Costa Rica - a round up

Got home last night. I worked on my photographs on the flight back. I ended up with over 800 photos between my regular and phone cameras! There is just too much to see and experience to truly capture in photos and blog stories.

 I don't think I explained the reason for this trip to Costa Rica. My friend Dave was the state coordinator for Minnesota's master gardener program. An avid gardener himself Dave went to Costa Rica on a tour hosted by the Wisconsin master gardener coordinator, Susan. Dave invited me to go with him this year.

The tour was all arranged (except for air travel) by an agency out of Missouri. The hotels, meals, park and garden admissions, transportation and a local guide were included. The entire thing was fairly effortless on my part. The hardest thing was getting up very early nearly every morning to have my suitcase ready and on the bus before breakfast.

I will let the photos that follow speak for a very small portion of what we saw. Some of the other highlights included:

• The bartender at Claro Que Seafood in Manual Antonio. He is president Barack Obama's twin brother! No kidding. Ask Dave.
• Sleeping in the rain forest after a big heavy rain listening to the rain water works it way down through the forest.
• Learning new Spanish words and phrases -- "Para Vida" is the slogan of Costa Rica
• Seeing vanilla beans growing and also being dried and prepared. Vanilla beans come from an orchid flower. I did not know that.
• John (the oldest guy on the trip) saying: "It's been a good vacation when you've had flan every day."
• Gustavo, our guide, commenting on Ricardo, our driver, finding the rare "double breasted mattress trasher" bird.
• Meeting thirteen other people who are enthusiastic about travel, nature and fun.