Getting to Volcan Poas by public transportation is simple, as there is a direct bus that goes from the top of the Merced Park in San Jose to Alajuela, and directly to Poas every day at 8:30am. The round trip ticket will cost you somewhere around $5.

Costa Rica Travel — A trip to Poas Volcano Nat’l Park

We actually missed the 8:30 bus because I misread its departure time as 9am (perhaps my subconscious was concerned I wouldn’t get enough sleep). However, the friendly bus station man in San Jose put us on a bus to Alajuela and called the Poas bus to wait for us. The Poas bus apparently got impatient and pulled out of the bus station as we arrived to Alajuela, but then kindly pulled over for 3 minutes as my boyfriend and I sprinted four blocks to meet it.

The entire bus ride is about an hour and a half, with two pit stops not included. There is a second 15-minute stop just below the entrance to the park for passengers to buy breakfast or a packed lunch as well as fresh strawberries.

At the entrance to the park, we had to get off the bus to get in a line to pay the entrance fee ($7 for foreigners and 600 colones for Ticos), and then get right back on again. Thanks to keeping my mouth shut and my sun glasses on, I passed as a Tica, thus salvaging the few thousand colones I had left for a taxi ride home in the evening.

When we got to the park around 11:15am, we were instructed to be back on the bus at 2:30pm to return back to the city. We strolled up a clean paved path that lead to the visitor center, which includes a small café, souvenir shop, museum and film viewing room.

It was pavement and handrails from there on out. The park has exceptional infrastructure, which I honestly did not expect. Even the steep trail through the cloud forest that we took had tread strips over the pavement to keep visitors from slipping in the damp climate. The steep trail and the altitude did get me huffing by the time we reached the top, but thankfully that is the only slightly challenging hike in the park.

I arrived with a long sleeve shirt, t-shirt and sweater, and managed to survive without the sweater for the most part as long as I kept myself moving. The first lookout spot that we reached was for a lake formed in one of the minor craters of the volcano. Visitors were more impressed by a squirrel that had learned to eat out of peoples’ hands, as the sight of the lake was almost completely obstructed by cloud cover. I’m sure it’s pretty though.

The trail led us up to the main crater of the volcano, which was left barren except for some sulfuric coloring since its last major eruption in 1953. The park closed several times since then due to minor volcanic activity, but has been open since 1995 except for short periods when the level of acidic moisture is too high.

The viewing area is quite large, with three different levels so that the large number of tourists that visit can spread out enough to get in some noteworthy photography. I read that you can occasionally see minor activity in the mouth of the volcano, but between the clouds and a short 30 minute visit, we weren’t lucky enough to witness any.

Just standing there can prove to be a cool experience as the clouds rush past all around you quite rapidly. After we got enough dormant volcano viewing in, we headed to the quite successful coffee shop, which features the best of Costa Rica’s own – the perfect cap to a chilly day.

The only other real alternative to seeing the lake and the crater, is a side trip to the La Paz waterfall gardens, which is located about 20 minutes away from the volcano. While this would be a great option if you were visiting by car, guides at our first pit stop were going to charge foreigners $29 for the trip and $8 for Ticos.

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Filed under: Travel on January 12th, 2008