January 31, 2023
Day 3: A Wild Adventure to La Paz Waterfall Gardens
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Last night was the first night I set an alarm so far on this trip, and that was only to ensure that Slow and I were up with plenty of time to make it to the bus stop for the 0630 bus to Puerto Viejo that we think we need to take today.
Here’s some backstory: a few weeks ago Slow and I were trying to decide how we’d spend today, the final day before the rest of the All Women All Trails TrovaTrip group arrives. I suggested visiting La Paz Waterfall Gardens, a nature center with multiple waterfalls that I had found some information about online. She agreed it looked like a neat trip, but I couldn’t find much information on how to get there. The fee to enter the park is already $50 USD; tours that include transportation cost upwards of $150 USD per person. Neither of us wanted to pay that, so I spent some time doing research on alternatives.
One such alternative was to rent a car, but that also turned out to be quite expensive. After spending a few days in Costa Rica and taking multiple Ubers, I also knew I did NOT want to attempt to drive in this country. Traffic laws and etiquette are not the same here. With a rental car out of the question, we priced an uber or taxi– over $50 USD each way. The final option, and the one I could find the least amount of information about online, was to take a public bus. I found one website that mentioned this option in passing, and located a TripAdvisor comment that gave fairly detailed information about how to catch the correct bus to get there and back. Slow and I came up with a plan: get up early, get to the bus stop early, hope we can garble enough Spanish to purchase the correct bus ticket, find the correct bus, and inform the driver that we need to be dropped off at La Paz. There is no direct bus line to La Paz and you have to request a drop-off and pick-up there.
We needed to catch a bus to Puerto Viejo passing through Vara Blanca (there are multiple routes to Puerto Viejo– the Vara Blanca route is the one that travels right past La Paz Waterfall Gardens). There are three buses that travel this route TO Puerto Viejo each day (0630, 1300, 1800), and two return trips (1300, 1800). We want to have at least three hours to explore the park, and only the 0630 trip allows time for that, so we awoke early and made our way to Gran Terminal de Caribe via Uber. We initially purchase the wrong ticket– the teller has trouble understanding what we are asking for. But turns out, we can use it to take the correct bus because the fare is the same.
Field note: the bus you need to take has Vara Blanca in the front windshield, NOT Puerto Viejo.
Once we are in line to board the correct bus, we manage to find one lone employee of the bus stop who speaks a small amount of English and he helps us alert the driver that we need to be dropped off at La Paz.
Field note: the public transit system is designed for local use, and is not tourist-friendly. No one speaks English, none of the signs are in English, and nothing is self-explanatory. We came armed with Google Translate with several pre-saved phrases that I saved before leaving the hotel:
“We need a ticket to Puerto Viejo going through Vara Blanca”
“Does this bus go through Vara Blanca?”
“Can you drop us off at La Paz Waterfall Gardens?”
And we still ended up needing help. But we figured it out, boarded the correct bus, and settled in for the two-hour trip to La Paz.
Since the driver knew our destination ahead of time, he stopped there for us without asking. He warned that we had to be out by the road for pickup at either 1pm or 6pm or else we would be stuck there for the night. We tipped him a few colones for his help and set off for the park.
Neither Slow nor I had eaten breakfast yet, so we bought our tickets (the total came to about $70 USD for the entry fee + buffet lunch) and headed to the attached restaurant to order breakfast. Following breakfast, we head out on a self-guided tour of the park. The animal exhibits are up first, starting with monkeys! We check out the monkey viewing area, then head to the hummingbird garden where dozens of hummingbirds are buzzing around sipping nectar from feeders and native flowers. We wander into the snake exhibit and are viewing the snakes whenever an employee enters the small building where they are housed. “Do you know much about snakes?” he asks. I reply that I know some, and Slow states she doesn’t know very much. He introduces himself as John and asks if we mind if he tells us about the snakes. We agree, and John bursts into an enthusiastic explanation of the 137 species of snake that live in Costa Rica, among which 26 are venomous.
After the herpetology lesson he offers to take us back to the hummingbird exhibit and “show us something special.” He pours some of the feeder nectar onto a large, beautiful flower and the birds swarm to it, creating a fantastic photo opportunity for Slow and I to get up close and personal with the tiny creatures and see them in more detail. They are buzzing so quickly that many almost collide with us. John takes several photos and videos for us before we head off to see the jungle cats.
This sanctuary houses an Ocelot, a Puma, and a breeding par of Jaguars. The cats are magnificent: elegant, gorgeous, majestic. But it is clear that, despite the fact they have beautiful enclosures with healthy meals and enrichment activities daily, they are restless. They all spend some time pacing their enclosures, looking out. I can’t help but wonder if they just wish they could get the hell out of there, but know the reality is that they never will. These four specimens would surely die in the wild; they’ve been in captivity their whole lives and do not possess any of the skills needed for survival outside of these safe, if boring, plexiglass and metal enclosures. I’m happy to have seen them, and thankful that sanctuaries like this exist to provide homes for them, but am saddened by the reality of their life: they will never live the one they were meant for.
We leave the cat enclosures and head to a replica of an 1800s-early 1900’s working Costa Rican farm. A traditional farmhouse was built on site to demonstrate what daily life would have looked like back then, and only tools that would have been available to farmers of that time period were used to construct it. The house is beautiful, if plain, and the homemade and fresh sugarcane tea and cow cheese served inside were delicious. We visit the farm animals and a frog garden before heading down the waterfall trail.
The waterfalls are what I have been most excited about. Everyone knows I’m obsessed with waterfalls, and I cannot wait to see my first waterfalls outside the United States. There are four named waterfalls within the park’s boundary: Mirador Inferior Catarata El Templo (Templo Waterfall), Catarata Magia Blanca, and Catarata Escondido and Catarata Encantada — the last two of which are side by side. Additionally, you can see Catarata La Paz — which is technically outside the park boundary and free to visit if you can figure out how to get there by road.
Field note: the trails of La Paz Waterfall Garden do not go all the way to the base of La Paz Waterfall. We saw La Paz from the top and then hiked to the shuttle pickup which would take us back to the main entrance for lunch. Once aboard the shuttle, we asked our driver if we could stop at the base of La Paz for a quick photo, and he obliged. We were able to see the waterfall and tipped him for his time.
Back that main entrance to the park, we walked down to the restaurant where we would have a buffet lunch before flagging down a bus for our return trip. In all, we spent about 3.5 hours at the park and honestly, I could have spent many more hours there. We did not get to see the aviary or trout pond because we ran out of time, and I would have been happy with some more time at the waterfalls. We were on a time crunch because of trying to catch the 1pm bus back to San Jose. We could have caught the 6pm bus, but that would have made for an extremely long day. So after lunch, we hiked back up the steps to the road to wait for the bus to pass. It ends up being about 15 minutes late, but the driver stops for us without much effort (remember, this isn’t an official bus stop and they won’t stop if you’re not standing there waiting). We make it back to San Jose and a quick Uber ride gets us back to our hotel, exhausted but happy with the day’s adventure.
Adventure Like A Girl 
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