For my birthday in July, I’m going back to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge to celebrate my 85th birthday at the same place I celebrated my 83rd! But I did not do a photo book for that trip, so this is a delayed report as a gift to the lodge this July. It is paperback and only 22 pages, but shows the variety of nature you can experience there. For a free preview of all pages, go to this book in my bookstore at https://www.blurb.com/b/12361792-a-walk-in-the-rainforest
CLICK cover image to see a free preview.
¡Pura Vida!
Note that in my bookstore there is a separate edition of this book listed with a different cover. That is because I like to offer both the softcover and the hardcover image wrap editions, but now the crazy programmers at Blurb are requiring each edition to be created and uploaded separately. I don’t like technology that makes things more complicated like this! 🙂
As a lover of travel, I spent my first 5 or 6 years here traveling somewhere different nearly every month! Since the 2021 Covid and my cancer surgery & radiation therapy, It’s been less often, but you can still see that travel and nature photography are my passion in what is posted in most of my blog posts. You can subscribe to an emailed version of the blog. But friends have asked for these hotel reviews, so here goes!
Just remember, “A photo is worth a thousand words!” 🙂 Yeah, that’s right, more photos than words! 🙂 And oh yes, the feature photo above was made from my cabin at Playa Cativo, looking over their gardens to the beach and hearing the surf that puts me to sleep at night. 🙂
My Outline for Each Review
Would I go there again?
Likes & Dislikes
Nature & Other Activities – including those I didn’t do.
My Room & Food Evaluation
Getting There
Links to My Trip Gallery(ies) and Photo Book(s) if done with free reviews of each book.
I use more photos than words! But each = 1,000 words! 🙂
And yes, I realize that this is mainly just for people living in Costa Rica and the few foreigners I know who might travel here someday, but it is worth the work I put in it for me to help those! 🙂 Fun too!
As my age, health and increased cost of living here begin to require, I simply need to reduce the big activities, so only 3 trips this year of 4 nights or more, and I may sneak in some day trips or even a 2-nighter at a nearby lodge – we’ll see! 🙂 But I’m still focused on nature and have plans for a few changes in my garden this year. And the three “big” trips are going to be very good, as always! 🙂
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird in a Heliconia Flower, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica.
It will be a coastal rainforest jungle in July as I return to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge for my 3rd visit and second time on my birthday! 🙂 Both photos with this post were made at Esquinas Lodge.
Then in September I’m exploring the “Amazon of Costa Rica” again at Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean Coast instead of my usual Hotel Banana Azul beach trip. I like all the lodges in Tortuguero, but Tortuga Lodge & Gardens gets my vote for the most comfortable with the best food! And I don’t care if it is more expensive! 🙂
Then I finish the year with Christmas at Ballena National Park, Uvita in another favorite lodge, Hotel Cristal Ballena with a room overlooking the Pacific and nightly sunsets! Plus their 30 acre rainforest refuge! 🙂 And “Ballena” = “Whale” in English.
is a common bird on both coasts and way up some of the rivers. And is the case most of the time for me, this one has no spots. You can look at my Spotted Sandpiper Gallery to see some with spots which is seasonal. Just one photo here that I liked from last week’s visit to Rio Tarcoles . . .
Spotted Sandpiper, Rio Tarcoles, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Sometimes you see the world different from a boat on water and this was the case while on Rio Tarcoles last week. Below one photo for the email version is a slideshow of 6 shots from the river.
. . . are one of the reasons a lot of tourists take boat trips on the Tarcoles River, though my priority is always the birds and why I choose this particular boat company (Jungle Crocodile Safari) which focuses on the birds more than any other and does not feed the crocodiles chickens like some boats do (which is illegal). BUT, the crocs are interesting and I usually make a few photos of them. 🙂
Here are just two photos from this trip, the feature photo at top being the face of a very old “grandpa croc.” They can live up to 80 years! (Old like me!) 🙂 While the other photo of the total croc is of a young adult or adolescent. In this Trip Gallery, which is now completed, I have 7 croc shots from this trip in a sub-gallery simply named “Crocodiles.” Or if you’re really into crocs, check out my Costa Rica American Crocodile GALLERY with croc photos from 8 different locations all over CR, though more from Tarcoles River which is the closest location to me. 🙂
Young Adult or Teen American Crocodile, Tarcoles River, Puntarenas, Costa RicaSenior Adult American Crocodile, Tarcoles River, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
And in “The Trip Gallery,” I also have photos of 26 bird species, White-faced Capuchin Monkeys, Basilisk Lizards, landscapes, other nature and even a photo of our group of 6 Canadians with a family from Denmark we shared the boat with! Exploring Costa Rica is always international! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Personal Note . . .
At 7:30 this morning I’m scheduled for “Needle Surgery” to get a bit of the spot or growth from one of the lymph nodes in my neck for a biopsy. I will go back in February for a report and to schedule any further action if needed. The doctor doubts that it is cancer, but he wants to be sure. The public health system here is huge and taking great care of me while creating a large database of all my health tests, surgeries, medications, and reports in the single system for any of my other doctors to see and be aware of. It is an amazing system! It even sends both me and my driver text message reminders of all appointments! 🙂
Yesterday I shared photos of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron and today the other 4 herons I photographed last week on Rio Tarcoles. A very good birding river! 🙂
We saw many Scarlet Macaws on Rio Tarcoles but none where we could get a good picture, but as we were leaving the village of Tarcoles on our way to Punta Leona, we saw this one along the side of the road and thus it is my only photo of one this trip! But I have a lot more photos in my Scarlet Macaw Gallery. 🙂
Scarlet Macaw, Tarcoles Village, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
This Scarlet Macaw lives mostly on the Pacific Slope of Costa Rica with a few going over the continental divide to the Atlantic or Caribbean Slope. They are listed as “threatened” and are decreasing in numbers because of habitat loss, but not listed as “endangered” yet like the Great Green Macaw which lives only on the Caribbean Slope. There are Ara Projects for both species working to save them in the wild. In Limón Province at Manzanillo there is the AraManzanillo(Green Macaw Project) and for this Scarlet Macaw there is on Nicoya Peninsula the Macaw Recovery Network which is working to preserve this beautiful parrot. Both programs use nesting boxes in the wild because there are not as many old trees left with natural holes for nests. I’ve seen these nesting boxes at both Hotel Punta Leona and at Tambor Tropical Resort. They work! with lots of macaws nesting in both places. And Maquenque Eco Lodge is adding nesting boxes and planting almond trees (favorite food of macaws). In fact, I planted one of the almond trees the last time I was there! 🙂
Our birding boat trip on Rio Tarcoles was both in freshwater and in the brackish tidal water near the mouth of the river and of course mangroves there. Mangroves are near the mouth of all rivers and where you see lots of seabirds and many use the mangroves to birth and raise their young, just like a lot of the sea fishes. So it is a rich in nature place to photograph nature. Today I’m sharing the biggest bird we saw, the Magnificent Frigatebird, Frigata magnificens (linked to eBird) and you can see my photos from 7 different sightings since coming to Costa Rica at my Magnificent Frigatebird GALLERY. Here’s four shots from this sighting . . .
Yesterday’s blog post was my 12 favorite photos of 2024, allowing myself only 2 pix for each of 6 categories. The Birds Category was the most difficult to narrow down, choosing a Toucan and a pair of Green Ibis. Here are the other 9 bird photos that made my next-to-last cut, presented in a static gallery below this one photo for the email notice of the post . . .
