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Poas Volcano half-day

Includes: Guided tour, transportation and park entrance fee

Enjoy a relaxing drive climbing the beautiful mountains, coffees plantations, huge ornamental flower gardens and tiny villages caught in time, all in the Province of Alajuela Province en route to Poás Volcano National Park, reaching a thin-aired 8,884 feet above sea level and one of the largest volcanoes on earth. It is the deemed to be the biggest geyser in the world because of the area it occasionally devastates (every couple of hundred years) during volcanic eruptions permitting nothing to grow in the extremely acidic grey soil. As you stand at the lookout and view out over the giant crater and turquoise bubbling lake far below, because there are no trees or points of reference, you don't realize it is nearly a mile across and a thousand feet deep!

Poás Volcano is considered an active strato-volcano with two crater lakes at its summit. It has erupted thirty nine times since 1828 and is considered the largest active crater in the world often with geyser eruptions. Poas was only a few miles from the epicenter of the January 8th, 2009 6.2 magnitude earthquake that killed thirty people.

Close to the main Poas crater are molten sulfur lakes considered to be unique to the planet. Later we can walk through the cloud forest to an extinct crater, Poas's little brother, Lake Botos. The area is home to cloud forest birds like several species of hummingbirds, flycatchers, tanagers, toucanets, clay-colored robins and the resplendent quetzal if you get really lucky. The lake has virtually no life due to the very high acidity.

There is a cute little museum explaining plate tectonics and what caused Poas Volcano, plus some interesting cloud forest wild life displays, and a small snack bar.

Tour categories: City, Family, Nature & Rainforest, Relaxing, Romantic

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