Day 7: Poas Volcano and La Paz Waterfall Gardens

Our new tour guides ushered us out of the hotel early in the morning and drove us to the Poas Volcano before the clouds settled in (and a good thing, too).

After Poas, we went to the La Paz Waterfall Gardens nearby. The Gardens lived up to their name by having sinks that dispensed water through waterfalls. The lowest part of the grounds contained a series of stunning waterfalls, but the upper parts contained gardens devoted to flowers (especially irises), butterflies, and hummingbirds. We went through the upper part, then walked along the river with the waterfalls (in the rain, no less - probably the wettest outing of the trip). Afterwards, we were bused back to the top, where we had a nice buffet lunch and hung around for a bit before continuing on.

On the way back, we stopped off at an actual, working coffee plantation. Some of us tried our hand at picking coffee, much to the amusement of the professionals.

The Poas caldera.

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One of Tina's guidebooks said that it was important to get to Poas before 10 am. It's right: this photo was taken at about 10:02.

This is a view of the central valley from the road up the side of Poas.

I thought the waterfall sinks were really cool - just out of the picture is a rock that you have to turn in order to turn the water on. (I had to ask one of the guides how to do it!)

A subset of the tour group starting the Waterfall Gardens tour with the flowers at the top of the path. (They look like irises to me, but Tina says they're not.)

A closeup of the not-irises.

An owl butterfly (note the fake eyes on the wings) having a really disgusting-looking meal of rotted fruit.

The photo Time magazine couldn't get! The butterfly garden in Monteverde pointed out that Time magazine cheated when taking a photo of a blue morpho for their cover - a careful look reveals a pin through it, so it was actually a dead and mounted one! But I managed it, with this rather elderly and faded example. Even so, it took me about ten tries even to get this photo.

A hummingbird at a feeder.

A view from beside one of the waterfalls.

I took this one mostly in order to show how big the leaves can get.

One of the waterfalls along with one of the overlooks.

Our guides Marion and Rafael at lunch.

Coffee pickers at the plantation. The guide said that most of these are low-paid immigrant workers from Nicaragua (note splotches on camera lens from taking photos in the rain).

But they do get a nice view, at least.