Tag: rain

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A Wow Hotel

Villa Caletas is an older hotel and old-style upscale, old-style architecture, and old-style service with big staff, lots of young people anxious to wait on you. So far I like it even though the trail down the mountain is closed because of rainy season damage. It was raining when I got here and has rained most of the time, which I thought meant no sunset, but boy was I surprised! It’s late & I’m tired, so I will post the sunset photos tomorrow. Here’s my first impressions of the hotel in photos without photos of the toucans and macaws flying around when I didn’t have my big camera out. All of these are cell phone photos:

Hotel Grounds

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My Room

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My Room’s Vistas (Before Sunset)

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Room’s Praying Mantis

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Tomorrow I Post the First Sunset Photos!

And maybe some birds!

¡Pura Vida!

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“3 Little Things”

Yesterday morning as I started to walk to town it was raining, thus I took a taxi. So I had to walk back from town since that is my only exercise here! With only a tiny sprinkle occasionally, I enjoyed these wet “3 little things” along the way and here are my shots of one day’s “eye candy” in little Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Wet Passion Flower in someone’s yard
Nasty Storm Sewer Waterfall along the way – But sort of pretty!   🙂
Central Park Progress? They keep welding more pieces to the future band shell. But now the rainy season will slow progress even more. In the meantime my landlord has nearly completed a whole house! 🙂   Our government at work! Slowly!    🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Clouds & Rain

May is the beginning of “Rainy Season” in the Central Valley of Costa Rica including Atenas and this year there has been more rain and clouds than I remember having my previous four Mays and most agree, while the real “oldtimers” say this is just the old normal for the first month of rainy season. So . . . whatever! Things are fresh and green all over Costa Rica right now and it is my favorite time of year and though locals call it “Winter,” most also prefer this time of year too. And less gringos too!  🙂  Just a shower every afternoon and some early mornings or at night which I like for sleeping!   🙂

The top photo is a panorama of 4 shots with my 600mm telephoto lens and below is the less-focused snap of Atenas Central on my cell phone, both from my terrace at breakfast this morning.

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AccuWeather Forecast for Atenas – centigrade temps of course!  🙂

Weather Channel 10-day Forecast for Atenas  – both fairly accurate

 

The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

¡Pura Vida!

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Ruffled Feathers & Wet to the Skin

It rained the whole 2 hours + I was at La Selva Research Station, thus no good photos, but the ones I got tell a story like the wet ruffled feathers on the Tropical Kingbird and Clay-colored Thrush. The only creature that seemed to love the rain was that Blue Jeans Frog!    🙂

After returning to lodge for breakfast there was no rain, thus some better photos at the lodge, but no time tonight to post them, Later! Tonight is my frog hike.   🙂

La Selva Rain Shots

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Fun, even in the rain!   🙂

¡PURA VIDA!

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Frogs, Flowers & Whitewater

Arrival day at a lodge is often the most exciting and this one was pretty good! Walter drove me here at Selva Verde Lodge Sarapiqui with a stop at Cinchona and though it looked doubtful at first I got one of the two rooms on the river which got me a toucan shot (across river) and the excitement of two different whitewater rafting groups going by my room this afternoon, even though it rained much of the afternoon. I have 5 tours or hikes scheduled so far for the week, so ready to go!   🙂

Lodge Shots

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Whitewater Rafters by My Room

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Flowers

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Tomorrow morning at 5:20 AM I leave for birding at La Selva Research Station and tomorrow evening “Frogging” here at Selva Verde – a good day expected!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Boat Trip in Golfito in Rain

Golfito literally  means “little gulf.” It is both the name of a town near here and a little gulf off the humongous Gulf of Dulce (Golfo Dulce). Our plans were to take a boat out of the little gulf into the big gulf and over a ways to the mouth of a river where the mangrove trees grow and attract birds. Wellllll . . . it was like this: We thought we only had to deal with rain but the gulf is the ocean and the white caps were big and powerful plus it was high tide. As we bounced over the rough water we were all literally soaked and the ride was rough and it was foggy. As we got closer he could not see the mouth of the river and said the water was too high and too dangerous to go on, thus we turned around and went back into the little gulf and spent our time going around the islands and shores of it to find a lot of birds as you will see in the slideshow below. In spite of getting very wet, it was a good day of birding! Instead of eating our packed lunch (in an ice chest) on a beach or in the boat, we brought it back to the lodge and ate in the pool rancho while watching birds including euphonias!

Birds of Golfito Bay

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White-faced Capuchin Monkey was part of a large group on one island.

 

Kevin, my birding guide for the week

 

Our Boat Captain, Melvin
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Today at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge

No rain today – so far at 3pm! I had a wonderful 6am birding hike with birding guide Kevin and returned for breakfast and the morning photographing wildlife from my cabin terrace – amazing!

Below is a slideshow of a few of today’s photos – mostly birds but some other animals. Tomorrow Kevin and I go on a boat trip through the mangroves which always yields a lot of birds rain or shine. Then over the weekend I plan to just enjoy walking the forests that surround me here and the really good food someone else is preparing!  🙂  And oh yeah,  a night hike one of those nights which is always interesting!

And I’m hearing thunder now, so rain tonight which is always the best time and well, it just started at 3:42!  🙂

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Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, … temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. 

— Charles Darwin

¡Pura Vida!

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Watching Rain

I still can’t capture it raining in my camera, even with fast shutter speed, and slow is blurry. Oh well.
Believe me it is raining above and you can tell that the distant mountains are grayed over by rain.
From my deck for a late lunch, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica 

Leaves up close are obviously wet, but you still can’t see the rain falling.
We call the rainy season “Green Season” because everything is greener.
It is my favorite time of the year! And most days it only rains 1 to 3 hours in afternoon or evening.
Atenas, Costa Rica
For photos from all over Costa Rica, see my gallery 
Just don’t expect to see it raining in any of the photos!  🙂




¡Pura Vida!
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Cloudy Afternoons with Rain

We seem to be entering the “Rainy Season” ahead of May.
Atenas, Costa Rica

So what will my May trip to Arenal be like? We will see. I will expect and prepare for rain!   🙂
Already it is greening here! The “Green Season!”

¡Pura Vida!

Postscript: You may wonder if I will advertise a photo book about the mission trip to Hogar de Vida Children’s Home. I have already completed it and it is available for purchase by invitation only because the faces of the children cannot be shown on the internet in this blog, Facebook, or anywhere else. The team members have been invited already. If you are interested and I consider you “safe” I will invite you if you email me and request the link. It is a 50-page book, 7×7 inches square with 87 photos, available in softcover for $20.99 and in hardcover for $35.99.  Email me at  charlie@charliedoggett.net