Tag: Carara National Park

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Carara National Park Insects

I started going through over 600 photos made in the park, and though disappointed in not many birds, I discovered I had too many photos for one post. So here’s 4 insects! Mammals tomorrow!

Owl Butterfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Helicopter Damselfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Helicopter Damselfly in tree showing color better.
Carara National Park, Costa Rica

Red-tailed Dragonfly, Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Check out my better photo of one at Corcovado National Park in 09.
Termite Nest, Carara National Park, Costa Rica

Of course we saw lots of ants, including the leaf-cutter ants and many other flying insects, but these are my only usable photos. Maybe mammals tomorrow and then a day for plants with one really cool fungus! Rain-forests are so so much fun to visit, even when I don’t get many bird photos!

Newly discovered wasp named after Costa Rica President! Cool huh!?

And remember, I now have PHOTO GALLERIES for my



Endangered forests are being slaughtered for toilet paper.~Daphne Zuniga

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Pura Vida Gardens

After checking in my jungle hotel Thursday, I drove 6 km up the dirt road to a beautiful garden:

La hermosa Pura Vida Jardin:

 

Gardens carved out of the rainforest, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and threatening rain, near my hotel on a dirt road
buena vista

 

Miles of paved or maintained trails with every tropical plant imaginable!
sendero del jardín

 

You know you are still in the jungle! Technically it is the last remaining
“Transitional Rainforest” in the Americas, transitioning from the dry forests
of Guanacaste and the montane forests near Atenas to the lowland rainforests.
selva de transición
What I hope my “Maraca Plant” will look like in a year or two!
Also called “Shampoo Ginger” or in Spanish  plantas jengibre
But local Ticos call it the Maraca Plant which is the name I’m using.

 

And hoping I get several blooms like this next year!
flores jengibre

 

Many unknown to me flowers like this and too many to show here!
Desconocido para mí

 

A Water Hyacinth like we had in The Gambia
Eichhornia crassipes

 

One of the many Heliconias like I have in my yard
My blooms are dying out now and will return
in the dry season I’ve been told.
Heliconia L. es un género que agrupa
más de 100 especies de plantas tropicales
On the edge of Carara National Park just like my hotel grounds. Tomorrow’s post!
Parque Nacional Carara
And a view of Manantial de Agua Viva Waterfalls, one of tallest in Costa Rica.
I was going to hike to bottom, but decided safer to not do it solo! Maybe later!
The Pura Vida Gardens website with short video clip: http://www.puravidagarden.com/

 

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
~Rumi
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Felt Like Driving in Africa Again!

Just a gravel road you say? Well rainy season has made it a pot-holed rub board!
Driving a rent car on this to my hotel reminded me of driving in The Gambia.
Only we have mountains here!  los bosques en las montañas

From the road I snapped this view on cell phone of Tarcoles River dumping into the Pacific Ocean on a cloudy day.
But no views like this from Hotel Villa Lapas which is deep in the forest on the edge of Parque Nacional Carara.
Part of this little simple mountain lodge is made into a Spanish Colonial Village.
I’m sleeping in a tile-roofed hacienda with plaster walls and a musty smell.
Español colonial hotel de estilo

To make the colonial village complete, they have a little church (for weddings they say).
Old and simple but just right for a birder with the forest up against the backs of buildings.
The food was okay for dinner. You go to the beach town of Jaco for modern hotels.
con la iglesia

I’ve heard birds and seen a bat but the only wildlife I’ve photographed on the arrival afternoon are the leaf-cutter ants at right.

I did drive 6 km up the dirt road to Pura Vida Gardens which are simply beautiful in a hard to get to place with beautiful vistas and flowers and a view of what they call the tallest waterfall in Costa Rica. They also call it “Pura Vida Waterfalls,” but it is better know by “Bijagual Waterfalls” (name of nearby town) and “Manantial de Agua Viva Waterfalls.” I’m going with this last name.

I will do a separate post on the gardens tomorrow. Then tomorrow’s tour in the park is when I hope to collect a lot of bird photos. We’ll see! I trusted the hotel to get me a guide, so “proof’s in the pudding!”

I’m still reading Don Quiote and picking up Sancho’s habit of quoting truisms! 🙂  And I would love to hear from someone who has read it with your opinions, feelings, or meaning of the book. I’ve nearly quit reading it several times, saying “This is stupid!” But know how historically significant it is, so I keep trudging on through it at about 70% now.

Expect several more days of blogging from this trip. 🙂

“Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn.”

~Scott Adams  (Dilbert creator)

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Spelling Bee and Carara National Park

All the students walk to and from
school, are clean cut, polite, friendly

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPELLING BEE
Tomorrow, Thursday, 30 July 2015, I’m starting the day as a “Native English Speaker” at Colegio Liceo de Atenas, the big high school near where I live, to serve as a judge and maybe to pronounce the English words for their English Language Classes Spelling Bee. They have 3 full-time English Teachers in a Spanish-speaking school! A big high school!

How fun this will be! Even though I was going to leave early on my birding adventure, I can’t turn down an opportunity like this to relate to the community! I’m trying hard to not be like most of the segregated expats who only associate with each other. I didn’t move to Central America to spend all my time with North Americans! I’m here to get away from them! 🙂 (No offense now! I still like some of you! But I sure like the culture down here better.) So I will leave for Carara at 11:00 after the Spelling Bee! FYI the school Facebook Page.    or  School Video   and    Google Images  of the school or just Google the school and you will see pages for the students to do homework, etc. You will get a report from me on this for sure!

Hope to get a better shot than this one on
my 2011 Tarcoles River Cruise as a day trip
from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship,
our FBN Panama Canal Cruise

CARARA NATIONAL PARK
Now for the planned trip: I have a rent car and I’m spending two nights at Hotel Villa Lapas at
Tarcoles, the closest one to the Carara Park and have scheduled a 5-hour guided tour of the park with hopes of Scarlet Macaw photos. This is mating season in the second most populous Scarlet Macaw forest of the country, so maybe some cute, cuddly couples to photograph!  🙂 But regardless, there will be many birds and much else to photograph! And if not raining too much, I will hike to the tallest waterfall in the country or at least see it from a distance at a nearby botanical gardens. I’ve done the nearby Tarcoles River cruise 3 times, but that is always another option if I get bored – ha, ha!

Tico Times article on Carara National Park

Costa Rica Bureau Page on park (not sure if it is official park page, if any)

One National Parks Page on the park (maybe not official)

A Guide Service Page     and the Wikipedia Page is good

And hopefully more than overfly shots like this one I made in 2009 at
Corcovado National Park in the South on Osa Peninsula. 

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ― John Muir, Our National Parks

And my PHOTO GALLERY of Costa Rica Birds if you want more!  🙂