly garden.  They were everywhere!  And, there were huge flowers in there with them.

We even got to climb into this oxcart (in March there will be a MASSIVE oxcart festival where we live in Escazu).

 

Of course, I couldn’t keep Layne entertained for long…I take the boy to Costa Rica and all he wants to do is read his book….LOL….(I love how much he reads!!!)

Here we are at the waterfall gardens…this part was really pretty.  In one of these pics I am standing under a plant they call the “poor man’s umbrella” and you can see why they call it that.

 

 

 

And a last pic of 3 waterfalls together…