Botany Overload

I'm, um, sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel for Costa Rica pictures. No chance to do new local material until tomorrow at best. May or may not have something ready for Saturday morning.

So, for the moment, a bit more rain forest flora. As I've said, I grew up in a concrete jungle. If I wanted any real greenery I had to go to Central Park. However, our guide from 3 Monkies seemed to know everything that grew, crawled or flew in those thickets. I don't remember what any of these things are, except that the middle one is some kind of mushroom/fungus that grows on rotting tree trunks and the last one is an unknowable tree that sprouts seed pods that look like eggplant right through the bark.

It was all a wonder but I'm a city kid. And I'm eligible for all senior citizens discounts as of today, which gives me an excuse for a leaky memory.                                    

Rent A Horse, Buy Some Cheese

We saw some pix from the Tenorio Rain Forest recently. The last outpost on the way in is the little town or Rio Naranjo, Orange River. You can stop by Hertz Rent-A-Horse and get a vehicle to cruise the surrounding savannah. There are a lot of dairy farms made possible by the higher altitude and the locals sell their home-made cheese while Jesus supervises.

The paved road ends at Rio Naranjo. From there to the forest you must travel the proverbial five miles of bad road. The section below was the part in the very best condition. 

On our way back to Tamarindo we went by the extensive renovations of the Pan American Highway, which runs from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Usuhaia, Argentina (we've been to both ends). We've driven some of the old road - okay by Costa Rican standards but no place to zip through fast. It is being rebuilt into a four lane, high-speed divided road - with tolls, of course (the first in CR). That's all the concrete in the bottom photo with a look northeast to the line of volcanoes.