Category: Vistas

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2023 – Slowing Down on Travel

As much as I love traveling around Costa Rica with my camera, I am slowing down a little this year for multiple reasons, mainly health and money!  🙂  I’ve lived a long and exciting life already, mostly as a high-energy person, ready at all times for the next adventure! But with much less energy after cancer radiation treatments and having three pretty serious falls last year on trips, I must “start acting my age” in some respects.  🙂

Plus, my savings have been cut back a good bit with all the cancer treatments and I’m beginning to feel the tightness of money more, so fewer trips and shorter trips is part of my plan for this year with enough “wiggle room” to add a day trip at the last minute when I feel the need. 🙂  Like the 2-night trip this week just added to nearby Xandari Resort . . .

Sidewalk from one of my past cabins at Xandari Costa Rica, plus the Feature Photo is a Sunset view from one of my earlier rooms at Xandari!

Here’s My 2023 Travel Plans

JANUARY

2 nights – Xandari Costa Rica Resort, Alajuela, my #1 best location for butterflies and one of the best for flowers! It’s this week! And you can see photos from 5 previous visits by browsing through my Costa Rica Trips Galleries,  2022, 2020 (twice), 2019 & 2018.  🙂  I will be giving the resort gifts of two copies of one of my newest photo books, Butterflies!
The Hidden Art of Xandari  for them to add to the only complete library of all Charlie Doggett photo books!

FEBRUARY

4 nights – Tortuga Lodge & Gardens, Tortuguero National Park. This will be my 4th trip to Tortuguero NP but my first time to this Lodge which is a sister lodge to the Monteverde Lodge and Gardens I visited in  2019 and considered a little nicer than the more rustic lodges I’ve visited here before, Turtle Beach Lodge in 2019 and Laguna Lodge in 2016 and with Caravan Tours in 2010. Tortuguero is often called “The Amazon of Costa Rica” with most nature hikes by boat and an amazing amount of wildlife from an occasional Jaguar to almost every tropical bird!  🙂

APRIL

5 nights – Maquenque EcoLodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada. I sometimes call this my favorite lodge because of the large number of birds and other wildlife I’ve photographed there in the past and because they have treehouse rooms from which I’ve photographed both birds and monkeys in the nearby trees. But for the first time there I’m staying in a ground level cabin, one on the lake which may give me different wildlife photos from my room and I will be in less danger of falling down the 50 metal steps going up to the treehouse room. 🙂    You can see the photos of my 3 previous visits there by browsing through my Costa Rica Trips Galleries, or directly to  2022,  2020,  &  2019.  🙂

JULY

5 Nights – Esquinas Rainforest Lodge which I’ve visited only one other time, also in the rainy season with one of my largest collections of bird photos in a 2018 visit when I was the only guest most of my days there. It is a small, quiet jungle retreat in the rainforests of Piedras Blancas National Park on the opposite side of that park from the more touristy Playa Cativo Lodge I visited last July, also for my birthday! This year is will be my 83rd birthday!  🙂 This is run by Austrians in conjunction with their university-related rainforest research station there. Being the rainy season, it will definitely not be crowded and I could be the only guest again! That would be okay with me!  🙂

SEPTEMBER

6 nights – Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón, South Caribe. This is my annual Caribbean Beach vacation, staying always in “The Howler Suite” room overlooking the rainforest property and beach where I get great sunrise photos each morning plus lots of butterflies and birds and other wildlife including Sloths. It is my most relaxing place to visit and I have no pressure to do anything, plus the food is good and I can walk to most places, though they have their own tour company to take me further if I want explore afar and of course to and from the Limón Aeropuerto. I always fly there as I will also to Esquinas in July, near Golfito. My only 2 flying trips this year. Walter will drive me everywhere else I go this year.  You can see my photos of 5 previous visits to Banana Azul by browsing through my Costa Rica Trips Galleries, or go directly to  2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, & 2017.

DECEMBER

6 Nights – Hotel Savegre Lodge & Reserve, San Gerardo de Dota. And this year I will spend Christmas in another favorite lodge, in the most beautiful mountains with the 5th purest/cleanest river in the  entire world – Rio Savegre! And the best place in Costa Rica to photograph the Resplendent Quetzal birds along with many others! Plus terrific food, rooms and hiking trails! See my photos from there on my 2021 Visit, plus I was in the same hotel in 2009 (smaller then) and I have visited two other lodges in San Gerardo de Dota. Mariam’s Quetzales Cabins in 2015 and Trogon Lodge in 2014, all good experiences!

So fewer trips this year, but each one comes at a time I will emotionally need it and all in places I’ve been before and really love! I’m the luckiest guy in the world to get to spend my final years living like this in the most beautiful nature places in the world! Nothing could be better for my 83rd year of life!

¡Pura Vida!

Sunset from my room at Xandari one visit.
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Distant Mountains & Poas Volcano

If I look more to the right from my terrace at a North to a little Northeast I see more distant mountains toward Arenal and the closer Poas Volcano which I think may be under those clouds on the mid-right. I haven’t been to Poas in a long time, which now requires a reservation, and you must go early morning to avoid the cloud cover. When clear, it is the best volcano in Costa Rica to visit because only there can you look down into the bubbling cauldron and of course smell the sulphur. They recommend no more than 15 minutes at the rim for health reasons in breathing sulphur.

Distant mountains north of Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

 

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Cloudy Day Lake Vistas

Lake Arenal was the first first man-made lake built in Costa Rica to create electricity with a dam, famous for having covered the town of Arenal and its cemetery with water. The town’s residents moved to a “Nuevo Arenal” which is now called Castillo, where the Butterfly Conservancy is located. It is also a popular local fishing lake and is surrounded by tourist attractions, Arenal Volcano National Park (La Fortuna) on the east, Monteverde on the west and Tenorio National Park nearby along with Caño Negro and many lodges/hotels & hot springs. And yes, some expat retirees have built homes on the lake!  🙂

My earlier May trip to the Observatory Lodge was better for lake shots because the sun sets over the lake that time of year! No really good shots this time, but sort of what a lake looks like in cloudy and rainy weather.  🙂

Here’s 5 shots from this trip, two of which are multi-shot panoramas . . .

Lake Arenal, Costa Rica

 

Continue reading “Cloudy Day Lake Vistas”

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Limited Volcano Views This Trip

Though I always go to the lodge that is closest to the volcano (and surrounded by the most forest!), this trip Christmas week was the first time the volcano was covered in clouds most of the time. The only clear day, all day, was Christmas Day, with clouds and rain all the rest of that week! But with all the photos I’ve been sharing, you can see that the rain or clouds didn’t dampen my spirits too much!  🙂 Here are four different views of the volcano from four different locations including the one sun-shiny day shot!  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Arenal Observatory Lodge Website

Or for what the volcano looks like this very moment:

Arenal Volcano Live Web-Cam

And note that the camera is mounted on the side of the lodge building just above my room 29 or my room deck, so basically the same view I got from my room or would now if there.  🙂

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A Walk in the Rainforest & My Evaluation

This was my fourth time to visit Arenal Observatory Lodge (link to lodge website) and the second time as my annual “Christmas Getaway!” The first two days we had a lot of rain & wind unlike the other Christmas visit and I thought it was not going to be a good place for Christmas this year, but then Christmas Day was a bright blue-sky, sunshiny day and we had a mixture of weather my remaining 4 nights there, and though I initially thought I didn’t see as much wildlife, I actually did pretty good with 27 species of birds and more butterflies and “other wildlife” than before! So – No big toucans or monkeys! I had a lot of other wildlife and some of my best frog photos plus more butterflies!  🙂

Also, I had less energy than on the previous trips here (cancer recovery is slow) and I scheduled no early-morning guided bird walk like usual, so to have 27 birds on my own is okay!  🙂  And I will be sharing those bird and butterfly photos in future days on this blog when I finally get them organized.

My “Most Birds Tree!” On one of the trails closer to the lodging.

So . . .  YES! I continue to rate Arenal Observatory Lodge as one of the best places in Costa Rica for birds and for my nature fix AND also for the lodge services with an excellent room and gourmet food, surrounded by one of the largest rainforests in the country! And yes, it is not cheap, but worth what you pay in my opinion. Superb guides, the best of other services, plus the best maintained wilderness trails that are featured below in this post, a birding tower, a big waterfall, and more birds, butterflies and trails than almost anywhere else! So yes – I will return to Arenal Observatory Lodge!  But next time I’m going in May again, for the beautiful sunsets over the lake every night, and maybe monkeys then!  🙂  I think the sun moves further south this time of year, putting the sunset behind the mountains, but in May, it’s right over the lake!  🙂

Below is a Gallery of some rainforest trails at Arenal Observatory, then links to the photo galleries of my other 3 previous visits with a comparison of birds and other wildlife photographed.  🙂

Continue reading “A Walk in the Rainforest & My Evaluation”

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My 2022 in Photos

From the top of a volcano to the mangroves at the ocean’s edge and even in the tiny garden behind my casita, I’ve daily photographed nature for 8 years here and called that photography “Nature as Art!” and shared it in this blog.  🙂 

I like this Collins Online Dictionary definition:

Nature is all the animals, plants, and other things in the world that are not made by people, and all the events and processes that are not caused by people. 

Thus in nature I worship God and find my peace & inspiration from Him, the creator of it all!

Each year I find it difficult to select only 12 photos from the year and I first tried to come up with 12 “categories” of nature to make sure I selected a variety, but that became as cumbersome as trying to have a “photo-a-month.” So I decided to just stick with “12 favorites,” even if more than 12 are favorites! 🙂

So, however labeled, here’s 12 photos I made in 2022!

Happy New Year and Pura vida! 🙂

This 1st of 12 is looking out at the Pacific Ocean from Playa Cativo Lodge, Golfo Dulce, Piedras Blancas NP and the 12th photo below is a shot  looking out over the Atlantic Ocean at sunrise from Hotel Banana Azul. Coast to coast nature photos!   🙂

To the nearly 500 email subscribers: I hope you read on for the other 11 favorite photos . . .

Continue reading “My 2022 in Photos”

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Danta Waterfall

As a waterfall lover, I don’t miss any waterfall that a lodge or park has and this “main” falls at Arenal Observatory Lodge is one of the nicer ones, and it’s my third time to visit it! There are other “seasonal” waterfalls here for when the rain is heavy, but the longer trails to them are more dangerous when wet for this old man who falls easily, so I haven’t tried any of them.  🙂

The people who were at the falls the same time as me were all Europeans from England, Holland, Germany and maybe one more country. We also have other countries represented at the lodge this week including Canada, Japan and China and though I haven’t met anyone from the states yet, there are most likely some here. The ones playing in the waterfall plunge pool are Europeans – 4 shots including this first scenic one for the email notice . . .

Danta Waterfall, Arenal Observatory Lodge, Costa Rica.

 

Continue reading “Danta Waterfall”

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What will I Have at the Art Show?

Wall Art

I’m bringing 21 photos printed on metal with a special mounting piece to give your wall art a contemporary 3-D look or a nice little shadow. In many sizes and subjects!

This Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth is just one choice! There’s birds, butterflies, monkeys, and flowers too!

Plus three other product categories . . .

Continue reading “What will I Have at the Art Show?”
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Hilltop Clouds

Zooming in on just the tops of my nearby hills. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

And my Vistas GALLERY!

And don’t forget that I will be one of 21 artists at the BIG ART SHOW this coming weekend at Hotel Colinas del Sol on 8th Avenue – See you there! 🙂 Read more about it on the JIT Atenas FB Page!

And “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” as shown in this Tico Times online article about a neighborhood in San Jose. I’ll be showing my photos of Christmas decorations in Atenas after the Art Show is over!

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Morning Vista . . .

. . . is one I never tire of and though the same, it is slightly different every morning with changing light, sky, clouds and foliage. I am so thankful to live retired in a tranquil little farming town in what might be the most nature-centered and ecology-minded little country in the world! We use 99% renewable electricity and are slowly but steadily moving towards electric cars and buses and have more than 25% of the country’s land set aside in reserves or national parks and we still plant trees! Pura vida!

View from my terrace every morning at breakfast + birds & butterflies! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

View GALLERY: From My Roca Verde Terrace