Travel Journal 5

InBio park was vast in its biodiversity and was a convenient location since it was so close to the town of Heredia. We managed to explore the entire park within a time period of an hour and a half, covering the corn maze, the butterfly gardens, the spider and snake sanctuaries, and the underwater aquarium. I really enojoyed the water aquarium as we saw fish up to 5 feet long. I also took particular notice of how the iguanas tails were the same length as their body, giving them a total length of 6 feet. I was surprised how the entire set-up was a total biodiversity immersion as soon as you entered the park. By this, I mean I was surprised how the exhibit itself mostly took part in the forest that surrounded us as we walked along the trail. It was neat to know that as we followed the trail, there were sloths, iguanas, Jacana, and white-tailed deer. I was surprised also with how diverse the park really was, with 100 species of birds and 583 native plants. InBio itself represents Costa Rica´s pre-mountainous forest where there were trees and plants that represented Costa Rica´s central valley. I loved the rainforest ecosystem as it was one of the world´s richest in diversity and remained green all year long with its high levels of humidity. I was surprised with how many types of ecosystems InBio managed to replicate and portray. InBio is important to Costa Rica and our program because of its encapsulation of Costa Rica´s biodiversity. The richness of biodiversity allowed for us to observe Costa Rica more fully in its beautful and natural entity. I felt that InBio was a nice segway for excursions to come since it was a neat summary for us of the climate, vegetation, and animal life we would anticipate to see in excursions to come. Another nice thing about InBio was that I felt that I really got to know Mario our tour guide as he throughly described the rich plant and animal life of the private research institution established in 1989. I have no doubt as to why this excursion was included in the program given its convenient location and accurate potrayal of Costa Rican ecosystems of volcanos, lagoons, plantains, dry forests, and rain forests. I felt that InBio was a neat pre-requiste for the exploration of the natural wonder that is Costa Rica.