Jardín Botánico de Vallarta

We planned a side trip to the botanical gardens outside of Puerto Vallarta. It took us a long time and lots of trial and error to find the proper bus stop. Other travelers tried to be helpful, but we got a lot of misinformation. Finally we tracked down the office of the botanical gardens, right in town, and a woman there gave us the authoritative guidance. We managed to get to the bus stop just a few minutes before the bus arrived.

One of our first sights there was this peacock showing off. They are just too fantastic looking. I got to thinking about their name “peacock” and why it is not “resplendent palace bird of veneration”, or something like that. I translated “peacock” into a few languages via Google Translate, and always a fairly dull name starting with P. Derived from the Latin word for peacock, which is pavo.

In case you’re wondering:

A group of peacocks is called an “ostentation” or a “muster”.

Wikipedia

I took a photo of this plant with its name tag because I have a sad specimen of this at home. My Sedum burrito has just a single strand that hangs down. I should probably pinch it back to help it become fuller. Throughout Mexico we saw healthy stands of what we consider house plants growing vigorously outdoors.

There was a whole pavilion full of orchids. The color of these was particularly glowing.

The botanical gardens featured a vanilla plantation. It is grown on these posts and hand-pollinated. Nothing seemed to be happening at this time of year. I bought some liquid vanilla and some bean pods in the gift shop.

We decided to hike the Jaguar Trail down to the river through the forest. Here’s a nice photo of my traveling companions taking a rest by the river.

The strangest thing that happened on this trip happened right here at the Deep Pool of Thought. (I borrowed the name from a piece of Jude’s that I like very much.)

We came up to the pool and stopped to admire the colors and forms of the rock. I noticed a small piece of paper on the ground and wondered who would litter in this beautiful spot. Should I pick it up? I decided to, and examined it. I was shocked to discover that it was mine! Not only my piece of paper, but next to my passport, probably my most important piece of paper – the car check ticket for our car that was parked in Woburn, Massachusetts. I had vowed to myself that I would keep this paper in my safest pocket and not carelessly travel around with it. I guess that plan failed due to switching fanny packs and moving cash and things around. I still don’t know how it fell to the ground right at that spot and marvel at whatever possessed me to notice it and pick it up at that moment.

This strange bird-house shaped object hung in a tree. Ok seems reasonable — but it was large, very large. Like four feet tall? I took a photo to maybe later show a staff person to ask about it, but I never had the chance. It remains a mystery.

This little beauty caught my eye on the way out of the gardens to catch the bus back. I love the vibrant colors and foliage of this blooming cactus. There were so many flowers around us that I almost started to take them for granted. Now that I’m home in gray/brown February Maine, I am enjoying these flowers all over again.