It was raining every night at El Silencio Lodge, so waiting would not have helped! 🙂 But I enjoy night hikes that are provided in most Costa Rica wilderness lodges and you do see thing not normally seen in the day time. We saw less on this one because of the rain and that also made photography with only a cell phone not super good, but here’s 6 shots that are samples of even more we would have seen if not raining. Daniel was my guide on this hike and he included two miradors (vistas) which were interesting at night and sorry I did not try to photograph the views, though again the rain made it more difficult with less moonlight and no stars. CLICK image to enlarge . . .
Cloud Forest Anole
Tiny Frog Unidentified
Cloud Forest Anole
Strange Insect Unidentified
Red-Knee Tarantula
“Letter Tree”
“Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world.” ~John Muir
¡Pura Vida!
You might also like my Amphibians Gallery, most of which were photographed on Night Hikes all over Costa Rica! 🙂
Walter drove me over the mountains in the rain and we arrived in the rain. To explain the “over the mountains” bit – Atenas is in a valley with hills and so is the village of Bajos del Toro and El Silencio Lodge. Between us is a row of mountain, the continental divide. Atenas is on the “Pacific Slope” and Bajos del Toro is on the Caribbean (or Atlantic) Slope. You know, all the rivers have to go into one ocean or the other! 🙂
And from one rural area to another means very narrow roads, and very winding over the mountains with lots of what we called “hairpin curves” in Arkansas or switchbacks. I am so glad I use a driver now! I would have been a nervous wreck (or dead) driving over those narrow mountain roads. BUT it is so beautiful in the mountains around here and that’s why some people have called Costa Rica “The Little Switzerland of the Americas.”
I chose Mon-Fri because local working people go to these places on the weekends when they are off from work and thus they are less crowded on weekdays. But I forgot that the government offices and most businesses celebrate nearly all holidays on Monday now. Our Independence Day is 15 September (tomorrow) and they celebrated it this year on Monday (Today!) and with no parades allowed, many people went to the beach or a lodge like this for the long weekend. So a lot of people still here today from San Jose but nearly everyone leaves tomorrow I was told. So it will be the more typical half empty COVID-era resort! 🙂
Though it rained off and on all afternoon and still raining this evening, I hiked around a little and took a lot more photos than these samples of my arrival here. The restaurant is excellent with gourmet food (and prices) that I enjoyed with a grilled rainbow trout tonight that was raised right here in their own trout ponds. I got back to my room with my bed covers turned down and two little chocolates to make me smile. Another great day! 🙂
Many Mountain Streams
My Villa’s Jacuzzi
My Front Porch
My Villa #4
Main Building & Restaurant
Before dinner, I soaked in that Jacuzzi! Wow! Love it!
In nature, everything has a job. The job of the fog is to beautify further the existing beauties! ~Mehmet Murat Ildan
These photos were made on an early morning walk yesterday above my house looking for birds but finding a different beauty. I leave at noon today for Bajos del Toro, checking in at about 1:30 this afternoon. I hope for another post this evening and at least one a day from there this week.
Merriam-Webster defines “bewitching” as “powerfully or seductively attractive or charming” which well-describes the effect of over 900 species of birds in Costa Rica on me, along with my love of alliterations! 🙂
I usually photograph more birds than this at Xandari, but with rain and fog blanketing that mountain most of the time this past weekend, I got usable photos of only 9 species, but as indicated yesterday, I made up the difference with butterflies and flowers! 🙂 I’m never without something to photograph at Xandari! 🙂
No new species this time, but as always, I love trying to get a different view, perspective, or activity of a bird to make my bird galleries more interesting. CLICK image to enlarge.
Melodious Blackbird
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Keel-billed Toucan
Rufous-naped Wren
Turkey Vulture
Lesson’s Motmot
Great Kiskadee
Keel-billed Toucan
White-eared Ground-Sparrow
Gray-headed Chachalaca
Whether perching, flying, eating or singing, they continue to bewitch me!
Meet some of the Xandari family . . .
AND . . . They treat me like family! I love this place and these people!
I return to my home in Atenas today but will have more posts about this weekend trip to Xandari and a gallery of the best photos from the weekend posted by the end of the week. In the meantime you might be interested in some of my other Costa Rica Travel galleries at CR Trips. Some of my Tico friends tell me that I’ve seen more of their home country than they have. I love it all!
Just the views are a reason to walk even if no birds or flowers! 🙂 The cow pasture is across from my house, included to show you how much higher the grass is in rainy season. All other views are from my street just up the hill from my house. And people have similar views all over Costa Rica! One of many reasons I retired in Costa Rica! Pura Vida! 🙂
When they start looking “scraggy” I like to have a fresh start! And I recently did that with these two pots, one outside and one inside.
The inside one has had several little palms from the beginning that never lasted more than a year, if that long – evidently needing more sun. So I replaced the palm with a Monstera deliciosa, also known as the Swiss Cheese plant, which is in the philodendron family and can better handle the lack of sun, as already shown in one of the shady areas of my outside garden. A nice tropical change from the palms that kept dying! 🙂
I don’t remember the name of the green plant we removed from my outside frog pot, but it evidently needed more water than that little pot could hold and kept turning brown. So it has been replaced with a type of fan palm that is supposedly easy to grow. But with a smaller pot, I still need to be more frequent with the water! 🙂 And the green plant removed is now doing well in one of my outside gardens!
Monstera deliciosa or Swiss Cheese plant
Fan palm in frog pot.
“A dried plant is nothing but a sign to plant a new one”
― Priyansh Shah
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also My Home Gardens Photo Gallery and for the inside if my house:
The clouds yesterday were easier to photograph! This is what the late afternoon or early evening looked like – a wall of white 50 meters away – so that you cannot see the mountain or hill in 2 of the shots or the valley in the other shot. There is something mysterious and exciting about fog, though hard to capture in a photo.
“Foggy road is a blessing because it is full of surprises and life is such a road! We are incredibly lucky that we all have an unknowable future!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
