Something amusing
Jan. 10th, 2008 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreSomewhere along the line I heard rumours that with a really good guide it was possible to see 400 bird species in a day in Costa Rica. Of course someone else provided the voice of reason and mentioned that seeing that many in a day would mean seeing a new species every few minutes and the subsequent frantic ticking and moving on would completely diminish the experience of observing the birds and wildlife and natural beauty of the place. If I see 100 birds a day it would still be utterly spectacular, and that seems quite a possibility.
So of course Costa Rica settled itself into my "countries to visit ASAP" list (as opposed to my "countries to visit eventually - which pretty much includes all of them).
But the clincher that bumped it to a top priority came in a kinda weird way.
Me being intruged by various exotic and gross diseases was one day Googling "Bot fly". An insect that likes to lay eggs on living tissue and the maggots proceed to feed on the living flesh as a parisite. An image search yielded a photograph of a volcanic cone with glowing lava flowing down it's side. A click of the link produced a tale about some poor sod who managed to get botfly larvae on his testicles in Costa Rica, but also made me aware of Volcan Arenal, one of the world's most active volcanoes which was easily and relatively safely viewed from an observatory in the country.
The chance to view this volcano and it's small but spectacular eruptions AS WELL as hundreds of birds (and the vague possibility of an Ocelot and Jaguar) put Costa Rica on top of the list of countries I need to visit as soon as I can afford it.
So of course Costa Rica settled itself into my "countries to visit ASAP" list (as opposed to my "countries to visit eventually - which pretty much includes all of them).
But the clincher that bumped it to a top priority came in a kinda weird way.
Me being intruged by various exotic and gross diseases was one day Googling "Bot fly". An insect that likes to lay eggs on living tissue and the maggots proceed to feed on the living flesh as a parisite. An image search yielded a photograph of a volcanic cone with glowing lava flowing down it's side. A click of the link produced a tale about some poor sod who managed to get botfly larvae on his testicles in Costa Rica, but also made me aware of Volcan Arenal, one of the world's most active volcanoes which was easily and relatively safely viewed from an observatory in the country.
The chance to view this volcano and it's small but spectacular eruptions AS WELL as hundreds of birds (and the vague possibility of an Ocelot and Jaguar) put Costa Rica on top of the list of countries I need to visit as soon as I can afford it.
