Volcano in the clouds, National Museum, Butterflies

Our first sojourn was to visit a volcano not too far from San José, Volcan Poas. The crater contains a large lake, and can be viewed from an overlook on its lip - that is, when the clouds do not cover it entirely, as was the case on the day we were there. Hence the "mist" in the first two pictures. This is a cloud forest. Photos 2 and 3 show a couple of the plants along the path to the top. Numbers 6 through 24 are at the National Museum, housed in a former prison (back in San José), which also has a beautiful butterfly garden. 7 and 8 show huge round granite balls of ancient and unknown origin. The gold ornaments in 9 and 10 are from an early period when gold was merely decorative, not considered valuable otherwise. The plants in the remainder of the pictures were in the butterfly garden.

1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24