charliedoggett.net
I chose to eat my final morning’s breakfast outside on the restaurant deck overlooking a stream. What a peaceful, tranquil way to conclude a visit to cloud forest mountains!
See 2 other views of this stream that attracts American Dippers and Black Phoebe birds . . .
Continue reading “Breakfast by a Mountain Stream”
And the interesting thing is that I got both birds on my last full day here and the Parula in front of my cabin! 🙂 Tomorrow, Friday, I leave El Silencio Lodge & Reserve – my newest “Favorite Places” in Costa Rica! 🙂 I highly recommend this lodge!
Read on for more about my new passion of planting trees from the “One Tree Planted” organization . . .
Continue reading “Two “Lifer Birds” This Week!”
Sometimes a beautiful hill or mountain hides the sunrise as it did yesterday for my early morning bird walk, making photos of birds in the shadows difficult – but patience! The sun eventually comes over the hill! 🙂
And today I slowed down my activities by necessity.
Continue reading “Sunrise Behind the Mountain”
Yes, that is one English translation of today’s Spanish named waterfall, Catarata Rio Agrio. With agrio meaning bitter, tart or sour which is how the water tastes because of minerals.
And my first afternoon walk was cut short because the clouds literally moved in as shown in earlier post with a sort of mist, not exactly rain, but my camera was getting wet and time to go in! 🙂 See all 8 photos from the walk . . .
Continue reading “Afternoon Walk”
El Silencio Lodge and the nearby pueblo of Bajos del Toro are in the Cloud Forest in mountains much higher than where I live in Atenas though not as high as my January visit to San Gerardo de Dota – but still the clouds move in sometime as they did this afternoon after my arrival and during my first walk around the property.
Continue reading “In the Clouds”
Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light.
~Leonardo da Vinci
A photo from San Gerardo de Dota that I liked and didn’t include in my flower post. Sometimes it’s the little things that impress me the most, yet often get overlooked like this diminution of light.
¡Pura Vida!
One of the flower photos I posted from Hotel Savegre had a bee in it which I did not acknowledge – so I do so here. Plus a technician is trying to get me a work-around to include the featured photo in the emailed announcement. This entire post is suppose to be included in the email announcement. We will see.
And if you like bees, check out my Bee Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
One of my new favorite lodges in Costa Rica is El Silencio Lodge at Bajos del Toro in my own province of Alajuela, north of San Ramon in the cloud forest mountains where there are many waterfalls. I was there last September and as I frequently do, I made a little 7X7 inch photo book about my experiences there, sending them a copy plus one each of my general birds and butterflies books for their other guests to enjoy. When the owner came down from San Jose and saw the books he was so impressed that he told the staff to offer me two free nights in this luxury lodge.
Well, of course I accepted the offer and will add-on two more nights at my cost for a great 5-day visit the middle of February! 🙂 If you want to see a free electronic preview of the book online, click the title here: El Silencio, Touching Souls, inspired by a quote from Mother Teresa:
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.
~Mother Teresa
¡Pura Vida!
Or you may like visiting my “Trip Gallery” on 2020 September El Silencio Lodge.
Hotel Savegre is a much different hotel than I remember it from my 2009 visit when it was a long row of rooms like an old-fashion motel stuck in the forest with a separate building for the office and restaurant. Then there were gardens in front with lots of hummingbird feeders and a few little trails into the forest. Today, no feeders! Just natural flowers and other plants to attract the birds.
Today it is a new, modern, 4-star hotel that I still think should be called a “mountain lodge,” but that was not the vision of these first pioneers in this little mountain resort community. And one of their adult sons was my birding guide this time! It is the largest Hotel-Spa-Nature Reserve in San Gerardo de Dota and is a big attraction to both tourists and Ticos from the cities wanting to get away. In fact, the weekend part of my time there on this trip was totally booked, every room! And I estimate at least 80% local Costa Ricans, called Ticos here.
Below is a gallery of what shots I got of the hotel. The rooms are now in groups of 2 to 4 around gardens with at least one garden table and chairs for each 2 or 4 rooms. It is rustic-modern, very comfortable, with a heater in every room, that is needed, especially at night! And Wifi in each room that was not working in my room, so I just used the public areas for Wifi. And a modern fireplace in every section of the restaurant which I guess burns something like butane? The food is as good as I’ve had anywhere, not exactly “gourmet” which would sound pretentious (not them), but is just high-quality food, very well-prepared with a large assortment of choices.
Here’s a few of my photos of the facilities you can CLICK to enlarge somewhat or for the full-sized images go to my The Hotel Gallery in the bigger Trip Gallery which is now completed:
And My “Trip Gallery” — 2021 January – San Gerardo de Dota
¡Pura Vida!