43 Best Sights in Central Valley, Costa Rica

Five magnificent waterfalls are the main attractions at these gardens on the eastern edge of Volcán Poás National Park, but they are complemented by the beauty of the surrounding cloud forest, an abundance of hummingbirds and other avian species, and the country's biggest butterfly garden. A concrete trail leads down from the visitor center to the multilevel, screened butterfly observatory and continues to gardens where hummingbird feeders attract swarms of these multicolor creatures. Other exhibits are devoted to frogs, birds, snakes, and orchids. The trail then enters the cloud forest, where it leads to a series of metal stairways that let you descend into a steep gorge to viewing platforms near each of the waterfalls. A free shuttle will transport you from the trail exit back to the main building if you prefer to avoid the hike uphill. Several alternative paths lead from the main trail through the cloud forest and along the river's quieter upper stretch, providing options for hours of exploration—it takes about two hours to hike the entire complex. Enter before 3 pm to give yourself adequate time. The complex's Jungle Cat exhibit serves as a rescue center for felines (jaguars, ocelots, and pumas). The visitor center has a gift shop and open-air cafeteria with a great view. The gardens are a stop on many daylong tours from San José that take in the Poás Volcano or area coffee tours. The complex is especially busy on weekends.

The producer of Costa Rica's most popular export-quality coffee gives a lively Classic Coffee Tour highlighting the history of Costa Rica's coffee cultivation through a theatrical presentation that is admittedly a bit hokey. Your "tour guides" are professional actors, and pretty good ones at that, so if you don't mind the song and dance, it's fun. (You might even be called upon to participate.) During the 1½-hour tour, you'll take a short walk through the coffee farm and processing plant, and learn how professional coffee tasters distinguish a fine cup of java. A two-hour Coffee Lovers Experience tour delves into the process at a more expert level. You'll leave the all-day Coffee Origins tour feeling like even more of an expert, delving into the environmental issues surrounding coffee. You can also stop in at Britt's Coffee Bar and Factory Store. Although all three tours are devoted entirely to the production and history of Costa Rica's most famous agricultural product, Britt is also a purveyor of fine chocolates, cocoas, cookies, macadamia nuts, and coffee liqueurs; you'll see its products for sale in souvenir shops around the country and at the airport as you leave. The standard coffee tour is often a half-day inclusion on many Central Valley tours operated by San José tour companies, combined with the Poás Volcano, the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, or Rainforest Adventures.

Starbucks’ first and only coffee farm outside the United States isn’t so much a supplier to the company as it is a research facility into sustainable growing practices. As such, Alsacia’s 90-minute tours take you from nursery to roaster, but focus a bit more on research and the environment than do Britt and Doka, the other two coffee powerhouses in the Central Valley. Tours here are in either English or Spanish, but not both. Book carefully on the website to choose the language you desire.

The Central Valley is coffee country. Consider devoting an hour of your vacation to learning about the crop's production. A working coffee plantation for more than 70 years, Doka offers a comprehensive tour that takes you through the fields, shows you how the fruit is processed and the beans are dried, and lets you sample the local brew. The best time to take this tour is during the October-to-February picking season. Transportation can be arranged from San José, Alajuela, Heredia, Escazú, or San Antonio de Belén. Various add-on packages include breakfast and/or lunch. Doka features on many organized area tours in combination with various other Central Valley attractions.

The world's largest oxcart, constructed and brightly painted by longtime local factory Eloy Alfaro and enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records, can be found in Sarchí's central park. The work—locals refer to it as simply La Carreta (the Oxcart)—logs in at 45 feet and weighs 2 tons. Since no other country is attached to oxcarts quite like Costa Rica, we doubt that record will be broken anytime soon. Oxcarts were used by 19th-century coffee farmers to transport the all-important cash crop to the port of Puntarenas on the Pacific coast. Artisans began painting the carts in the early 1900s. Debate continues as to why: the kaleidoscopic designs may have symbolized the points of the compass, or may have echoed the landscape's tropical colors. In any case, the oxcart has become the national symbol.

Heredia is centered on tree-studded Parque Central, which gets our vote for the country's loveliest and liveliest central park, surrounded by some notable buildings spanning more than 250 years of history. The park has a large, round, cast-iron fountain imported from England in 1879 and a Victorian bandstand where the municipal band plays on Sunday morning and Thursday night. Families, couples, and old-timers sit on park benches, shaded by fig and towering palm trees, often inhabited by noisy and colorful flocks of crimson-fronted parakeets. Drop into Pops, a national ice-cream chain, at the south side of the park and pick up a cone, then take a seat on a park bench and watch the passing parade.

Sparse undergrowth here makes wildlife easier to see than in most other parks, although proximity to major population centers means that tour buses arrive regularly in high season, prompting some animals to head deeper into the forest. Come very early or late in the day to avoid the crowds. Bird-watchers can call the day before to arrange admission before the park opens. If you're lucky, you may glimpse armadillos, basilisk lizards, coatis, and any of several monkey species, as well as birds such as blue-crowned motmots, chestnut-mandibled toucans, and trogons. A network of trails takes 15 minutes to four hours to navigate. (Many of the trails are wheelchair accessible.) The park has guides, but you must arrange their services in advance. Camping is not permitted.

This is widely regarded as Costa Rica's coolest volcano experience. An observation platform lets you peer right inside what is thought to be the largest active volcanic crater in the world. The ride up here is disarming: pleasant farms and lush green cloud forest line the volcano's slopes; friendly fruit and jam vendors along the road beckon you to stop and sample their wares. Only when you get to the bubbling, gurgling, smoking summit do you leave those pastoral scenes behind and stare into the crater. Arrive here as early as possible in the morning for the best views. Clouds occasionally move in as early as midmorning.

It's wise to step away from the crater and its fumes for fresh air at least once every 10 minutes, and a good place to take that break is the park's bustling visitor center—the country's best—with complete park information, a cafeteria, and a gift shop. The volcano features prominently on many itineraries of area tour operators. Increased volcanic activity in recent years forces periodic closure of the park. Check conditions before heading up here on your own.

Entries are timed and must be reserved and paid for in advance at the national parks website. You'll undergo a mandatory safety presentation on arrival and must wear a helmet during your visit. The park's two famed hiking trails are open at this writing, but check before you head up there. The situation is always in flux.  For more information, see the feature at the beginning of this chapter.

One of Costa Rica's many animal-rescue facilities, Toucan Rescue Ranch is a great place to see wildlife. There are more than just toucans—the good-hearted folks here care for many sloths and owls, too. The ultimate goal is to return the animals to the wild; the frail condition of some means that this will be their permanent home. The general 2½-hour walk focuses on observing the facility's work with toucans and sloths. Tickets must be purchased in advance on the facility’s website.

About 3 km (2 miles) due north of Heredia, this colonial town is famous for mask making and for its Parque Central, still with the original adobe buildings with Spanish-tile roofs on three sides, and a white-stucco church to the east. The park is filled with whimsical sculptures, including a park bench shaped like an entire seated family, and bizarre masks and clowns' heads decorating garbage receptacles. An amphitheater and stage stand ready for the annual mask festival held every August. (A less pleasant part of the August festival is the tradition of smacking one's fellow townspeople with cow or pig bladders—perhaps not a good time to visit.) The stout, handsome church with terra-cotta bas-relief flourishes dates from the late 18th century and has a lovely grotto shrine to the Virgin Mary in the church garden. On a clear day you can see verdant Volcán Barva towering to the north.

Cartago's major tourist sight is a hodgepodge of architectural styles from Byzantine to baroque, with a dash of Gothic thrown in. The interior of this 1926 basilica is striking, with a colorful tile floor, intricately painted, faux-finish wood columns, and lots of stained glass. Tradition holds that an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the form of a dark stone occurred here in 1635. This "Black Virgin" (La Negrita) is Costa Rica's patron saint, and she sits high above the main altar. To the left as you face the altar is a room decorated with amulets given in dedication to the Virgin for her intercession in everything from triumphs over disease to triumphs on the soccer field.

Butterflies are the "livestock" at this working farm in the heart of Escazú, where caterpillars are raised and then exported in chrysalis form. A two-hour tour of the operation takes you through the stages of a butterfly's life. The highlight is the garden where fluttering butterflies surround you. Sunny days fuel the most activity among them; they are quieter if the day is overcast. (The latter conditions make for easier photos.) Bilingual tours in English and Spanish are included in the admission price. The place can be difficult to find. Call for directions or take a taxi. Drivers know the facility as the mariposario.

Next to the Fortín, the tile-roof building with the handsome wood veranda is Heredia's Casa de la Cultura, which almost always has a free exhibition by local artists. Inside is a very small museum of town history, as well as a handsome inner atrium, with wooden galleries, where concerts are often held. The house was originally the stately home of early-20th-century president Alfredo González Flores (1877–1962).

The large neoclassical Alajuela Cathedral has columns topped by interesting capitals decorated with local agricultural motifs, and a striking red-metal dome. Construction was completed in 1863. The interior is spacious but rather plain, except for the ornate cupola above the altar.

A good place for bird-watchers and garden enthusiasts, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center—better known by its Spanish acronym, CATIE—is one of the leading tropical research centers in Latin America, with headquarters here and affiliates in nine other countries. You might catch sight of the yellow-winged northern jacana or the purple gallinule in the lagoon near the main building. The 10-square-km (4-square-mile) property includes landscaped grounds, seed-conservation chambers, greenhouses, orchards, experimental agricultural projects, a large swath of rainforest, labs and offices, and lodging for students and teachers. The most popular attraction is the Botanical Garden Tour, a two-hour guided walk to taste, smell, and touch tropical fruits, along with cacao, coffee, and other medicinal and stimulant plants. A favorite stop is the "miracle fruit" tree, whose berries magically make anything sour taste sweet. Reservations are required for guided tours.

Costa Rica's climate sadly doesn't allow for wine grapes to flourish, but crafty brewers have discovered perhaps the next best thing: mead, which is created by fermenting honey with water. This farm is the first and currently only meadery in the country, with the mead's honey coming directly from the farm's nearby beehives and other local beekeepers. The meads are flavored with a variety of tropical fruits and flowers, including passion fruit and hibiscus. Book ahead to enjoy one- or two-hour tours of the farm, hives, and production facility, all ending with a tasting. You can also just visit the tasting room for a half-hour tasting, accompanied by honey and cheeses (advance reservations are still required). They occasionally host dinners, too. The meadery proudly practices environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically viable sustainability.

A winged female figure cast in a 40-foot stainless steel sculpture graces the Plaza Mayor, Cartago’s otherwise spartan main square. “Victorious Costa Rica” represents the spirit of the country’s independence. It was here in 1821 in the old colonial capital that word reached then-remote backwater Costa Rica that it was independent from Spain, a full six weeks after the fact. (Word traveled slowly from Guatemala in those days.) The country still celebrates its independence on the September 15 anniversary of the date it was made official, rather than the date it was informed.

Costa Rica's only real remaining oxcart factory was founded in 1920, and its carpentry methods have changed little since then. The guiding spirit of founder Eloy Alfaro lives on here, but the business and tradition have passed onto subsequent generations of his family. The two-story wooden building housing the wood shop is surrounded by trees and flowers—mostly orchids—and all the machinery on the ground floor is powered by a waterwheel at the back of the shop. Carts are painted in the back, and although the factory's main products are genuine oxcarts—which sell for up to $2,500—there are also some smaller mementos that can easily be shipped home. A cavernous restaurant serves food, buffet-style.

On the north side of the Parque Central in its own little park stands a strange tower, built as a military post in the 1870s. It never did see action and now serves as the symbol of the city, one of the few military monuments in this country without an army. The tower is closed to the public. The old brick building next to the Fortín is the Palacio Municipal (Town Hall).

On the slopes of Turrialba Volcano lies Costa Rica's only true archaeological site. The city, once home to possibly 10,000 people, was abandoned in AD 1400, probably because of disease or war. Starting from the round, thatched-roof reception center, guided tours will take you through the rainforest to a lookout from which you can see the layout of the excavated circular buildings. Only the raised foundations survive, since the conical houses themselves were built of wood. As you descend into the ruins, notice the well-engineered surface and covered aqueducts leading to a trough of drinking water, which still functions today.

Guayabo has been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a feat of Latin American civil engineering second only to Machu Picchu. The hillside jungle is captivating, and the trip is further enhanced by bird-watching possibilities: 200 species have been recorded.

Everybody knows this as the place with the big hand, but La Chimba is a working coffee plantation with hiking trails, a zip line, and a spot for meditation (by the giant Buddha statue). As for that hand: You climb up to a lookout point modeled to look like a giant cupped palm. The trail to reach the so-called Mano del Mantra ("hand of the mantra") requires you to be in reasonable physical shape, although you can be driven most of the way. The complex is extremely popular with Costa Ricans and gets crowded on weekends; a weekday visit lets you take things in more leisurely.

On the east side of the park stands this impressive neoclassical church that locals refer to as simply "La Inmaculada." It was built between 1797 and 1804 to replace an adobe temple dating from the early 1700s and is one of the few structures in Costa Rica remaining from the colonial era. The flat-fronted, whitewashed church has thick stone walls, small windows, and squat buttresses, which have kept it intact through two centuries of earthquakes and tremors. The serene, white interior has two rows of stately, gold-trimmed Ionic columns marching down a long aisle, past 20 lovely stained-glass windows constructed in France. The church is flanked by tidy side gardens, where you can stroll among sculpted trees along concrete paths incised with a floral pattern. The church's soft exterior illumination brightens up the park nightly from 6 pm until midnight.

The town of Orosi, in the heart of the valley, has but one major sight: this beautifully restored 1743 church, the country's oldest house of worship still in use, and one of the few structures in Costa Rica remaining from the colonial era. Set in a garden, against a green mountainside, it has a classic Spanish colonial whitewashed facade and bell tower, with a roof made of cane overlaid with terra-cotta barrel tiles. Inside are an antique wooden altar and ancient paintings of the Stations of the Cross and the Virgin of Guadalupe, all brought to Costa Rica from Guatemala. The religious-art museum next door has a small but exquisite collection of furniture and artifacts from the original Franciscan monastery here. A huge modern parish church sits beside the historic one, but happily, it's just far enough away not to spoil photos of the picturesque original structure. The entrances to nearly all Catholic churches in Costa Rica face west, so that the congregation faces east toward Rome. This church has a rare east-facing entrance.

Santa Ana’s Catholic church, which dates from 1880, has a Spanish-tile roof, carved wooden doors, and two pre-Columbian stone spheres flanking its entrance. Its low-slung rustic interior—bare wooden pillars and beams and black iron lamps—call to mind perfectly an area with a tradition of ranching. The mortar that holds the exterior stones together was made of sand, lime, and egg whites. (The yolks were not adhesive enough.) A chicken farm next to the quarry outside town provided all the eggs.

The ruins of Costa Rica's first church lie past the Cachí dam near the small hamlet of Ujarrás (oo-hah-RRASS). An unlikely Spanish victory over a superior force of invading British pirates was attributed to a stop here to ask for the protection of the Virgin Mary, and a church was constructed in thanksgiving to honor the Virgin of Ujarrás. The entire village was abandoned in 1833 after a series of earthquakes and floods wreaked havoc in this lowest point of the Orosi Valley, and the inhabitants resettled at the site that would become the present-day town of Paraíso. Today the impressive, often-photographed limestone ruins sit in a beautifully maintained park with lawns, flower gardens, and a pretty picnic area. A final, scenic 6-km (4-mile) winding drive to Paraíso from Ujarrás completes the road that loops the valley. Visitors fill the site on weekends, but on weekdays you'll likely have the place to yourself.

According to tradition, ghosts and witches work their spells, good and bad, over Escazú. The founders of this haunted town fittingly chose the archangel Michael, reputed to have driven Satan from heaven, as their patron saint. The original church on this site dates from 1796, but earthquakes took their toll, as they have on so many historic sites throughout Costa Rica. A complete reconstruction was done in 1962, remaining as true as possible to the original design, but up to current earthquake building codes. The results are still impressive six-plus decades later. A statue of St. Michael watches from the left side of the main altar.

Some 2,000 plant species, tropical and subtropical, flourish on 17 acres here, and all are well labeled. The German owner named the facility, affiliated with an ornamental-plant exporter, after his late plant-loving mother. About half of the garden's pathways are wheelchair accessible. When the tropical fruit trees are in season, visitors are permitted to pick and eat the fruit. Kids enjoy the maze and playground.

The lush gardens of Lankester Botanical Garden, operated by the University of Costa Rica, house one of the world's foremost orchid collections, with more than 1,100 native and introduced species. Bromeliads, heliconias, and aroids also abound in the 7-acre garden, along with 80 species of trees, including rare palms. An adjoining Japanese garden has a graceful bridge and a teahouse.

Churches in one form or another stood at the site of the present-day central plaza from 1575 to 1841; they kept being knocked down by earthquakes and reconstructed again and again. After a major earthquake in 1841, the citizens of Cartago began work on a new, Romanesque cathedral. But a devastating earthquake in 1910 ended that project, too. Is there a connection between building churches on this spot and the occurrence of earthquakes? No one knows, but townspeople have decided not to tempt fate any longer. "Ruins" is a bit of a misnomer here. The appearance is of a structure never finished, rather than of piles of rubble. Among the many legends attributed to the site is the gruesome story of the priest who, after falling in love with his sister-in-law, was murdered by his brother. Folks here say his headless ghost still haunts the grounds at night. You need not worry about any hauntings during the day, though. The interior of the one-block-square complex has been turned into a lovely park and is open daily until 4.