The highlight of the visit was without doubt the volcano's crater lake, turquoise blue waters shimmering 300 meters below the crater rim:
Timing is essential when visiting Irazú: on most days, at about 11 in the morning, clouds start drifting in, covering the entire crater in white cotton fluff. As you can see from the picture above,we were very lucky. Later on, from another viewpoint, we also had an excellent view of the now cloudy crater. I was fascinated by watching the clouds drift in and out, sometimes obscuring the entire crater including the visitor area, and then, only a minute later, revealing almost everything.
Since the highest point at Irazú is at 3432 meters above sea level, there are not only crater views to see, but also views of the slopes on the outside of the crater. The mixture of clouds, sun and green forests created a wonderful atmosphere:
Something I wouldn't have expected from a visit to a volcano was to see much wildlife. But apparently the free food left behind by many visitors attracts a bunch. We saw two raccoons who were almost too quick to photograph, and this white-nosed coati who calmly sat among the picnic tables and munched on the tourists' leftovers.
