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Costa Rica is in Central America, but only just, because if you go any further south, you’ll only find Panama before you reach South America.

The word ‘Costa’ refers to the country’s 800 miles (1,300 kilometres) of coast, which borders the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west, both of which get their fair share of islands, with thirty main islands and hundreds of smaller islands – perhaps the most notable being Cocos Island, which is located 555 km away, deep into the Pacific, and is so small that visitors are given just 5hr to visit the place before they’re kicked out.

Some say this is to conserve the wildlife, but others say it’s to dissuade treasure hunters who claim it’s home to hidden pirate loot.

The mainland is divided into seven provinces, the most notable being San Jose, which is home to the country’s capital city, San José – not to be confused with the San Jose that Dionna Warwick wanted to know the way too, which is in fact in California.

In total, Costa Rica covers an area roughly 20k sq. miles (51k sq. kms), which is about one-tenth the size of France.

It’s a tropical country, filled with stunning beaches, and over 100 volcanos, but it’s best known for its lush rainforests, with national parks covering around 25% of the entire country and containing more than 500,000 species of wildlife.

Not only is Costa Rica one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, it’s one of the most ecologically protected places too, with bans in place on recreational hunting and deforestation, and 99% of the country’s energy being produced entirely by a combination of wind, solar and hydro power.

The predominant religion is Roman Catholicism, the currency is the Costa Rican colón, and the national animal is the white-tailed deer, which can run at 30mph (48kmph), jump as high as 8 feet (2.4 meters), and as far as 30 feet (9.1 meters) in a single bound

Costa Rica doesn’t have a national flag – it has two!

They’re pretty much identical, both consisting of five horizontal stripes: blue, white, red, white, and blue - but one of them features the national coat of arms, which is a golden picture frame with an illustration of seven stars above three smoking volcanos, surrounded by oceans on either side, with two merchant boats flying tiny versions of the flag - making Costa Rica one of the few examples of countries that feature a flag of their flag on their flag.

The anthem is called, "Noble fatherland, your beautiful flag", and it was composed in 1852 by a 22-year-old called Manuel María Gutiérrez.
He was the Director of the Costa Rican Military Band at the time, and he was ordered to compose a tune that would impress some diplomats who were due to visit the country.

There’s an urban myth that he wrote it while sitting in a prison cell because he refused to write something in less than 24 hours, but in reality, he didn’t complain, composed it at home over three or four days, and even enlisted help from a friend and adventurer, called Gabriel-Pierre Lafond de Lurcy.

Sadly, the anthem pretty much forgotten after being played for the first time.

But eventually it resurfaced and was officially adopted in 1853.

Over the years, a few attempts have been made to make a new version, but nothing has been chosen yet, and this version remains the anthem to this day.

COSTA RICA FACTS!

Costa Rica is home to ‘death apples’! If you’re wandering through the jungle and you get a bit peckish, be careful what you eat.

Because there is a tree there which holds the Guinness World Record for being the ‘most dangerous tree’ on earth.

Called the Manchineel Tree, it is so notoriously dangerous, that signs are placed near them to warn people to stay away. That’s because every single part of the tree is toxic - the bark, the leaves, the fruits, and the sap.

The sap is so toxic in fact that one drop can burn through your skin like acid, with frequent cases of people sheltering under the tree during rainstorms suffering severe burns where the water washed sap off the tree onto their skin and caused excruciating pain and blisters.

Some people have even lost their eyesight after burning the wood and getting clouds of toxic smoke in their eyes.

One of the most famous victims of the Manchineel Tree is a Spanish conquistador called Juan Ponce de Leon, who in 1521 was hit by an arrow that had been dipped in Manchineel sap and died of his wounds a painful couple of days later.

But it’s the fruit that most people are warned to avoid.

At just one or two inches wide, resembling a small green apple, they’re sweet-smelling, and could easily be snacked upon without knowing that they can cause hours of agony - and potentially death - with just a single bite.

They’re a fruit that Christopher Columbus once called "manzanilla de la muerte" or "the little apple of death".
I found one article from the year 2000, which reported that a radiologist called Nicola Strickland stumbled upon one of the trees and decided to eat one of the fruits, and just moments after taking a bite, she noticed a strange peppery feeling in her mouth, which quickly progressed to a burning, tearing sensation, and only got worse, leading to the point that she could barely swallow because of excruciating pain and the feeling of a huge lump in her throat".

The one exception to avoiding the Manchineel Tree is if you’re an Iguana. Apparently the fruit isn’t poisonous to them, and they happily snack away on the little green death apples!

Talking of death.. Being a Botanist in Costa Rica is a dangerous profession! Costa Rica is a mecca for botanists, with hundreds of researchers heading there every year to root around looking for cool new plants.

But finding flowers and looking at leaves is not always an easy life. Jungle-life is full of danger, with toxic plants, dangerous animals, and parasitic insects all wanting a piece of you.

In 1986 a Malaysian PhD student in botany died, age 24, while doing a Tropical Studies field course in Costa Rica when he fell into a crevice, became stuck and was then attacked by bees; when his body was recovered, he had sustained 8000 stings

History of Costa Rica

In pre colonial times, the area where Costa Rica is now was an area described, somewhat dismissively as the Intermediate area.
What that means is that it lay between two areas more famous for larger, more state-like civilisations - Mesoamerica to the North which provided home to a range of civilisations such as the Olmec, Aztec and the Mayan and to the South we have the Central Andes, home of the Inca.
And in the middle, the Intermediate area.
But before that, in the beginning, there were bands of hunter gatherers. It is believed that between 19,000 to 10,000 years BCE small groups of early man, wandered around hunting and eating giant sloths, mastadons and giant armadillos.
12,000 BCE or thereabouts people began to settle down, in the Reventazón Hydroelectric Project archaeologists evidence was discovered of up to 66 human settlements.
Culturally, the northern tip is basically in the Mesoamerican area. The middle and South, meanwhile fall into the trips-off-the-tongue Isthmo-Colombian Area, characterised by people speaking the Chibchan languages.
And that’s about it, as you might expect a number of tribes developed inhabiting various areas of the country such as the Corobicís and Nahuatl tribes who were famed for their crafts and lived in the central highlands of Costa Rica and the Chibcha and Diquis tribes who were noted goldsmithing
So they lived and loved and generally got on with life until September 18, 1502 when who should stumble upon the place – it’s only Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage.
Twenty years later, in 1524 we see the first Spanish colony in Costa Rica, Villa Bruselas.
Then Costa Rica, despite having a name that means ‘rich coast’ becomes something of a backwater in the Spanish colonial world, but not sufficiently so to prevent the devastationof the native population. This stood at about 120,000 in 1569 and was down to less than 10% of that, just 10,000 people by 1611.
The early 19th century saw Spain taken over by Napolean and a number of Spanish colonies saw it as a good opportunity for a revolt.
In 1821 Costa Rica joined Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala in a joint declaration of independence from Spain.
After a bit of jockeying for position, the area of Costa Rica became part of a larger independent entity, the Federal Republic of Central America. Then in 1838 Costa Rica splits from here as well, becoming its own independent republic.
To give you some idea of how loosey goosey things were at that time, in 1856, William Walker, an American decided to embark on a private invasion, landed in neighbouring Nicaragua, proclaimed himself president and tried to invade Costa Rica, who promptly kicked him right back out again.
1869 saw elections in Costa Rica that started a period of democracy that is in contrast with some of the challenges and upheaval you see in some of the other ex colonies.
In fact since then there have only been two brief periods of violence, a dictatorship that lasted from 1917–19 and a 44 day civil war in 1948.
The winners of that created a new constitution in 1953 and amazingly that included abolishing the army, and since then they have been on the very short list of nations that have no standing army.
And it’s been pretty peaceful since then.
Economically there was something of a hiccup. In 1978 they relied on banana and coffee exports, but when coffee prices dropped and the next year the price of oil soared, the country was plunged into crisis.
This resulted in a leap in poverty and eventually the devaluation of the currency, but after a while they got on the road to recovery.
And since then they have transformed their economy. Now although bananas and coffee are still important, there’s been a huge rise in tourism, which you might expect – Costa Rica is the most visited nation in central America.
But perhaps more surprisingly technology, with Microsoft, Motorola, Intel and others all establishing operations in the area and the country begin called by some the Silicon Valley of Latin America.
And one economic outlook I read said “The region currently enjoys macroeconomic stability with good forecasts,” so it looks like a rosy future for Costa Rica
Huzzah.

What is Botany?

Botany is the scientific study of plants. And the name for a person who does this scientific study? Easy. A Botanist.

Find a new flower, study it, give it a name.. job done.

Only botany is a bit more complicated than that. Yes, it covers things like appearance and function, so what the plant looks like and how it behaves.

But it also covers their genetic make-up, how they interact with their environment, what economic benefit they can bring, how different cultures use them for things like medicine and rituals, and even the study of extinct species

Botany is an essential science that helps us understand the role that plants play in the global ecosystem.

Becoming a botanist isn’t easy, you have to have at least a Batchelor’s degree in some sort of plant related science – but many Botanists go on to pursue a masters degree or a doctorate.

As you might expect, there’s a lot of fieldwork required, so as a botanist you have to love being outdoors, but you also have to be academically minded, able to write scientific journals and present your findings.

Many botanists specialise in the study of certain plants, while others remain generalists, or take jobs as science teachers or college professors.

More recently there’s been an uptick in the number of botanists that take work as private consultants, working for environmental agencies, agricultural companies, or biotech firms.
The first known botanist was a Greek-philosopher called Theophrastus, who was born in 371 BCE, and during his life wrote several works chronicling and classifying various plants.

Work like “Historia Plantarum” (Enquiry into plants), which is considered one of the earliest botany textbook, introducing terms and concepts still in use today, and basically laying the foundation for future botanical studies .

He wrote about the impacts of seasonal changes on plants, various pests and diseases, and was also the first person to determine that counting the rings of a tree trunk could be used to measure its age.

But there have been many other notable botanists over the years, people like…

Dutch scientist, Jan Ingenhousz, who in the 18th century discovered that light is essential for plants to produce oxygen in a process he called ‘photosynthesis’.

An American botanist called Luther Burbank, who in the 19th Century developed over 800 varieties of various flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Norman Borlaug, who in the 20th century developed high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties which saved millions of people from starvation.

Even, friend of the podcast, Joseph Banks, who you might recall travelled with Captain James Cook on his voyage to Australia in the 1760s, where he collected over 30,000 plant specimens, many of which were unknown to science.

Today, there’s very few places on Earth that Botanists haven’t visited, discovering all sorts of plants, including weird and wonderful green things like the ‘corpse flower’ which produces flowers that smell of rotting flesh, or the eastern skunk cabbage which produces its own heat to melt snow around it so that it won’t freeze in cold weather.

There are even botanists in space, looking to see how plants grow in zero gravity and working on theories of what extraterrestrial plants might look like.

The point is, Botany is not merely the study of plants, but a wild and wonderful journey of endless discovery in a universe of green.


Plants that go to your head

Combining study and plant life gave me the theme of ‘plants used by Costa Rican’s to get intoxicated.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo is described as a Spanish soldier ,writer , botanist, ethnographer and colonizer and he travelled around the Caribbean and central American region, including what is now Costa Rica between 1492 and 1549.
And he wrote a book about his travels. It’s called of Historia general y natural de las Indias, “General and Natural History of the Indies” and it tells of his journeys.
Now, the first part was printed in 1535, but before the second part was printed he died – and in fact the complete work wasn’t published until 1851 to 1855 in four volumes – square in our time period.
One of the things Oviedo writes about is plants, he talks about a number of plants, including what is believed to be the oldest extant drawing of a pineapple.
But he also talks about another plant that was very important to the people of Costa Rica, because it was used in ceremonial and shamanistic ceremonies.
It’s a plant found across the Americas and founded a multi million pound global industry… tobacco
Tobacco, latin name Nicotiana tabacum is a plant from the night-shade family. It grows around a metre tall, although that can vary, it has broad green leaves, which are what are dried and used to smoke and it produces long tubular flowers that come in a variety of colours including white, yellow and purple and it’s actually rather pretty.
Archeological studies suggest the use of tobacco in around first century BC, when Maya people of Central America used tobacco leaves for smoking in sacred and religious ceremonies.
Christopher Columbus arriving in the area noticed the high value the plant was held in and he brought a few tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe.
But it wasn’t immediately popularised. In fact it was the mid-16th century, when it’s use caught on, influenced by the likes of French diplomat Jean Nicot de Villemain who sent tobacco and seeds to Paris in 1560, and for whom nicotine, the substance that gives you the buzz is now named.
Clearly the habit caught on around the world although today it is less popular than its heyday due to, you know, all the cancer.
But going back to Oviedo, he wrote about the reception of the a high-ranking chief or cacique in Costa Rica on August 19, 1529: Oviedo writes, “The cacique presented a handful of rolls of tobacco, about four inches long and the thickness of a finger, made of a certain rolled leaf and tied with fibers of pita. They cultivate tobacco with great care because of the effect produced by its leaves. They light the roll at one end and smoke it like a pipe until it stops burning, which can last a whole day.
From time to time, they put in the mouth the opposite extremity to the one that is lighted and inhale the smoke a moment, and then throw it out through the mouth and nostrils. And each of the Indians I mentioned had of these rolled leaves, which they call yapoquete.”
Further evidence of Tobacco use in the area is a small stone sculpture about 30cm high in the National Museum of Costa Rica of a figure described as a “thinker” and/or “smoker,” sitting on a stool, holding what appears to be a rather huge cigar, which is believed to represent the consumption of tobacco by a ritual specialist.
Tobacco wasn’t just a habit, it was of ritual importance. We’ve seen it used to celebrate a chieftain, but it was also used by Shamans in their rituals.
Another writer on the area is a man named William Gabb, and American paleantologist who wrote a book entitled On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica which was published in 1875, a tantalising 6 years after our time period.
He talks about the Shamanic claim to use tobacco control the weather, about which he says, “They also claim to bring or drive away rain. To do this, the doctor must have a pipe full of tobacco, or a cigar. He goes into the open air, smokes, blows the smoke in certain directions, calling out in an imperative tone of voice, "Rain, go to — " whatever place he may see fit to designate'. Once when prisoners between two swollen rivers, forced to wait for them to fall low enough for us to ford ; one of our few means of amusement was to give one of these fellows, in our suite, a pipe full of tobacco, and set him to clearing up the weather. He would go outside of our little hut, and between the puffs of smoke would call out, " Rain, go to Panama, " "go to Chiriqui," "gotoCartago," in short, to every remote place of which he happened to know the name. It took him ten days before his efforts were crowned with success, and when ultimately the blue patches did begin to appear in the sky, he had the effrontery to calmly claim it as his doing.”
I don’t think Mr Gabb was a true believer, but I ask you, who’s the smart one, the snarky American, or the guy getting free cigars?
So that’s tobacco in Costa Rica, But if you’re not a smoker, not to worry, because I have one other plant that the people of Costa Rica in our period used for its intoxicating properties – and that’s maize aka corn.
Oviedo describes it well, saying “each stalk gives at least one ear and some give out two or three, and in each ear there are two hundred and three hundred kerels… and each spike or ear of these is wrapped around by three or four leaves or skin, wrapped tightly over the kernels.”
You might think of corn as just something you eat – but no, you can also make booze out of it, and the people of Costa Rica did exactly that, creating a fermented beer-like beverage known as Chicha.
In fact it seems that was the main reason they cultivated it in our area.
Chicha seems to be less directly magical, but definitely ceremonial and social.
According to Gabb again, chicha served as a form of social currency. When a person wanted to clear a piece of forest for a plantation or to build a house they needed to provide a suitable amount of chicha to lure in their neighbours.
“On the day appointed his neighbors unite early at his house, or at the spot designated, and work industriously until about noon. All then repair to the house, and, after a good round of chicha drinking, food is served, followed by more chicha. After a while dancing begins, and is kept as long as the chicha holds out. Sometimes the work is continued for two or three days, but always ends early in the day, the afternoon and evening being devoted to eating and especially to drinking.”
Which sound like a good day out.
Now Ryan, I have to tell you Chicha is not a very strong alcohol, you might get to 1 to 3 percent alcohol.
And the other thing that might put you off is the way it is made.
In order to convert the starch of the maize into dextrins and maltose ie sugars, you chew the maize to break it down, then spit it out to make your drink.
Yum.
I’ve found it described as having a sour taste and a cloudy, pale yellow white to color, but also seen it described as slightly vinegary.
Chicha is found all across the region, it is not specific to Costa Rica but apparently Costa Rica has become the centre of a revival of the drink, with one website describing it as “a hub of innovation in the craft beer scene.” Adding, “Inspired by chicha's traditional brewing methods and distinctive flavors, Costa Rican breweries have crafted their own interpretations of this traditional, beloved beverage.”
And I’ll admit I did try to buy some genuine spit-based chicha for you Ryan, but you’ll be devastated to learn it doesn’t travel well, so I was unable to manage it.
So there you have it ryan, beer and tobacco, a good night out thanks to Botany, in Costa Rica during 1603 to 1868
The Peace Tree

For the last section of the show, I’m gonna take us on a literal and figurative botanical journey to the heart of Costa Rica’s plant life.

We set off from the bustling heart of San José, the capital of Costa Rica, and we cruise down the Pan-American Highway, weaving through the lush landscapes of the Sierra de Guanacaste - a region filled with rolling hills covered in dense forests filled with the Guanacaste tree, Costa Rica's national tree, revered not just for its beauty, but also its distinctive ear-shaped seed pods which give it the nickname the "elephant-ear tree"
After an hour and a half, we arrive at the access road to the Tenorio Volcano National Park, one of Costa Rica’s newest parks, being established in 1995.

We enter a winding section of road and are met with breathtaking views of grass savannahs and scattered trees, but soon start to ascend into what’s called ‘the middle elevations’ - a dense rainforest, where the canopy is so thick it almost blots out the sun.

Home to a stunning array of wildlife, like Jaguars, howler monkeys, and colonies of ants that build their homes in hollowed out tree trunks – the result of strangler figs, a type of plant that start their life high in the branches of a tree and slowly send their roots down to the ground, gradually enveloping and killing the host tree and creating hollow structures inside of them.

Across the forest floor is a carpet of ferns so big that they reach up to twenty feet tall, and mushrooms that glow in the dark thanks to bioluminescent chemicals in their cells.

But we continue on up the road, past shrubs, and wildflowers, and the Mimosa pudica - a plant which quickly folds up its leaves whenever it is touched – until we can see the landscape of Costa Rica stretching away beneath us, we’re so high into that we can even see Nicaragua’s Lake Cocibolca, 66 miles / 105 kms away.

But as the road continues on the view disappears and we’re surrounded in thick mist, because here at the top of the mountain, we’ve entered into a mystical cloud forest, home to ancient, towering trees draped in a type of moss that is so spongy it can absorb up to twenty times its own weight in water.

Here there are species of plants that don’t exist anywhere else on the planet - like the ‘Poor Man’s Umbrella’ which has leaves over a metre wide that poor people use as an umbrella.

Here in this wet and humid forest, bright and colourful flowers grow among the branches, like bromeliads (which are part of the pineapple family) which have leaves so deep that they can collect litres of water in them, enough water in fact to make little ecosystems for insects and amphibians, like the tiny glass frog, which has skin so transparent that you can see all its internal organs.

And there are over 1400 species of orchids here too, with petals in every possible colour, and ranging in size from as large as 75cm (30 inches) to as small as 2mm across.

But our journey isn’t over.. and as we cross over the peak, and head down out of the cloud forest, we head into the province of Alajuela, where the road ends and we are forced to get out and walk along a trail called the ‘Mysteries of the Tenorio’.

This is a 3km path of dense jungle, filled with resurrection ferns - which appear dried and dead until the rains come, when the leaves turn green within a matter of hours - wild Avocados, and Blue Ginger - a plant which isn’t a true ginger, but actually a spiderwort plant that produces intensely blue flowers.
Anyway, we follow this path all the way to the end, where we’re met by a roaring cascade of water – the Celeste River waterfall - that plunges 20 meters down into a lagoon bordered by red heliconias, also known as Lobster Claws, which are not actually flowers, but leaves that turn bright red for months at a time, and are pollinated by hummingbirds.

The lagoon has a rich milky turquoise water, which is the result of sulfur and calcium carbonate minerals being dispersed into the river from the park's four volcanos: Tenorio Uno, Tenorio Dos, Montezuma, and Bijagua.

Here we take a short walk into the jungle, and find ourselves at the end of our journey - standing in front of an imposing natural wonder, called ‘Kapok 53113’.

It’s a type of tree called a ‘Ceiba pentandra’, otherwise known as a ‘Kapok tree’, and in 2021, a bunch of researchers went down there and measured it’s height, and found that it was an incredible 48m (157ft) tall – 2m taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Amazingly, this made it only the fifth tallest tree in Costa Rica, the tallest measuring 64.5m, which is like a 20-story building, or The Leaning Tower of Pisa (the higher side of it).

But while the tree is not the tallest in Costa Rica, it is in fact, the oldest tree in Costa Rica, estimated to be aged somewhere around 400 years old.

Which means that somewhere in the Costa Rican jungle, sometime around 1650, between the months of December to April when the dry season hits, large woody fruits of a mature Kapok tree started to split open and drop its seeds.

But these seeds didn’t just drop directly to the ground, because thanks to a coating of fluffy cotton-like fibres coating the seeds, they caught on the wind and floated several kms away, eventually settling on the forest floor.

And one of these seeds landed right where Kapok 53113 is standing today.

Now, the seed either landed on a patch of soil that was warm, moist, and bathed in sunlight, such that it sprouted immediately, or.. it didn’t.

Because it’s also possible that the seed didn’t germinate for several months, passing time on the ground until the rainy season arrived at which point the combination of moisture and temperature caused the seed to activate its embryonic root, called a radicle, and start to anchor the seedling into the soil.

At this point, sprouting from the top, little leaves unfolded, and the seedling started to suck down on sunlight like a solar buffet.

But this was a dangerous time for our tiny little seedling, because survival is harsh and unforgiving on the forest floor.
It had to grow up quickly to outcompete other plants for light and nutrients and to avoid being eaten by rodents, birds, and insects.

But our seedling is strong, and it survives against the odds, growing 12 inches (30 cms) in six weeks and 2 feet (60cm) in its first year.

The years pass, and our seedling turned sapling continues to soar higher and higher towards the distant canopy above.

Roots extend out from its trunk and continue deep below ground helping to stabilize its increasing weight in the shallow tropical soil.

And within the first ten years, the trunk has grown a thick skin of bark to help it survive wildfires, and a series of large conical thorns to prevent animals from nibbling away at it.

Branches stretch out into the air, and become the home for a host of flappies and flowers - orchids, honey bees bromeliads, and bats.

20 years pass, and the tree is now mature, producing its own beautiful night-blooming flowers which emerge across its branches, producing a strong musky smell that attracts bats who are looking for a tasty source of nectar and pollen.

The bats flit between the branches munching away at the flowers, unknowingly pollinating the flowers – and this is the tree’s first foray into sex.

As the flowers are pollinated, so eventually they turn into thousands of 15cm (6in) woody pods, filled with the same fluffy, yellowish cellulose fibres that first carried the seed to this spot.

And with the tree now focused on reproduction, it stops growing taller, and for the next few centuries, diverts its energy instead into having more and more bat sex.

Centuries pass by slowly, and far down below on the forest floor, the shadow of the massive tree attracts other creatures to it too – deer, and Jaguar, but also an indigenous group of humans called the Maleku, who see the tree as sacred - representing a physical connection between the earth and the sky, a towering passageway for human spirits to journey from one life to the next.

In fact, they refer to the tree as “Stairs to Heaven” and with the passing of their chief, the tribe bring the corpse to the Kapok tree, and lay it amongst the roots to begin its spiritual ascension through the trunk, up to the highest branches, to the heavens.

As the years pass, generation after generation are taught the importance of preserving the Kapok - how the tree maintains the balance of nature and ensures the survival and well-being of their people.
But also, how the tree can be useful on a daily basis too, and not just when they’re dead, because the Maleku harvest parts of the tree for everyday objects, using it to make things like, kayaks, baskets and the very huts that they lived in mattresses and pillows.

But one of the major reasons why La Paz de arbol has continued to grow to such an enormous height, is because of the decline of the Maleku people themselves.

The Maleku population has significantly declined over the past centuries due to various factors such as disease, colonization, and land encroachment. During the colonial period, many indigenous communities, including the Maleku, faced displacement and significant changes to their traditional ways of life.

The colonialists described The Maleku as a hostile, active, and hardy people.

And perhaps that has helped them tough it out – because where the Maleku once numbered around 6000 people on Costa Rica, today there are only 600 remaining - making them the smallest tribe in Costa Rica.

Located in the Guatuso Indigenous Reserve - The Maleku live in an area that is just 11.5 square miles, of which, they legally own only 2 square miles.

But as for our Kapok tree, it survived through all of this and in 1989 was officially recognized as the country’s ‘Tree of Peace’, it’s ‘Arbol de la Paz’

So, the next time you’re in Costa Rica, make your way to the Tenorio Volcano National Park and take a moment to visit the Arbol de la Paz.

Stand beneath its towering branches and reflect on its 400-year journey, and the vital role it played in maintaining the ecological balance

And if you take a selfie with it, or have a story you want to share, let us know at peteandryan@hhepodcast or on social media @hhepodcast