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In the Costa Rica News
Alajuela City Workers Strike
You do not see strikes often here outside the capital city of San Jose (where they shut down the already horrible traffic), but the other day when in Alajuela a small group of city workers (police, fire, others) were striking across the street from City Hall which had police barricades to keep them off city property (sorry I didn’t photo that!). The homemade signs or posters taped to the railing of a closed business were complaining about waste of money by city and low salaries for employees – plus they were blowing horns and beating drums to attract attention and possibly annoy city offices across the street. Common low pay complaint around the world I guess.
Though life is much better here than in the states for the poor, greed still causes the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Life is not always fair.
Safe working conditions, fair wages, protection from forced labor, and freedom from harassment and discrimination – these must become standard global operating conditions. ~Paul Polman
¡Pura Vida!
I have an Alajuela photo gallery if interested in more from our provincial capital and home of the San Jose Airport.
Bonus for CR Travelers
One of the CR Travel Agencies I use is Costa Rica Expeditions and they just sent out this message with 5 Secrets of Visiting Costa Rica in October. Helpful information for traveling here near the end of our “Green Season.” (Rainy Season) Anytime is a good time to visit Costa Rica!
Pruned My Yellow Bells Again
To maintain a vista from my terrace I have to top or prune off the top of both my Yellow Bells Tree and my Nance Tree about once a year.
I asked the gardener to write down the official name in Spanish which is “Arbole de vainillo” (Costa Rica only name – click for español description and other Spanish names by country). I just discovered that the Latin name Tecoma stans (click for English description) also has multiple English names listed in this order on Wikipedia: Yellow Trumpetbush, Yellow Bells (which I have been calling it because of the yellow bell-shaped flowers), Yellow Elder, and Ginger-Thomas. It is the official flower of the United States Virgin Islands and the floral emblem of The Bahamas, both using different names!
And is very popular all over Costa Rica as a garden tree bringing 2-4 months of yellow flowers every year. You can see more photos of my trees blooming in my photo gallery named: My Home Gardens.
~Okakura Kakuzo
¡Pura Vida!
See my photo galleries Flora & Forest and Vistas for more of life here!
Trip Gallery
And the trip gallery is finished for my week-ago trip at:
October & November Adventures
Coming in October: A visit to Rincón de la Vieja National Park & Hacienda Guachipelin, a volcano park lodge, this one in the north of Guanacaste, above Liberia (a new area for me) and another hotel that promises a great birding experience. I continue to try new places while occasionally repeating favorites like a redo of Arenal Observatory (another volcano birding lodge) coming in November. In Costa Rica – the adventures never end!
¡Pura Vida!
Hotel Art
I love it when a hotel collects art from local artists and displays it throughout their buildings and grounds. Cristal Ballena is another one of those hotels!
Because of the number of photos, I chose to divide the art into two categories, with the garden art heavily influenced by the local indigenous people, the Boruca tribe, sans their many ceremonial masks they make mainly for tourist sales now (many in the hotel gift shop!). And the indoor art that is a mixture of traditional and contemporary paintings/objects, mostly influenced by nature.
Art is subjective, so draw your own conclusions 🙂
Cristal Ballena Garden Art
Cristal Ballena Inside Art
“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin (of the Comic Strip)
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also my photo gallery: PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica
Or more photos from this trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
🙂
Retired in Costa Rica
Hotel Grounds – Cristal Ballena
Included are shots from their “Rainforest Trail” which is a fairly dense forest with a lot of old growth big trees which is refreshing but difficult to photograph birds in because of all the limbs and leaves! 🙂
I did not show my room this time but the rooms are on the hill just above the restaurant and pool seen at top of feature photo above or in the pool photo below at upper left. Rooms 10-14 look directly over the ocean and sunsets, while other rooms like mine have garden views with partial ocean views. (My room views are seen in gallery Day Vistas.) I got more birds from my garden view but the premium rooms have better sunset views (cost more) and with clouds & rain every afternoon in rainy season there is not much sunset to see. See the hotel website for more information at https://www.cristal-ballena.com/
Cristal Ballena Hotel, Uvita
CLICK Image to Enlarge
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
―
For more photos see my Cristal Ballena Trip Gallery
¡Pura Vida!
Vistas
And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.
~John Muir
Day Vistas
Sunset Vistas
All from a week at Cristal Ballena Hotel, Uvita
See also my Ballena Trip Gallery for ocean & river vistas.
Bonus Article
From the “Live in Costa Rica Blog” — What is the best way to do one’s due diligence for retiring or living in Costa Rica?
¡Pura Vida!
Fruits & Flowers
Just a few of the beautiful fruits and flowers blooming all over the hotel grounds at Cristal Ballena Hotel with 2 shots made on the river trip in same area.
“Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers.” ~Lady Bird Johnson
¡Pura Vida!
For more area photos, see my Trip Gallery:
2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
OR for more Costa Rica Flowers see my gallery:
Butterflies – Cristal Ballena
Though butterfly season is past its prime, there were quite a few at the Cristal Ballena Hotel in Uvita last week. Here’s some I was able to capture photos of (many I couldn’t).
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne
¡Pura Vida!
See my Butterflies Gallery and
This trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
Most Beautiful Country in the World!
Well, you already know what I think about Costa Rica, but Conde Nast Traveler published it’s ranking of “The 40 Most Beautiful Countries in the World” and Costa Rica tops the list. 🙂
The photo above is one I took of Nauyaca Waterfall last Friday – one of many beautiful waterfalls in the world’s most beautiful country! 🙂
“It is good people who make good places.”
― Black Beauty
¡Pura Vida!
This trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
Birds at Cristal Ballena
Here are photos of 20 species of birds I photographed around the grounds of Cristal Ballena Hotel, about a third of them just outside my room! It is a good birding hotel! I actually photographed more species here than on the Mangrove Boat Tour! 🙂 And I will record all of them on my eBird page, even though I got no new species this trip – but I did get several better photos of some species which is always another goal! Enjoy and as always CLICK image to enlarge or start a slideshow.
Cristal Ballena Hotel BIRDS
See my BIRDS Photo Gallery and
This trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
“Some birds are poets and sing all summer.”
~Henry David Thoreau
¡Pura Vida!