charliedoggett.net
You have probably heard of people turning a shipping container into a house, but this new restaurant in Atenas, Monsoon, is the first I have visited in a shipping container! 🙂 Actually I didn’t eat in it but on top of it! Their tables and chairs are on a covered patio (common here) and on top of the container as the “upstairs” dining room, which I chose for the view.
For the last year or two I’ve worked hard a preparing good, healthy meals at home from making 8-servings of spaghetti with meat (eating 1 & freezing 7 for future meals) to multiple recipes of homemade vegetable soup to help me eat more veggies, last week a yummy Chick Peas Salad from a Washington Post Recipe and also last week a 7-layer dip (mostly veggies). And I do breakfast at home all but one morning a week with 3 or 4 fruits, nuts, whole grains in either bread, hot or cold cereal or French Toast, saving my omelets for some dinners! 🙂
But living solo, I still like to eat out and I’m now trying to find more restaurants that I like while some I liked closed during Covid. So I was a little surprised to see two new ones open in the last few weeks, one serving everything from pizza & burgers to steaks & seafood and the other one our first “genuine” Mexican Restaurant:
Continue reading “Two New Restaurants in Atenas”
Yesterday I completed the last of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series of mysteries and had earlier completed all of her Hercule Poirot mysteries. Plus, on my one trip to London I saw her only play, The Mousetrap, the longest running play anywhere in the world! It was great! Just like her books! 🙂
Continue reading “Completed Agatha’s Books”
The books say that the male chooses the neighborhood and the female chooses the tree and does most of the building with sticks, so I’m guessing this is the female (they look alike). This one is building in the crotch of a small ornamental palm tree which I hope will be secure during the Jan-Feb winds. Below are 4 photos of this most common and widespread dove in Costa Rica, found from the southern half of the states down through Panama. This one is building a nest in my garden in Roca Verde, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
Continue reading “Nest-building Dove”
It’s blooming now! Just not as much of it as some past years. Maybe it is because I haven’t been fertilizing? Or enough water? But anyway it is still a beautiful flower for January & February as a vine on top of my back wall. Here’s 3 shots I made on New Year Day! And here’s a shot of it when it was thicker in another year.
As of today, I have only five of my typical six-night trips planned, less than the every two months goal, but I expect to add some 1, 2 or 3 day trips in-between! In fact, in January there is a day-trip planned for north of where I live to photograph 2 more waterfalls! That will be the last two photos I need to complete my next photo book on the Waterfalls of Costa Rica which I’m titling “WATERFALLS: The Music of Costa Rica.” 🙂
This year’s schedule includes two totally new places along with three repeats of Favorites! Below each of the 3 favorites I’ve added links to my photos from previous trips there. I can’t imagine having a better retirement than I have in Costa Rica! 🙂 There’s always something to look forward to in nature! And a growing Photo Gallery that I’m proud of! 🙂
And the “Feature Photo” at top of Post is also one from Captivo Lodge Website, the view from my room there – supposedly! 🙂
This is the lodge where I’ve photographed the largest number of bird species and where I get to sleep in a tree house near the birds and monkeys! 🙂 Photo at right is the “Tarzan” tree house room on my 2020 visit there. See the Lodge Website or my photos linked below from two previous incredible trips there:
This is the first new location for me this year that will have a lot of good birding on campus and in a nearby private reserve, along with a visit to the Guayabo National Monument, an Indigenous Archaeological Site; plus Turrialba Volcano and Irazú Volcano, two of the biggest in Costa Rica that I have not seen yet. See the Lodge Website or specifics on these tours I plan to include from the hotel:
This is the other new location for me on the other side of Piedras Blanca NP from an earlier favorite, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, but this time on a beach on Golfo Dulce in an even wilder rainforest. See the Playa Cativo Lodge’s Website or YouTube has a lot of videos from there. The feature photo at top is the view I expect to have from my room and the dining room. 🙂
Check out the hotel’s website or see my photo galleries from 4 previous relaxing visits there:
Check out the lodge’s website or my photo galleries from two previous adventures:
This is an all-around favorite for just about everything! They are 2nd only to Maquenque Lodge for the number of birds I photograph; one of best rooms & room visitas (I always get Room 29!) 🙂 ; excellent restaurant; fabulous forest trails; the tallest and best birding tower in Costa Rica; a beautiful waterfall; other wildlife besides birds; sitting at the base of the volcano; and close to multiple other great birding reserves and the biggest butterfly garden in the country! 🙂
See my CR Trips Gallery for all the places I’ve visited here.
Expect some stunning new photos in 2022! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
There have been 3 nice sunsets in a row now with the rain subsiding. This is the Dec.25 Sunset and early tomorrow I head back home in Atenas with an interesting flight from Palmar Sur to Drake Bay and then on to San Jose with lots of photo-ops! 🙂
I will be sharing more photos from this Uvita visit over the next few days. There is so much photography inspiration in the rainforest! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
The Cristal Ballena Hotel is listed as one of Costa Rica’s “Birding Hot Spots” and my 20 bird species photos help to demonstrate that in the gallery below this Brown Booby photo.
With the huge increase of Covid Omicron engulfing the U.S. and other parts of the world, you may wonder why I risk traveling here in Costa Rica? At least 7 reasons:
Tomorrow morning early I fly Sansa south to the Palmar Sur Airport south of Uvita and then back north by car to Uvita where I’m doing a repeat visit to the Hotel Cristal Ballena (Hotel site link) on a hill overlooking Uvita’s Whale-watching bay on the Pacific Coast (feature photo & one below). I will not be quite as active as I was on my last trip there: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita (link to my trip gallery). The photos from then will show you what a wonderful place it is to just hang out at the hotel and hike in their private rainforest not to mention all the nearby sights! December-February is the time for Humpback Whales from South America to be there, so I might get to see & photo one! 🙂
And here’s just two of the wildlife I photographed from my room terrace last time . . .
Continue reading “My Christmas Treat”