Volcan Poas and La Paz Waterfall Gardens

It was about 7am on Wednesday when we hopped on the bus from the barrio back to downtown San Jose.  Since there was only one lane and tons of cars, it took forever.  Then once in San Jose, we had to find our way to another bus stop, which isn't hard if you have a map.  Avenues go one way and perpendicular to that are the Calles (streets).  All are numbered and it's pretty easy to find your way (I had my Lonely Planet book complete with maps, so we were golden).  Once at the bus stop, we caught a bus to Alajuela and sat in more traffic.  By the time we got there a couple hours had passed.  We had missed the bus to Poas, so we had to take a cab.  It turned out to be a blessing because he gave us a deal for Poas and La Paz and waited for us in between.  It was like having a personal chauffeur.  Awesome!
On the way up the volcano, we passed some beautiful little mountain farms and villages.  Lots of people actually live on the side of this still active volcano.  Poas hasn't really done damage in awhile (I think about 50 years), but it's still pretty sketchy to build your house on it, if you ask me.
We also passed a few coffee and banana plantations, which were beautiful.  The drive honestly reminded me of a more rustic, less commercialized version of Napa.  Our driver, Guido, recommended this coffee plantation, so we stopped and got some coffee and souvenirs.

Here's the coffee plantation:

Behind the coffee is the banana plantation:

View of San Jose and Alajuela in the distance:

The coffee was delicious!  I had an Italian Roast, which was pretty bold.  Lucky for me I like my coffee like I like my men: hot, strong and black!  That's really working out for me, huh?

It took us about 40 minutes, but we finally got up to Poas.  Now, we knew ahead of time that it might be for nothing because the weather was cloudy and rainy (less than ideal for seeing the crater), but we decided to try anyway.  Once we got to the entrance, we were informed that it's completely shrouded in fog and nothing can be seen, so it's not worth the money ($15/person).  We came all that way and weren't going down without seeing something, so we went anyway!  It was kinda pointless, but the walk was nice.

Over this fence you can peer down and see the crater.  Today however, we saw this:

It was literally nothingness.  It sounds really lame (and it is compared to what we were supposed to see), but I still can't get out of my head the absolute void that we saw.  I've never seen anything like it.  It was just bright white and nothing beyond it.  Aaron said it looked like you could just jump over the cliff and fall forever.  It was actually quite spectacular and frightening.  I know it seems like I'm trying to make a volcano out of a molehill, but seriously it was an eerie place.  I'll never forget it.  Just for the sake of comparison, here's what we were supposed to see:

Yea, we kinda got shafted.

Walking back, we saw some beautiful plants:

Let's talk about Aaron's outfit for a minute:

He joked that he was equipped for every type of weather.  If it rained, he had his jacket.  If it got sunny, he had his hat and glasses.  If a basketball game broke out, he had his shorts.  If he had to run for his life, he had his tennies.  I'm not sure how much of this was an accident, but hopefully the answer is all of it.  Not your best look, babe.

We hit the tiny museum on the way out:

Then it was back in the car and on our way to La Paz Waterfall Gardens.  We weren't sure what to expect, but in my guidebook it came highly recommended and I've learned that if Lonely Planet says so, then it's a must see!  It said something about animal sanctuary and boasted 5 different waterfalls, so what's the harm?  It was only noon and it's close to Poas, so it's worth doing because you can't be at Poas all day (even if you CAN see the crater).  

The weather started to clear a bit:

Guido recommended we stop at a souvenir shop on the way.  We saw some cool artwork:

Who paints on feathers??  How do you come up with an idea like that?  Does a feather just fall out of the sky onto your lap, like Forrest Gump and you happen to have your paint set with you and think "Hmm...I wonder."  Yea, I'm overthinking it.  They also had fresh strawberries (we passed a bunch of strawberry farms on the way) and cheese:

I got some strawberries and while they were delish, they kinda made my tongue feel weird.  Hmm, natural, fresh food is like foreign to my body.  Anyway, I could only eat a few and now they're just sitting in my fridge because I'm afraid my tongue will swell up and I'll die if I eat them.

We finally made it to La Paz and it was expensive!  It was $40/person, but I wasn't phased.  After Poas, I wanted to see SOMETHING!  So, in we go!

We walk in and see a stunning garden:

First up: The Aviary

There were a couple different aviaries and you could actually go inside and mingle with the birds:

We were able to get so up-close, it was incredible because up until now we've been looking at animals through binoculars and now to walk right up to them was unbelievable.  Yes, I realize they're not in the wild, but the sanctuaries were really incredible and well put together.  They were also so detailed.  I learned so much about the animals, it was a really cool experience.

Now we're onto the mariposa (butterfly) exhibit.  First up, they had all these displays of pinned butterflies and bugs:

Okay, enough gross bugs, let's go inside the butterfly house!

Every single one of those tiny black dots on the roof is a living, fluttering butterfly!

Here's a terrible video, in case you want to see the black dots moving for yourself:  Butterflies

Let's get a closer look!

So many pretty colors!  This was the best part, the cocoons!

We got to see some emerging out of their cocoons!  Amazing!

Then onto the monkey exhibit (mostly just capuchins and howlers):

The hummingbird sanctuary was very cool, I've never seen anything like it.

It was so hard to get good pictures because they're so fast, but there were so many of them whizzing by.  We even saw a couple babies!  Fantastic!  Random nature:

Next up, the snake exhibit:

Ohhhh!  Can you imagine the poor sap who got stuck putting this together?  

Check it out!!

It's the Eyelash Palm Pitviper we saw in the wild in Corcovado!

Now we're traveling into the orchid garden:

Beautiful!

Now we're in the frog garden:

It was hard to get pictures of the ones in tanks, but overall it was a very neat sanctuary.  It was super humid and kinda smelly with tons of bugs, but some of the frogs were out the open, which is something I've never seen at any zoo before.  You could get right up in their faces, if you wanted to (I didn't, I've kissed enough frogs, thank you very much).  

This was the common house exhibit, where they duplicate a house from the 1800's.  It was such a neat idea:

The oxen were like statues.  I walked right up to them and they didn't flinch at all.

There was a lady inside giving out samples of fresh cow cheese and cornbread pudding, along with water sweetened with sugar cane and milk:

All of it sounded gross, but all of it was really tasty.  The drink tasted like chai tea, the cheese tasted like a really mild feta and the cornbread pudding tasted like a more dense flan.  Man, they were living it up back in the day!

The jungle cat sanctuary only had 2, but both were adorable:

I can't remember what this one was, but the big one was a jaguar:

Aww!  I wanted to get in and spoon with her!  How precious!

Now it was time to hike to the waterfalls, of which there were 5.  The hike was more like a walk because it was well paved:

Here we are!

I took a video of this one: Waterfall

Can you see us down there?  Aaron had to lift up his shirt and be gross, of course.

Once we saw the waterfalls, we got to take a bus back to the beginning, where Guido was waiting:

Guido took us back to Alajuela, where we parted ways.

We caught a bus back to San Jose and had to wait almost 2 hours for the bus back to Jaco.  While we waited, we walked and saw some interesting "wall art:"

as well as old timey fire trucks:

Then we took the long bus ride home.  Once home, we decided to stop at Mas X Menos to pick up some groceries and look at what I found:

They call egg-rolls Chinese tacos!  OMG I was dying!  

Now we're back home relaxing by the pool once more, in our sweaty, humid town.  We've had quite the adventure the past couple days, and while some of it didn't turn out as expected, some of it was even better.