Matapalo.

Is there anything better than rain on a Sunday study night? SoCal college student Nikki thinks not.

Cats and dogs and howling wind.

See, I wonder if there's anything better, and then I remember everything I've been doing all day besides studying. I'm going to have to leave everyone with a caption spree tonight because there is a lab report on Ant Lions calling my name.

Preface: Today is Sunday, the day of rest and homework. 

Preface translation: Today is Sunday, the day of study breaks from not studying to explore trails down by the waterfall in hopes of finding the hollow Matapalo (strangler fig and my favorite tree). 

On attempt number three, after some minor wading through the river and climbing red clay slopes, we found the fig tree. 

It's impossible to capture the setting of our climb on film. My camera had such buggy eyes that it busted off its lens cap, which was lost in the forest. The bottom roots of the tree looked so separate until you were standing directly beneath it. A few steps on solid roots and you find yourself inside the sturdiest playground tube of hollowed out trunk. 

Looking up towards the top of the tree; hard angles on slopes. I wish I'd been able to bring my camera, but I wanted to have all my climbing limbs available. 

So incredible. Tree network. 

The inner part of the trunk is how we climbed up to the canopy; it's insanely secure (worried parents). Our teachers recommended the ascent. So imagine tiny foot-sized holes filled with butterflies and epiphytes looking down to the river and other treetops below: imagine emerging in the canopy of a tree hundreds of years old--the world below you, the tree spiraling up in mossy abandon to where it terminates in leaves forty feet above. I can't really put that feeling in to words. 

We had to go up one by one because the trunk was too narrow to fit more than one person. Jeff and Skyler and I took turns. When Jeff came out, he scaled the top of the lower roots and found this knife. He found it stuck in to one of the roots of the trunk...wonder who left it. Stories. 

Here's the bottom of the tree from the other side of the river, on the trail heading back to the station. It's the bigger one on the left. 

And closer. Matapalo means strangler fig. Certainly my favorite tree. 

And now...pictures of the garden outside of the station as per request. Yay!

Pretty pretty. 

Clusia!

Love that there are plant hangers in the land of endless epiphytes. 

Look! Delayed greening as an energy saving strategy! Awesome!

Love it. 

Post-hiking mud. 

Banana plant flower with little green banana hands. 

I really love the laundry line greenhouse. What Sunday would be complete without laundry?

The detergents here are fantastic, too. Jasmine and mora and citrus. Helps with the mustiness that comes from everything being humid and misty all the time. 

Washing the mud off and rocking the teva tan. Even hoses are visually compelling here. 

There are these cool old wagon wheels propped up against the side of the station. Lots of moths and walking sticks and beetles congregate here at night. 

Hiking feet and bracelets and not studying. 

And finally, the abstract bird poster which is hanging behind the long dinner table on the first floor of the station. At the center is a Quetzal; a motmot on the left. Manakins, bellbirds...paradise. 

And it's late. 

And I have that lab report. 

So I think I'm going to get on that. 

More adventures to come. Stay tuned. Less than two weeks now; then we're off again! Cheers!