Poas Volcano and the incredible La Paz Waterfalls

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I was starting to feel sad that the final part of my Costa Rica journey was now drawing closer. Even though I had accomplished so many great things on this trip I still was was not ready to be heading home. On the way back to San Jose, Walter and myself experienced a scary bus journey for the second half of trip as we had a crazy driver who would be constantly speeding, getting annoyed with other drivers on the road and often talking on his mobile phone whilst driving. It certainly felt that road safety was not taken so seriously as it is back in the UK.

After surviving the bus driver to San Jose, we arrived at the Raddisson hotel. The rating of this hotel is 5 star and, although it looked nice and modern, I'd say it was more of a very good 4 star. The Raddisson is situated very close to the city centre. I still hadn't brought all my souvenirs so it was the perfect opportunity to adventure into the city centre and call on the market that I had visited a few days ago. Once at the markets, I was able to haggle. I would spend time debating about buying the item, make an offer and then if they said no, start to walk away, and bingo I'd get the item at the price. I didn't feel guilty for haggling as the prices were the same as being back home. However, I did find one guy at the market stalls to be very pushy and I was not interested in the items he had for sell. The guy was quite rude to me and said that all British people have loads of money. This was the first experience of someone being rude as I had found the Costa Rican people to be very friendly and humble. Also, whilst in the city centre, I was able to achieve my challenge of trying to have a Mcdonalds in every visited country.

In the evening its advised not to walk around San Jose and if you want to visit bars/clubs then best to get a taxi so Walter and myself decided to chill at the hotel and got through a 70cl bottle of vodka. We then visited the hotel's casino where I put down 10 dollars. I was doing pretty well on the slot machines and was about 6 dollars up when I decided to be cocky and place my bet in one go on the machine and, you can guess, I lost the lot. I think I had drunk too much vodka - will I ever learn? probably not!

My last full day in Costa Rica

I said goodbye to my friend, Walter, who had to get back to his hometown outside of San Jose and I arranged to meet up with another friend, called Luis, who I had again met online via Busuu (The language learning site) and he offered to drive me to visit Poas Volcano and to The Laz Paz Waterfalls which is about an hours drive from the city centre. I was truly grateful to him as he didn't want anything for doing it and he saved me well over a 100 dollars. Although I think Luis was thankful be able to practise speaking in English. He even tested me on my Spanish and taught me a few new words and helped me brush up on some that I had forgotten.

When we arrived at Poas, I had to pay 10 US dollars since I was a tourist and my friend only had 1,000 colonies (about 2 US dollars). From the car park, we had a fairly short but pleasant walk up to the volcano. Poas Volcano sits high above 14,000 acres of various habitats that make up the national park, and Poas remains one of Costa Rica's largest and most active volcanoes. We were lucky that it was not too cloudy as we could see the Poas crater. The water that sits on the crater looks a turquoise green colour. The actual colour did not come out well on camera and full visibility was blocked by all the steam coming out of the cater.

From the Poas crater we were able to take a walk through the national park to Lake Botos, the southern lake, which is an inactive crater. The lake is surrounded by the cloud forest and makes a breathtaking view. From the lake we were able to continue our journey back to the car via the national park and saw lots of different type of birds, including my favourite; the hummingbird.

We then headed over to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. This was truly an incredible experience. The gardens home a few large walk-through aviaries where I got the opportunity to have a photo taken with a toucan perched on my arm. The park also has the largest butterfly observation in the world; and at first, I found it hard to adjust to hundreds of butterflies flying around me. But once adjusted, it was incredible to see so many beautiful butterflies flying everywhere. There is also a hummingbird and bromeliad garden, a serpentarium, frog pond, and 5 striking waterfalls. It is quite easy to walk around the waterfalls as there is access to them via steps and bridges. I found the steps to be quite narrow and wet from the waterfalls so it was imperative for me to take my time and make sure I did not slip.

On the way back to the hotel in San Jose, I got to experience the rush hour traffic in the city centre. The traffic seems to move slowly and people are getting annoyed with each other. I noticed many people have motorcycles as an easier way of getting around. Once back at the hotel, I was glad to go to the bar with Luis and get a double Jack Daniels with coke.

After having a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, it was time to say goodbye to my friend as I needed to pack all my belongings and get some rest for my return flight home the next day.

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