What an amazing place! We recently visited La Paz Waterfalls as part of our Costa Rica trip.
We give our kids an international trip as a high school graduation gift, but do it before they actually graduate. (This was super lucky for Jones as we visited New Zealand and Australia before the pandemic. Since he graduated in 2020, we would have missed out on that incredible trip.) Anyways, Shoo chose Costa Rica (probably with a little arm twisting from his entomologist brother) and our first stop on our adventure was La Paz Waterfalls.
La Paz Waterfalls are located “only” 45 minutes from San Jose (let’s be real – it was easily an hour. Costa Rican roads are no joke. Thank goodness Beer Geek grew up driving curvy backroads and has driven all over the world.) The drive was a little white knuckle – at one point, one of the kids described it as driving in Mario Kart because it felt like random obstacles were thrown at us every few minutes. But it was 100% worth it!
We hiked the waterfall trail down and then chose to walk back up instead of taking the shuttle back to the start. Yeah, I’m gonna feel that! I also don’t think I’ve ever been quite so sweaty when I wasn’t running. Ever!
Then we had lunch at their buffet – so good. Even my picky eater was raving about the food. Definitely add it if you go. After lunch, we had a little more time to kill before heading to La Fortuna and it wasn’t raining (yes, we came to Costa Rica during the rainy season), so we decided to hike the Fern Trail.
Very few people choose to do that, so there was moss on the entire trail. We were all thankful we’d brought hiking shoes. Poor Shoo literally pulled his brand new adidas waterproof hiking shoes out of the box for the hike. That’s what happens when your feet change size so often! Thankfully they performed well and were super grippy (his words) on the slick path.
If you are ever in Costa Rica, I definitely recommend adding La Paz Waterfalls to your itinerary, especially if you are planning to drive from San Jose to La Fortuna!
Pro tip: Don’t touch the fuzzy caterpillars! (But keep your eyes open as there are so many incredible bugs and birds that you’ll see out in the wild parts of the park, in addition to the ones in captivity.)
