One day during our visit in June, 2006, Filiberto asked one of his good friends, Orlando, to use his pickup truck for us to go over the continental divide to the city of David on the south coast for a plant-finding expedition.  Not only did Orlando allow us the use of his pickup, he took the day off from work and did the 300 miles of driving!  Now that's friendship and he said it was like a holiday for him.

Filiberto also allowed his son, Rafael, to take a day off from school to go along with us and he was able to learn about the nature of climatology for the day.  Rafael is very interested in ecology as well so the day was really five guys going for a drive and exploring nature.

We were witness to many varieties of plants that were probably common during prehistoric times in the cloud-forest; from orchids to tree ferns and everything in between.  Here is a photo-journal of our trip to David:

 

The picture above shows one of the many varieties of orchids we encountered during our trip; here are some more:

Going over the mountain, from Changuinola through Chiriqui Grande, Lake Fortuna and into David gave us one awe-inspiring view to another:

 

Here are some additional plant pictures from the trip:

Paul and Brad, Your Hosts!