Volcán Poás National Park

After a week in San Jose and not seeing much outside the bread shop and super mercato, I decided to do a day trip out of town.

Sitting on atop the Pacific hot spot, Costa Rica is home to about 100 active volcanos. One of them is the Volcán Poás just 40km outside of the capital San Jose. It is said to have the 2nd widest crater opening (Toba in Indonesia said to be 1st) in the world.

The Volcán Poás National Park is 2 hours bus from San Jose that leaves at 8,30am daily. The return fare for the bus costs 3,600 colones (for foreigners). It brings you to the park around 10,30am and back for San Jose at 2,30pm. The entrance fee to the Volcán Poás National Park is 5,100 colones ($10) which is kind of expensive. It’s only 1,000 colones for local. Such big difference.

Poás crater on a great day by Gustavo Uval

This is what you see on a great day. Unfortunately for me, the weather is Costa Rica had been crappy. Maybe my brownie points with the Sun God has run out. I’ve had fantastic weather in Europe but so far, it had been cold, cloudy, sometimes rainy here in Costa Rica. So when we got to the view deck, this is what it looked like. :s

Crater View Deck

My Poás Volcan Crater View

The consolation is that the short trail through the forest is beautiful. The tree trunks and branches are covered with green moss that almost illuminates.

Forest Path

The highlight for some of us is this cheeky thing who was flirting with us for almost 30 minutes. I guess he wanted food but unfortunately we were not allowed to feed the animals in the park.

Cheeky Squirrel

cheeky squirrel

I was thinking of going back another time, but i thought I better check another site in Costa Rica. After all volcanos are abundant in Philippines and Indonesia. What I really wanted to see here are the faunas! I want to see the quetzal bird and the tiny froggies!