We have just entered the most consequential decade in human history. The scientific assessment of climate change suggests this can either be our final hour, or our finest. The Future We Choose is an inspiring manifesto from Global Optimism Co-Founders, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. It explains what’s to come, how to face it and what we can do.
Practical, optimistic and empowering, this is a book for every generation that shows us how we can move beyond the climate crisis into a thriving future.
Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016. Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.
One of the best things you do with your “down time” due to COVID19 is to read this book and participate in saving the earth before it is too late! Celebrate Earth Day 22 April2020! FIND THE BOOK HERE or simply do a search in your favorite online book source or ask for it in your favorite physical bookstore.
My friends in the U.S. especially need to read this due to the “rollbacks” of policy or the backward movement on climate change the current president and Republican Party have brought the last few years. It is not too late, but if we don’t start doing something now it soon will be too late! And how you vote does make a difference!
As usual, this park and lodge are different from all the others I have visited in the past – a very good experience indeed! Difficult to compare with not as many birds as many other places I’ve visited, but I got decent photos of the rare and hard to find White-tipped Sicklebill Hummingbird, a “Lifer” for me. Also first time shots of a wild Tapir! So those two alone were worth the trip! 🙂 The lodging and food was below what I’m becoming used to in the many nicer lodges around Costa Rica, but the real rainforest experience makes that minus worth the trip! I recommend it with the alert that it is not a luxury hotel! 🙂
For more information check out the lodge website: Tapirus Lodge
Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” include Costa Rica’s President Carlos Alvarado Quesada. Read about it in our Tico Times article. Or see the brief Time magazine video TIMES100NEXT for why he is a world leader (click video image for sound).
Sorry there were two posts yesterday, the old man gets flustered on the computer sometimes and makes mistakes! I intended for one of those today and this one for tomorrow, but here it is anyway! 🙂
I think this is one of my best books yet on travels around Costa Rica, this one about my week in Uvita on the southern Pacific Coast, whale-watching, many birds and other wildlife, sunsets, a river trip and visiting one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve seen yet in Costa Rica, Nauyaca Waterfall, my 27th waterfall to photograph here!
You may see or “Review” every page of the book electronically for free without having to order. Enjoy another one of my tropical adventures in Costa Rica! ~Charlie
One of the best things about Macaw Lodge is the beautiful grounds! The owner Pablo’s hobby of horticulture helps! 🙂 I have already done posts on Flowers and Other Green Things,The Waterfall, and yesterday on my Cabin in the Woods – thus you’ve seen some of the grounds but here is a whole lot more photos of just the general look of the grounds and chocolate farm and in my gallery I’m adding a Trails gallery because that is a big part of the grounds, though I barely photographed trails, mostly the trail to the waterfall & spa.
Click on an image in the montage below to see it larger and/or start a manual slideshow.
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Rain from Dining Room
Entrance Road Fern Trees
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Rain from Dining Room
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Lake by main building
Yoga Session
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
One of two Yoga Platforms
Main Building
Main Building Entrance
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Entrance Road Fern Trees
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Lake by Main Building
Fruit Trees Orchard
Entrance Walkway from Parking Lot
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Second Yoga Platform by Stream & Bamboo
Chocolate Farm
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Chocolate Farm
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Main building, dining, etc.
Main Lake Spillway
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
“Bee Hotel”
Sunrise near Cabin 10
Some kind of “Bee Therapy”
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Walking Palm Trees
One of multiple lakes
Actually butterflies are everywhere!
Sunrise near Cabin 10
Macaw Lodge Grounds
Bamboo Tunnel & 2nd Yoga Platform
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in 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.
~Lord Byron
See my “Trip Photo Gallery” titled: 2019-06–18-24–Macaw Lodge(finished except for a few more bird photos)
My Quick Evaluation: It is one of the better “eco lodges” and more isolated than most at 45+ minutes from a town of any size and no houses or farms nearby. The rainforest surroundings match or surpass most other eco lodge I’ve visited. The rooms are excellent as is the food, though note that you have to request daily maid service and a change of towels. And you need lots of towels because it is the hottest most humid place I think I’ve been to yet (in the middle of rainy season) and hanging towels never dry.
Birding is good or basic, not my best source of birds with one “lifer” here if I labeled the Indigo Bunting correctly. Though note that I did see a Sunbittern which is a rare find anywhere (though this photo not good)! As a comparison, I photographed 30 species here and 53 at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge and about that many at Selva Verde Sarapiqui my first trip there. But this was still good!
There were lots of lizards but I saw no monkeys or other wildlife (though supposedly there). For my morning guided birding hike they secured a local Carara Park area guide who was good but not the best I’ve had. The Muscovy Ducks on the lake are entertaining and they, along with other birds, have babies this time of year (June).
I would return here but probably not anytime soon, since I know of eco lodges that have given me more birds. It was a great location for the Yoga Retreat going on while I was there! And for anyone wanting to just “get away!” About 45 minutes from Tarcoles or an hour from Jaco Beach on a terrible road. Though not required, 4WD would be safer.
It is adjacent to Carara National Park, but on the backside, thus about an hour drive to the entrance on Ruta 34. The Lodge can arrange a driver from San Jose Airport at about $140 each way. I’m glad to answer other questions you may have about this unique place.
Mine was so surrounded by forest on top of a hill that I could not get a distance shot of it, thus the featured photo is of another cabin, #9, not quite as big as mine (#12) since mine had a kitchen which I did not need but used like an office for my computer & camera stuff. I guess the kitchen is good for families.
I sat on the porch every day with my camera but did not photograph many birds there, just a dove, kiskadee, clay-colored thrush and one little lizard with a dewlap. But a nice peaceful place!
The electricity is from solar-powered batteries (a bunch of batteries!). The “hot” water was a separate device with a long pipe running back and forth on a board out in the sun. Since it is rainy season and limited sun I barely had warmish water after letting it run for three minutes. Showering first thing in the morning means a cold shower. Ahhh nature! 🙂
These “eco” lodges all encourage you to reuse your towel, hanging it on the towel rack for multiple uses all for ecology (but even more to save on their laundry costs!). The problem is that in a coastal rainforest like the one I was in, It is very hot 24-7 with humidity in the 90 percentiles, thus hanging towels never get dry (unless in direct sunlight). A wet towel will not dry you! I was not very ecological! 🙂
Macaw Lodge Cabins
Click an image to enlarge it.
View from Cabin 12
My Cabin 12 Entrance & Porch
My bedroom
My bathroom
My Cabin 12 Porch that wrapped around all 4 sides!
View from Cabin 12
My Cabin 12 Kitchen – Office for me!
Cabin 9
Cabin 9 from entrance trail
Yes, you have to walk up a trail to your cabin, uphill! But they have strong young men on staff to carry your luggage up! A part of the remoteness!
There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of a house built on the log cabin idea.
~Gustav Stickley
I’m starting a “Trip Gallery” on my visit to Macaw Lodge, but it may be a week before finished. It is titled: 2019-06–18-24–Macaw Lodge
This morning after breakfast I hiked to the waterfall and “Natural Spa” on the lodge property. Tonight I only report on that. You never get many bird photos on thick forest trails like that one, but I did get an unusual frog that I will share later plus a lot more birds today in lodge gardens plus a fleeing Sunbittern at the waterfall! There is Wifi only in the dining room, so I’m doing one post a day just before dinner. And tonight after dinner I’m going on the night hike for probably more frogs! 🙂 Pura vida!
Trail to the Waterfall
Waterfall Slideshow
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Natural Spa
“The waterfall winks at every passerby.”
― Marty Rubin
An old English saying “in the nick of time” or Just in Time could be applied to the saving of a wetland near my old home of The Gambia West Africa on the Dakar Senegal Peninsula: Diplomats visit a key biodiversity site (article on BirdLife.org which I encourage nature-lovers to subscribe to).
If you have ever been to the sprawling metropolis of Dakar you have seen the danger of another city getting too big and another wetland destroyed like New Orleans did in the states. The great Niaye of Pikine, commonly known as the Technopole, is an exceptional urban wetland located in the heart of Dakar. And a big chunk of this one has been saved and hopefully the biodiversity that goes with it. Though getting less news coverage, scientists say that the loss of biodiversity around the world is as big a danger to the future of life on earth as is climate change. Yet modern man continues to destroy the natural worlds of places like this in Africa, in Amazon, etc. I’m thankful to live in a small country trying to do its part in saving the world’s biodiversity!
Finally, all the photos made during a week in Monteverde, Costa Rica have been sorted, culled, labeled and organized into the few best in each category as one of my “Trip Galleries” labeled as:
Now I will start working on the photo book about Monteverde and making more photos around here as I report on things in Atenas like the progress on our central park remodeling and the climate fair here next week with our annual oxcart parade – always something happening! 🙂
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
