Wildlife And Waterfalls of La Paz

My favorite weekday tour was of the La Paz resort, which has actually recently been partly wiped out due to hurricanes in Costa Rica. The animal exhibits survived the storms, but the waterfall tour area is being reconstructed.

La Paz is a great tourist spot for viewing all kinds of different wildlife and beautiful waterfalls. The tour involves a lot of hiking, and at the beginning, everyone is given a walking stick to “fend off the snakes” if necessary (we saw no snakes).

We first entered an aviary of all kinds of different birds. All the girls were instructed to take our earrings out, because some types of birds are attracted to shiny things and will actually peck at your earlobes to steal your piercings.

We saw some beautiful parrots, macaws, and the funniest little hopping tucans!

HEY, tucan!

the beautiful parrot we saw upon entering the aviary

There were also owls and other types of birds with which I was not familiar, like the black-bellied whistling duck pictured feeding below, but I loved seeing all of them and their pretty colors.

the owls were still sound asleep (as I would have chosen to be that early in the morning!)

the black-bellied whistling duck

I found more monkey friends, too! There were tiny little monkeys with faces called marmosets who would come close to the cage to see me up close.

they kept coming to the cage to see me!

you can kind of see his little face here

There were also beautiful flowers all over La Paz, and another butterfly garden! The butterflies here were a lot more friendly, and I got to hold a few.

my favorite butterfly, or "mariposa" shot

I finally caught one!

The hummingbirds were so funny to watch flitting around the exhibits. I loved watching their jerky but graceful movements.

it was hard to get a good picture of these quick little guys!

The amphibian exhibit was so cool. Many of the frogs we got to see looked almost fake with their shocking colors. Also, many of them were poisonous, like the bright colored one pictured below.

the picture of this frog is one of my favorites of the entire trip

another type of rain frog

Finally, we hiked the waterfalls. They were quite a site to see!

this shot of the La Paz waterfall is very popular - 

just weeks after we visited here,
Sheri Shepard from The View was filmed

in this very spot on the show!

the view from above - these are the spots that are being reconstructed after the storm

The La Paz food was some of the best we had throughout our entire trip. We had a buffet of pizza, garlic bread, rice, fries, as well as Costa Rican staples such as fried platanos and pineapple.

If you are to visit Costa Rica, La Paz is a MUST-see!!