ficus corcovado costa rica

National Park on the Oso Peninsula in Costa Rica:
"The Corcovado forests exemplify the popular conception
of the tropical rain forest, with a multitude of species,
very tall trees, spectacular buttresses, large woody
lianas and abundant herbaceous vines." (Daniel Janzen)
The Park itself requires local guides and registration for
hiking. However the tropical rain forest spills out of the
park boundaries and is accessible by trail and muddy
roads. One of the many species of trees in the forest is
the: "Ficus aurea is a strangler fig. In figs of this group,
seed germination usually takes place in the canopy of a
host tree with the seedling living as an epiphyte until
its roots establish contact with the ground. After that,
it eventually becoming a free-standing tree in its own right.
enlarges and strangles its host. Individuals may reach 30
meters in height. Like all figs, it has an obligate mutualism
with fig wasps: figs are only pollinated by fig wasps, and
fig wasps can only reproduce in fig flowers." (Wikipedia)

I was looking for a ficus tree
I went on the guided tour
a day hike of Corcovado National Park
I saw numerous examples of ficus trees
I was with a group of eight
I was unable to extricate myself
I asked the guide could
I stay at some location by myself
He was uneasy with that request
I realized I would have to search
the trails north of the park
closer to Bahia Drake for my tree
I found a unique tree
with a root system crawling
over the ground

I had brought with me a 2.5" lcd monitor which I had used in previous wall installations in galleries. This monitor required a battery pack and a media player with its own battery pack in order to function. Although cumbersome, it made an interesting installation. While attempting to pin the monitor and its circuit board to the tree roots, one of the wires connecting the screen to the circuit board broke. I had not brought a soldering iron with me and figured it would be difficult to find one in Drake's Bay. I thought I would have to give up on this set up. I peeled back the covering to the broken wire and touched it to the spot where it should have been connected. The monitor worked as long as I held the exposed wire to the soldering joint. I laid the board on the ground and placed a rock on top of the broken wire touching the circuit board and somehow it continued to work. This allowed me to take the ficus video starring bette davis, this time in the role of Jezebel in the 1938 movie of the same name. bette is the spoiled daughter of a New Orleans plantation owner who knows which man she will marry regardless of his ideas (Henry Fonda was the object). The scene from the movie is when she is being fitted for a dress to wear at the 'ball'. Henry Fonda goes on to get malaria or something similiar during an epidemic and is to be shipped off to some island with the rest of the quarantined patients. bette, not sick at this moment, decides to abandon her selfish desires and vows to nurse him back to health. This also saves the life of the woman he really loves. She fails to save Henry or herself and in this way becomes heroic in the end.

He wanted to buy some pot. He always wanted to buy some pot. The train from San Jose to Limon was continuing it's descent from the mountains to the jungle covered land next to the ocean. Work on this line was begun in 1872. An American hired by the Costa Rican government hired Jamaicans to clear the forest and lay the track. The ancestors of those workers still live in the area around Limon.

As the train slowly approached the coast, the housing changed to an 'English' style, wooden clapboard construction on stilts similar to housing in Belize. A Panamanian young man was walking down the train aisle. After a greeting and some questions he stated he could find people who sold pot in Limon. That night a deluge soaked Limon. The next day was clear, so Panama took us to a river wharf where we caught a small river taxi full of passengers to a destination south of Limon.

From there we took a fishing boat, a sort of flat bottomed canoe to where we met a couple of local Costa Ricans of Jamaican descent. We tied to a dock emerging from the reeds growing in the river. We tasted their product sitting in the boat under the cumulus sky watching the eddies swirl in the river then bought a small bag before returning to Limon via the ferry. That night the a thunderstorm returned bringing more torrential rain.