Birds!

Yesterday was my guided bird watching hike and business is so slow in this low season (few tourists in rainy season) that I was given two guides for my solo birding hike. Great and very productive! We saw more than 25 or 30 species but not that many photos!

Below are the ones I got usable photos of with 2 of these as “lifers” or first time photographed for me: Lesser Ground Cuckoo (also the featured photo) and the Magpie Jay. Plus a third lifer without a very good photo – Western Wood-Pewee. A very good morning!    🙂

Guachipelín Birds!

 

With My 2 Guides

And Javier really likes to get group photos, securing another employee to snap this on both our phones. Johnny on the left was technically the main guide who is more experienced and been around here awhile, but Javier (my guide the day before also) was the “Eagle-eye” –  really good at spotting hard-to-see birds.

Johnny will be my guide today into the national park, which won’t be as many birds with the volcano, hot springs, mud pots, etc. like visiting Yellowstone!

“I WOULD RATHER OWN LITTLE AND SEE THE WORLD THAN OWN THE WORLD AND SEE LITTLE OF IT.” 

¡Pura Vida!

Hacienda Guachipelín

La Victoria Waterfall

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Santiago, left, & his dad Javier

One of the 5 waterfalls on the hotel property is where the whitewater tubing adventure begins but I did not want to do the tubing, so the adventure tours staff let me ride on the early guide’s bus (5-miles) to the falls and ride back on the return bus.

I just photographed the falls which included a short hike down the mountain to the falls with my guide Javier and his 8-year old son Santiago (asst. guide).  Fun guides that also took me to the butterfly garden and snake exhibit after the waterfall + birding along the way. A very good morning before it started raining! Bird, butterfly & snake photos will come later.

Quebrada Victoria (a small stream) forms the waterfall at the point where it flows into Rio Colorado and at that juncture is where the tour staff & participants depart on the whitewater tubing (in big tractor inner tubes) down the rocky Colorado River – see feature photo above. Easy enough for families with children to participate. I did that growing up in Arkansas as a kid and had a day-long tubing trip on a similar river when in college and decided it was not needed again!   🙂

The tours here also include a serious whitewater rafting trip down a bigger, wilder river with class 3 & 4 rapids, but I’ve also done that in TN and once was enough!   🙂

La Victoria Waterfall

It was not the prettiest but one more check off the list!

 

Javier insisted on making a photo of me with his son, who, like all Tico children and youth, was very respectful of age and very helpful, polite & friendly! A joy!

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Santiago & Charlie on the trail to Victoria Waterfall.

 

“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”

– Lovelle Drachman

This happened yesterday. Today I have another guide (Johnny) + Javier taking me birding here & then on a tour of the national park. Lots more photos!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Old Woman’s Corner

What? — Well . . . that’s where I’m going next week.  🙂  One of Costa Rica’s largest and most active volcanoes is named “Rincón de la Vieja” which translated to English is “Corner of the Old Woman.” There is a long and involved forbidden love story among the indigenous people of Northern Guanacaste where the volcano national park is located. Fortunately the website of my hotel there, Hacienda Guachipelín, has a short version of the legend:

The Legend of Rincón de la Vieja Volcano

Rincon de la Vieja means “Corner of the Old Woman.” An indigenous legend tells about Princess Curubandá, daughter of the Curubandé tribe chieftain, who fell in love with Prince Mixcoac, the son of an enemy tribe chief. Curubandá’s father ended her forbidden lover’s life by throwing him into the live volcano crater.

Devastated, Curubandá became a recluse, living the rest of her life high on the volcano’s slope. She learned natural medicines from the volcano and developed healing powers. People seeking medicinal cures were told to go to “the corner of the old woman” by the volcano. And thus, the Rincón de la Vieja Volcano received its name.

The featured photo is of a Maleku Indigenous People Group close to Rincón de la Vieja and copied from the internet to represent the above legend.

The “Yellowstone of Costa Rica”

With hot springs, bubbling mud pots, two large volcano craters, rivers, mountains, and lots of wildlife this national park is like a smaller version of the U.S. Yellowstone National Park. I’m really looking forward to my visit there!

Its Also a Great Birding Place!

The park and my chosen hotel are listed as a “Birding Hot Spot.” Meaning I will be out on the many trails of the hotel’s large property each morning along with one or two trips into the park. And since it is a totally new area of Costa Rica for me I expect maybe some new and different birds along with the migrants now coming down from the north.

And Six Waterfalls!

Which is another fun, colorful and exciting thing to photograph in Costa Rica! I’m told that there is a large and beautiful falls inside the park and five on the hotel property! Wow! After birds and butterflies, it may be waterfalls for me and I already have photos of 27 in Costa Rica in my Waterfalls Gallery!

It is great to live and travel in “The Land of Nature” – Costa Rica!

“Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.”     ~Standing Bear

¡Pura Vida!

Tranquilo Banana Azul

The latest trip book is completed, a short & simple photo book of 36 pages for only $19 which is low price for a photo book + order by 10 September and get 40% off with discount code:   SEPTEMBER4T

Banana Azul is maybe my most relaxing hotel in Costa Rica or certainly the Caribbean, thus I focused on the tranquility of nature there with several sunrise photos along with birds and other nature!   🙂   Click this link or the cover image below to see a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages of the book. As always, full screen mode is better for photos!   🙂

https://www.blurb.com/b/9637630-tranquilo-banana-azul

Tranquilo Banana Azul

 

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”   ~ Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

Farewell to these trees . . .

A most relaxing time in nature, that top, end/corner room was mine this week, looking through these trees to the ocean daily – – – and now back to my Cecropia and Fig Trees for the surprises of nature there for awhile. Life is great “Retired in Costa Rica” and . . .

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

~Aristotle

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My last shot here.

Trip Gallery:  2019 Banana Azul

Jaco-Carara -THE BOOK!

From expansive beaches to overpowering vistas and sunsets dotted with colorful tropical birds – my newest photo book captures the magic of where I live as well as any! With it my photos show the adventure of birding in three hotels just an hour from Atenas — Punta Leona Resort,  the Macaw Lodge and my recent visit to Villa Caletas, all with easy access to beaches, Carara National Park and Tarcoles River plus each having their own private forest reserve and trails. Nature at its best! All in one beautiful photo book!

You can preview the entire book electronically online at:

https://www.blurb.com/b/9601292-jaco-carara-birding-hotels

Or click the image of the book cover below:

Jaco-Carara

And if interested is purchasing a copy, Get 40% OFF through Monday 12 August by using the Discount Code LAZYDAYS4T at checkout.

Retired in Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Brilliant! The Book

Because it was a special week, I’m doing a second book on Xandari where I celebrated my birthday last week. It was such a colorful week, I titled it “Brilliant!” Follow the link to a free online preview of the book showing 82 of my photos. Or click this smaller image of the book cover below:

Brilliant Book cover
Click cover to Preview the book online.

Also see the 2019 Trip Gallery for this week. 

Or the older 2018 Xandari Trip Gallery

And my photo book for that year’s visit titled Xandari Enchanted by Nature

A truly amazing place!

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

Xandari Flowers

Xandari has one of the best flower gardens of many in Costa Rica and I would be hard-pressed to name any one as THE best – but this one does a great job and here you can browse through about 40 species blooming there this month (that changes month to month!) and I will do a separate post of “other plants,” seeds, fruit and even interesting leaves! So much beauty in any garden! As always, click an image to enlarge it or in this format to start a manual slide show.

Xandari Flowers

 

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
– Luther Burbank

 

I will be starting work on my Xandari 2019 Trip Gallery today but give me a week to complete it – lots of photos!   🙂   In the meantime, check out my other trip galleries which I egotistically consider amazing!   🙂   OR specifically . . .  the Xandari 2018 Trip Gallery where I showed more of the architecture & Art than this year. It is one of my favorite hotels!

And/or check out my other flower photos in the gallery Flora and Forest.

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!

“The ‘Eagle’ Has Landed!”

The only problem – he is not an eagle! On my first walk at Xandari for more than 2 hours up and down the hills through the jungle here I got a photo of the above bird perched on a dead tree and personally thought it was some kind of hawk. But when I got back an American woman and my Tico bellman both just knew it was an eagle. Well, there are 3 types of eagles in Costa Rica, all three rare and I quickly eliminated them with my bird book. An internet search got me to the right ID which I should have known, though all I’ve seen before now have been on big rivers. It is a Yellow-headed Caracara, (link to eBird description) a fairly common bird in Costa Rica and south through much of South America. See more of my photos of them in my gallery.  He is beautiful and you can see why non-birders would think him an eagle. A couple of shots from my hike today with more photos in the coming days. Too tired tonight!

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“Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.”

~Richard Rohr

Xandari Nature Resort

¡Pura Vida!