I finally got up early enough for sunrise on the beach – wow! I won’t miss anymore! 🙂
Before the sun actually rises may be my favorite time.
“I opened two gifts this morning. They were my eyes.”
¡Pura Vida!
Good Morning!
Sloth Sanctuary
Today is a rainy day but I went ahead and visited the Sloth Sanctuary in Cahuita, Costa Rica and really glad I did! We had light rain the first part of the canoe trip and thus I did not take out my big camera until near the end, missing a lot of birds, but I have all of them from other places and enjoyed someone else paddling the canoe! 🙂
The canoe trip is to see where the sloths live in the wild before we go into the building to see the rescued sloths. We saw howler monkeys & lots of birds but no wild sloths. A VERY EXCELLENT TOUR that I highly recommend to anyone in this area! I sure learned a lot about sloths!
Banana Azul provided transportation to the sanctuary, about 15 minutes away. It is just as good as the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo and the Ara Project Manzanillo I had already visited here in the South Caribbean. I highly recommend all three! They all do great work saving animals and our environment! Part of the culture of Costa Rica! 🙂
Canoe Trip
Sloth Center
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Beach Afternoon
I know – it is not like “Hyper Charlie” to just sit or lay on a beach for any length of time when there are things to chase with my camera – but I did after deciding to postpone my trip to the Sloth Rescue Center until tomorrow. The hotel is not full (low season) and the big group here went white water rafting today, so only me and one young couple on the beach and one bored young hotel waiter from whom I ordered a Strawberry-Pineapple-Mango Smoothie and talked for an hour or more about birds, sloths, and his old beat up Hyundai. He was glad to have someone to talk with. 🙂
I also read about three chapters in my latest Agatha Christie mystery, so a nice afternoon chilling out, watching the ocean and I even got these photos! 🙂
Beach Afternoon
Now it is raining again and so refreshing . . . as I sit on my big deck with my computer! Next is a great dinner tonight! 🙂
- An ocean breeze puts a mind at ease. …
¡Pura Vida!
Breakfast Color
These 4 species of birds were finding their breakfast as I ate mine on the patio of Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica this morning. How fortunate I am to live and travel in such a beautiful, peaceful little country! ¡Pura Vida!
Breakfast at Banana Azul
“The sky’s gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything.”
― I’ll Give You the Sun
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
First Day Photos
I guess this is becoming typical of me, too many photos the first day of a trip. There just seems to be so many photo possibilities that I can’t stop. To not look overwhelming, I’ve grouped them into slideshows. Pick the one that interests you! 🙂
Hotel Banana Azul
Flowers – Hotel & Puerto Viejo
Puerto Viejo
Airplane Shots
¡Pura Vida!
Welcome to Puerto Viejo!
I like this new welcome video Banana Azul has commissioned for its website! It’s casual nature kind of depicts the casual nature of the place that is popular with young American Backpackers staying in hostels, as well as more traditional tourists like me. Be sure to click the “Full Screen” Icon in lower right corner while watching:
I will be doing another personal post later as I share my arrival here! Though the featured photo at top is mine showing how American advertisers are welcome to spend their money here! Ha, ha! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
To Bless the Space Between Us
That is the title of the latest book I am reading To Bless the Space Between Us by John Donohue, which is a book of Celtic Blessings. With this collection of blessings and his discussion I see how anyone can be a blessing to me and how I in turn can bless anyone. 🙂
It might be summed up in 3 lines from his printed “House Blessing:”
“May you have the eyes to see
That no visitor arrives without a gift
And no guest leaves without a blessing.”
~John Donohue
And thus I leave in the morning to the airport with my driver Cristian who’s positive spirit always blesses me and I end up later in the morning at one of the most welcoming and relaxing of all hotels in Costa Rica, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo.
After a delicious breakfast on their patio watching birds, I will walk down the beach to central Puerto Viejo (I always arrive too early for my room to be ready, so I leave my bags and do my first photo-walk). 🙂 Yes, this is an annual pilgrimage for me – always full of blessings!
In this quaint little Caribbean town I will walk, greet people, and discover new beauty every few meters, to behold and photograph both as art and pura vida people blessing me! I hope in my first walk to find focus on this year’s set of Caribe photos and the photo book to follow, as I record the beauty of the “graciousness of the destination,” inspired by another John Donohue quote shared last week:
“When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.”
-John O’Donohue
People Who Blessed Me Last Year
May I accept each of their blessings and may I bless them!
Join me on my journey as I blog blessings daily from Puerto Viejo.
¡Pura Vida!
Senior Adults Dancing, Alajuela
That’s Costa Rican Senior Adults! And most love to dance, but to “their kind of music” and not what the young people have today.
So . . . on my way to pick up a package at Aeropost in Alajuela today I walk by a happy and lively Central Park Alajuela with a Marimba Band playing “their kind of music!” A few cell phone snapshots and I move on for my package and a Tex Mex lunch at Jalopeños Central. As I rushed by the park at 2:20 for my 2:30 bus the music and dancing was still going on! Pura Vida!
It is at the same place I photographed some young people break dancing a month or two ago. 🙂
![20190824_130652[1]-A-WEB](https://www.charliedoggett.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/20190824_1306521-A-WEB.jpg)
![20190824_130628[1]-A-WEB](https://www.charliedoggett.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/20190824_1306281-A-WEB.jpg)
“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”
~Martha Graham
¡Pura vida!
An Adventure of Beauty
“When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.”
-John O’Donohue
One week from today I return to the Costa Rica South Caribbean (Atlantic Coast South of Limón) for my 5th trip there, not counting 3 other visits to the North Caribbean (North of Limón or Tortuguero NP).
I’ve been “mulling over” (That’s a late 1800’s English idiom meaning “to think about” or “to ponder.”) what my 
photography focus would be this time (see previous focuses below–mainly birds!). I originally thought I was going during Carnival week, but got the dates confused (It’s the last week of October not August) so Carnival is no longer the theme for my photos and ultimately a photo book. 🙂 Here’s my previous South Caribe galleries & books:
- 2019 – But what this year?
- 2018-Sept-6-11–Caribe South, Puerto Viejo — Gallery
- 2017 Sept 4-8 — Caribe Banana Azul Puerto Viejo — Gallery
- Costa Rica’s South Caribbean — BOOK (includes below trips)
- 2016 September 16-20 – Manzanillo Tent Hotel Almonds & Corals — Gallery
- 2015 Aug 21-24 – Bribri Yorkin Reserve — Gallery
- 2015 Aug 20-21 – Puerto Viejo de Talamanca (Pre-Yorkin @ Cariblue) — Gallery
Browsing Blurb’s Bookstore travel and art photography books (for ideas) I came across the above quotation by John O’Donohue in a book and decided next week’s destination is such a “gracious” place (both the Hotel Banana Azul and the Caribe) that the friendly, loving, kind graciousness of the place will make it truly an “adventure of beauty!” So now my mind is running in a thousand directions of how I can photograph that gracious beauty!
Of course there’s the beauty of nature as my sunrise photo above from another year depicts. The graciousness of the people there presents opportunities for grand portraits or activity shots. While the graciousness of the sea, or the forest, or the wildlife, or the plants . . . oh my, oh my – the destination becomes so gracious!
Soon I start my next adventure of beauty! ¡Pura Vida! 🙂
I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.”
~John O’Donohue
¡Pura Vida!
Zooming in on Color
I usually use my 600mm zoom lens to zoom in on a bird far away, but with no birds around this morning I was attracted by the bright red or red-orange blooms of the African Tulip Tree on the hill above me. Here’s 3 levels of zooming, 2 with my cell phone and one with the Canon camera and 600mm lens.
This is not a native tree to Costa Rica but an import from Africa that grows very well here and adds a lot of color. There is another one by the entrance gate to our development. Read about them at Wikipedia, or Pacific Horticulture Society, or the Gardening Know How website among many other online articles on this interesting tree which evidently will grow in the warmer climates of the southern states. .
And in my Flora & Forest gallery:
A better shot 3 years ago of neighbor’s tree
Close-up of the one at front gate
Or see Three Other Blog Posts on the African Tulip Tree – I must like it to write about it so much! 🙂
You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness – ignorance, credulity – helps your enjoyment of these things.
🙂
¡Pura Vida!