Garden Upgrade Photos

Day before yesterday my gardeners came with several upgrades for my garden which, like lots of my projects, started with just one flower and then, well, I kind of kept expanding it! 🙂 It started with this flower I saw at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel and liked so much, I wanted one! I sent this photo below to my gardener. He told me he could get one and then when he was here and we talked in person I “remembered a few other things” I would like for them to do when they bring the new flower. 🙂

My extras ended up being the biggest job (and expense), but I’m so glad that I got all of this done! This is where I live and I’ve slowed down a little on traveling, meaning I want my home to be a tropical paradise – my continuous vacation place! 🙂

Pagoda Flower, Clerodendron paniculatum, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica that I wanted in my garden.
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“Upside-down Yogi” (Sloth)

This Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Wikipedia link) was in this Guarumo or Cecropia Tree long enough for multiple efforts to photograph it, though in the shadows or no good light, at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel grounds. A peaceful creature! 🙂 In a peaceful place! 🙂

Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

“The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips…I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing.”

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

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Chachagua Waterfalls

The feature photo is their main or largest waterfall with several other small ones like the one at the swim hole I showed in my May 16 Arrival at Chachagua Post. And repeated here:

Some swimmers get photos on those rocks by the little falls.

Their Main Waterfall . . .

Chachagua Waterfall, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

And tourists getting their photos by this falls . . .

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Sleeping Kingbird

One of the things different on the Night Hike at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel was that we saw more sleeping birds than I’ve seen on any other night hike all over Costa Rica. Our guide said this one was a Tropical Kingbird (eBird link) which looks like a baby or a little smaller than usual to me, but this one could be an immature or they just scrunched up tight for warmth and sleeping. 🙂 And the whiter stomach could have been the camera flash, made with a cell phone camera plus people’s flashlights. So I’m sticking with the ID our guide gave us. 🙂

Sleeping Tropical Kingbird, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica.

And for comparison, here’s two more Tropical Kingbirds photographed in the daytime . . .

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Chachagua Trip Gallery

Though I still have another week’s worth of blog posts about my visit to Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, I have also completed the photo gallery on this trip for anyone who wants to see all the shots from this trip together in one place. 🙂 CLICK on the image of first page of gallery below which this time is all in just 3 folders: Birds, Other Wildlife and Hotel Grounds.

First Page of this “Trip Gallery” – CLICK to visit the gallery.

If that image click doesn’t work, try this new SmugMug Gallery Address URL: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2022-May-16-21-Chachagua-Rainforest-Hotel-San-Ramon-Alajuela

¡Pura Vida!

Arrival at Chachagua Rainforest

We had to go to two different UPS offices in San José, but finally got my new debit card and were off to the forests! When I got to my cabin after treating my driver to lunch, I laid in the hammock and almost went to sleep. Did not explore much before the afternoon rain started, but here’s shots of the river swim hole and hot springs, both near my room or cabin and then some shots of my cabin.

The boardwalk between swim hole and hot springs on side of a hill.
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Park Sign at Night + Other New Views

Here are more views of the new Central Park Sign including a selfie and what it looks like at night and from behind! 🙂 My earlier reports on the sign did not include the finished product at night or from behind! 🙂

At night your eyes see the color of the art on the letters and thus not as bright as this white in my camera. And that white spot in middle of sun is yellow to your eyes, though still bright! 🙂
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