Finca Los Monos Botanical Gardens

My neighbor Jane and I set off on Good Friday morning for Finca Los Monos Botanical Garden and the 8:30 am tour.  I have walked by the entrance many times, as it is just a 12 minute walk north from our condo, but this is the first time I venture in.

We are greeted by Lin, who owns the gardens along with her husband.  Jane was lucky to have met them the previous evening at an informal gathering.  Lin is originally from New Zealand.  She and her husband purchased the property approximately 20 years ago.  No one had lived on it for 60 years and it was jungle. The road I take on my walks did not exist, the property was only accessible from the water.  They took machete's and created a path from the mangroves through the jungle to the top of the hill where they decided they would build their home.  Initially they camped.  Then the shell of the house was built and they lived in it, sleeping on a blow-up air mattress.  Eventually the home was completed.

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Lin loves flowers and she personally cleared land around the house to make it more of a garden setting.  The area expanded over time and now she employs two gardeners full time to help her maintain the plants and keep the jungle at bay.  She has plants throughout the property which are native to Panama as well as plants from around the world including the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Tahiti and the Caribbean.

Around the covered patio Lin has hung some abandoned bird nests they have gathered.  I quickly forget the name of the bird.  The nests are built by the male.  Once completed he calls for the females in the area.  If a female likes the nest they mate and only have one chick who lives in the nest eight months before taking flight.  The nest is then abandoned and the process begins again.

After a brief introduction our group of 15 starts on our 90 minute walk through the property.  We see red, pink and white ginger torch.  White is not very common.  Lin has eight different types of banana plants (which are technically herbs) ranging from ornamental pink banana's which self-peel to the common edible banana's of the region.  The different varieties of heliconia are amazing, with the hairy heliconia being one of my favorites.  I hadn't realized heliconia's are part of the same family as banana's, but looking at the leaves it is now obvious they are related.

Throughout the gardens there are numerous palms.  Some are native and others were planted when they were less than a foot tall, but within 10 years now tower above us.  I can't name all the different flowers Lin describes during the tour.

I hoped to see wildlife during the walk, but the sloths and monkeys are elusive on this day.  Even the caiman which sometimes occupies the pond is in hiding.  We see a few frogs and there is a bat hanging on the roof of the covered patio birds can be heard but few seen.  One bit of wildlife we do see is the leaf eater ants.  We also see the the result of their hands-work, large leaves where the only thing left is the skeleton.

After tramping about in the hot, humid jungle Lin brings us back to the covered patio by way of their pool.  Some weeks there is an option to have lunch and enjoy the pool for a couple of hours, but that is not for us today.  Instead Lin brings out bottles of cold lemongrass tea which she has brewed.  It is surprisingly crisp and refreshing.

After chatting with Lin and the others on the tour for a bit Jane and I walk back to our condo building.  We are very happy we took the tour and both of us are looking forward to cool showers!