You need to get "just a little" fabric while you're in Costa Rica. Then, keep the fabric in a bag set apart labeled "Costa Rican fabric" so you will know which is which. I've got 2 pieces of silk from Kuching, Malaysia (on the Island of Borneo) set aside from that trip in 1999. I made some shorts for my boys from the cotton batiks that I bought then.

We went to Costa Rica in 2015, and the highlights of our trip were the La Paz Waterfall Gardens (huge collection of bromeliad, which I grow a lot of), Selvatura Park, and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, which has great ziplines. The zip lines at Selvatura are in Monteverde, and the jacket I bought there said Selvatura. You will need windbreakers or raincoats, and we went in the dry season but it still rained every day. The only beach we went to was Jaco, which had great seafood but not that great of a beach, but then we spent most of our time in the mountains. Here are some photos from our trip:Here I am just before I got thrown from this horse.Howler monkey at Monteverde. One of a pair of Quetzals birds that we saw. We hired a guide for this who was recommended to use by the hotel manager - he was a free-lance guide. Hummingbrid at La Paz Waterfall Garden. Coati Mundi crossing the road. We had to stop while they blocked the road. While I enjoyed the trip for the most part, I would probably not go back because my allergies bothered me there more than any place else I've ever been - much worse than Brazil. If you do have allergies, take a huge supply of allergy medicine with you as it is much more expensive there, and the drug stores run out.SStairs between zip lines.Waterfall at La Paz park. We rented a car while we were there; in fact we bought a travel package that had hotel vouchers that included the car rental. The car had GPS, and we would not have found anything without it because streets and roads are poorly marked, if at all. We were there for 12 days in all, and the volcano erupted right after we got there, and the airport closed right after we arrived. Some of the sights will be difficult to see if there is too much rain or fog in the mountains, especially at Arenal Volcano. Do visit a chocolate factory there if you find one - the chocolate is the best (and freshest) I've ever had, but the coffee was disappointing. I had better coffee in Hawaii, Italy, and Guatemala. I normally don't drink coffee unless I am in a special place. Shrimp is great wherever you go in CR, and in general we had excellent food there, but then I'm partial to seafood, which is abundant there. The beaches may be a bit of a disappointment to you if you are used to the white sands of the Caribbean. The sand is dark (like Hawaii) and not cool.

All the more so when it is something growing in the tropics, where there are so many plant species that new ones continue to be found you're just not going to hit on the same kind doing a web search unless you are using search terms sufficiently unique to the subject that it pops up. However there are about 6 different visual recognition services in operation now, where users present their own pictures of mystery plants to software and it is actually able to identify them in many instances. Of course, this time somebody here was able to tell you what your plant was.

SueB, I am partial too Costa Rica and have been many times. We usually go in January and you just can't beat the weather. We like places right on or walking distance to a beach. We never rent a car and prefer to have drivers when we travel from town to town. As Nini has described, Costa Rica has a varitety of climates. If you want a sandy beach, you need to go south, as the northern beaches are volcanic. One plus to the north is that it is arid and my hair looked fantastic! (But, I digress.) A company that we use and I highly recommend is Anywhere.com. When they started, it was AnywhereCostaRica. They have now branched out. Look at their website. They can help you with as little or as much as you like. Talk to Lester, but they are all helpful. I would jet into Liberia. JetBlue goes direct. If you choose Costa Rica, I can list the places and towns that we have stayed. We have used Costa Rica in the way that you are describing. DH desperately needs downtime in the winter. I don't know anywhere else for the price that you can be right on the beach.