Wow! Looks like in general the plants do quite well on rough surfaces (tree bark) and of course don't get taken down and dunked periodically -- but do live in a humid area of the world. The broms definitely prefer to point upward. As tillandsias have more and different shapes (I'm thinking of bulbosas, juncea, Spanish moss, etc), they may find themselves preferring to grow in other directions than up.

Perhaps you have enough pictures for a book! More books on broms and tillandsias would be welcome by enthusiasts. Also in the book you could talk about Costa Rica, as it is in the news currently due to being under a hurricane.

I'm sorry you had physical/health problems, but beyond that, it was a trip you'll remember for a long time -- and be better prepared for the next one! Also, I hadn't thought about the bird watching aspect of such a trip, as I am a birdwatcher, too, but I am more interested in my local birds (as I have a better chance of seeing them). I'm glad you saw the Quetzal, which I believe is the national bird of Mexico.

Feel free to post more pictures, too!

Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, but I did not see any when I was there back in 1979, except on the currency, which was called Quetzals. Mexico's national bird is the golden eagle. It never occurred to me to write a book based on my photographs, but I do have quite a few of bromeliads. The La Paz Waterfall Gardens has a huge collection of bromeliads - here are some of them, but they are not wild:

These were taken during the first part of my walk through this park. I've only edited 16 of them for upload, and so there are eight more from this part of the park. I cropped a few of them, but most of them I left uncropped from the camera. In addition to the bromeliad/heliconia garden, they have a small zoo, a huge butterfly cage, and a hummingbird area, which is not enclosed at all, but has feeders to attract the hummingbirds. It cost $20 per person to enter this park, which I thought was expensive, but then Costa Rica is not known for being cheap (unlike Guatemala). They also take American currency, and in fact expect it as the price was in dollars instead of Colones. We paid by credit card, since we had Colones but not dollars. We also took a zip line tour at Selvatura Park and I had to buy a rain jacket because it drizzled most of the day, even though we were there during the dry season. The next day at Selvatura, it was sunny, and we took a self-guided wildlife tour and saw howler monkeys, among other animals.

I do recommend visiting Costa Rica if you love bromeliads, but be sure to bring plenty of allergy medicine with you, if you have allergies. My sister had a similar problem in Brazil.

Quite a few of the Tillandsia that we saw grew more or less upwards, but there were some that dangled. When I was in Guatemala (near Tikal in the Peten), I saw bromeliad on the jungle floor, and they would blow about in the wind. Some of them may have been Tillandsia - I was not adept at identifying them back then.

I hope bromeliad lovers are seeing your great pictures!

Visiting areas of the world that have climates different from what we're used to, that alone can cause even unknown allergies to pop up. Strange food, different air, all that. Hey, I used to get a cold every time I started a new job (not that many jobs, but I began to notice the trend, a cold and/or a headache for a day or two, then I'd be okay). It was stress, I guess. So even visiting somewhere one has been planning to visit can present unexpected stress and surprises.

And thank you for giving me better info on the national bird. When I read you write that the Quetzal is Guatemala's bird, I immediately looked it up and at

http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_Mexico%27s_national_bird

found

"The national bird of Mexico is the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus). Not to be confused with the Mexican Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), which is found on the Mexican flag and coat of arms."

One of those birds is on the crest of Mexico, fiercely clutching a rattle snake. There is a calmer version on the New Mexico state crest. I'd prefer our state bird, the roadrunner, to be on the NM crest. :)

I wish I had been interested bird and plants when I visited Mexico City in 1973 and 74, but I was more into archeology at the time. I think the only birds I saw were finches ("sparrows") and pigeons, and for plants, there were big palm-like trees everywhere, used a lot in landscaping. I didn't know about broms or tillies at that time.

Thanks for the photos of your yard and especially of the birds. The Lorikeets are beautiful, and I wish we had them here, but I'm afraid they might do great damage to crops, especially fruit. We have quite a few feral parrots here, and some of them have formed into flocks. I have even seen an escaped Cockatoo, and it used to make quite a bit of noise across the street from my house in Venice. I also used to have a Mina bird visit my upstairs window in Culver City and talk to me.

Here are a couple of birds from Costa Rica:

I edited some more bromeliad photos, but they are on a drive that I do not have here right now.

I finally found where I put the edited photos, and now I have to remember which ones I've already posted

Here are some more from La Paz Waterfall garden

I think I may have some more wild photos (which these are not), but I'll have to look for those also.Here are some of the stairs I had to climb on our zipline tour.

Splinter, great bird pictures! We have at least one Kookaburra at our Zoo. At 76, your spirit, knowledge sharing and back yard are all inspirational!

Lars, the third bird in your set, sitting on (maybe?) a prickly pear cactus reminds me of a Western Kingbird, but the one in your picture has a yellower breast, darker wings, no white border on tail, and head is a little flat. Actually not that much like a Western Kingbird... but our KBs come up around tax time in April (as do the hummingbirds), eat a lot of fruit and big flying bugs, nest and have families, and enjoy harassing hawks, who the KBs are faster than (KBs think they are swallows, which also visit in the summer). Then the KBs usually leave in late July; hummingbirds stay later.

Your second set of pictures, from the La Paz Waterfall Garden, are very good as well. The little frog is almost the color of the earlier brom flower. Those stairs you had to climb on the tour look rugged; you'd have to be watching your step and might miss some exotic picture-taking opportunities. But then you'd see the foliage around the steps and maybe get some good close-up pics. I'm glad you're sharing your pictures with us!

The steps were more difficult than they look, as we were already at 5900 feet altitude, which is high enough for me to get out of breath rather quickly, and so it was not possible for me to run up the stairs. Thus I took time to look at the vegetation and take photos, but we did have to keep up with the group we were in. As you can, they were nowhere in sight in front of us and had to wait for us to catch up. The zip line tour we took had the longest zip lines in Costa Rica, and so it was pretty exhilarating, but it was also a bit cloudy. Costa Rica gets 100 inches of rain a year on average, and even more in the rain forests at high altitudes.

I'll ID the birds in my photos later, as I have a wildlife guide to CR somewhere. There are Kingfishers in CR. I believe the second picture is of a Turquoise browed Motmot, and I saw quite a few of those. I also have a lot of hummingbird photos.

The frog is an endangered species but it protected in the park. They generally live inside bromeliads, as there is always water there.

Hi everyone.

Lars - That's a magnificent lot of pictures you've posted and it's great to see how the plantings fit so beautifully into the natural growth with the waterfall and other rain forest plants. I love looking at habitat pictures and of gardens built into natural rain forest settings and could happily look at them all day.

These forums are a wonderful way to share these picture with others less fortunate and unable to travel to these places in person, and I personally thank you for sharing them as there's always an idea or two one can pick up when looking at them closely.

Keep up the great photography because as they say, "a picture paints a thousand words"

All the best, Nev.