The Poas Volcano National Park is situated on the volcanic central mountain range, 37 km north of the city of Alajuela. It was created on January 25, 1971 by the law no. 4714 and it has an extension of 5.600 hectares.

The Poas Volcano is one of the most spectacular volcanoes of the whole country and of extraordinary scenic beauty. It features different types of habitats, as for example the stunted forest, areas with sparse vegetation, the myrtle area and the cloud forest. In this forest you will find plenty of epiphyte plants as moss, ferns, bromelia and orchids that grow on the trees’ trunks.

A lot of eruptions have taken place, the most outstanding one in 1910, which consisted of an immense ash cloud that soared up 8.000 meters high.

The Poas Volcano National Park is one of the most important natural attractions for the national and international tourism. It is one of the system’s areas which receive a major influx of visitors.

The Poas is a basaltic volcano with a height of 2.708 meters. Since 1989 the emission of gases has been increasing notably, causing acid rain phenomenons that damaged the flora in some of the park’s sectors and agricultural plantations bordering the area.

There are three craters on the peak. The principal one, with a diameter of 1,5 km and a depth of 300 meters, has a hot circular lagoon with a diameter of 350 meters and a funnel of cinder, about 40 meters high and with very active puffs of smoke, on its bottom.


The second crater is the Botos lagoon’s seat, with cold water of definite pluvial origin that drains into the Caribbean through the river Angel, inflowing of the river Sarapiquí. Nowadays the volcano emits huge quantities of water vapor from the different puffs of smoke which are situated in the crater’s interior funnel.

In the very humid and dense cloud forest, the majority of trees, as for example the oak, the “cedrillo”, the hill’s orange blossom, the “papayillo”, the white cypress, reach a height of 20 meters and are covered with moss, epiphytes and other plants.

On the Caribbean sector’s hillsides, the forests are higher, very humid, rich in palm trees, ferns and epiphytes. In other areas of the park, where the gas emissions and the former eruptions destroyed the primary vegetation, now grow species which have adopted to the circumstances, as for example the tongue fern, the myrtles, the hill’s orange blossom, the “papayillo”, the cypress grove and the “tucuico”.

Up to know 79 bird species have been identified, among them the “escarchero”, the “quetzal”, the “reinita garganta de fuego”, the black turkey, the little toucan and different hummingbird species. There aren’t many mammals in the park’s higher regions, although you will find the prairie wolf, weasels, rabbits, the skunk and some feline predators.