Having returned to San Jose after our stint to Tortuguero, we decided to do another day trip today to visit one more volcano: Volcán Poás. Poás is much more active than Irazú: the crater lake, at a temperature of 40°C, constantly emits slightly smelly fumes. But I realized today - the smell of sulphur doesn't really smell bad to me anymore. Prior visits to geothermic areas in Japan and New Zealand seem to have trained my brain to expect stunning sights whenever an area smells of sulphur, and so now I almost like the smell :-)
The expectation of stunning sights was satisfied once again today, so I guess my brain can go on liking sulphur. The big crater, with colored rocks in the front and layers of ash visible in the back, was simply beautiful.
Add to that the crater lake with its white-greenish color, and the almost constant stream of fume coming out of it, mixing with the clouds drifting in from the other side - amazing!
A short hike from the main crater was another crater. This one is much older and hasn't been active for many years. Consequently, rain has filled the crater and formed lake Botos with its perfect turquoise color:
To my great surprise, the viewing platform overlooking lake Botos was filled not only with human visitors. There were quite a few cute little squirrels around, scavenging the area for scraps left behind by visitors (and, often enough, being fed by them in exchange for cute pictures - but since I don't feed wild animals, I had to steal this picture off of somebody else's food...).
I'd last seen a squirrel for a split second on a tree in Medellín a couple of weeks ago. Before that, however, I don't believe I saw any squirrels on my entire trip. Needless to say, I was delighted seeing them again close up :-)
From lake Botos, a 2km trail led trough the cloud forest surrounding the craters. The hike was extremely pleasant, and there were many interesting plants and birds to discover, such as these colorful epiphytes (a rather fancy term for plants growing on other plants):
