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When you fly anywhere in a small plane you can easily see how trees grow thickly along almost all streams, even in urban or developed areas and that is certainly so for the little stream across the cow pasture from me. I zoomed in on it with the camera from my terrace and I like the thick forest look, even in a highly populated town or small city. 🙂
“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”
~Khalil Gibran
¡Pura Vida!
And check out my Trees Gallery!
And if after a few seconds, that click doesn’t work, then just go to this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2026-06-8-10-Xandari-Nature-Resort-Alajuela
Visiting places like this here in Costa Rica and making photos is my greatest joy! I hope you enjoy some of the photos! And I may still share a few more on the blog, but they are starting to happen now where I live! And in 2 1/2 weeks I will be at Maquenque Eco Lodge, one of my other favorite places from which to share my love of nature! And there I will celebrate my 86th birthday! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
As I sat in Xandari dining balcony overlooking the grounds and a fogged out Central Alajuela, waiting for my Nachos & Lemonade, I experienced a Wet Art Show of my own category of “Leaves & Nature Things.” After the introductory photo for the emailed blog post there are 2 short galleries of horizontals and verticals of the beautiful Nature Art I enjoyed before my nachos! 🙂 Enjoy!
This little visit to a favorite nature place nearby was scheduled for May 25 and had to be postponed at the last minute because of a sick stomach. I re-introduced Xandari in that May 25 blog post Two Nights at Xandari (linked) within which are links to my 7 other trips there including for one birthday and one Christmas celebration. It is my 3rd best butterfly location (for the number of species) after my Garden and Hotel Banana Azul in Caribe Sur.
In that post I did not link the hotel’s website because they emphasize things like their Spa and pools rather than nature, but if curious, here is the link: https://www.xandari.com/Resort-Spa-costarica-overview.php
It was started and first operated by a Frank Lloyd Wright Style Architect and his Art Teacher wife who continued to teach in a special artist pavilion there. The contemporary rooms are decorated with art and sculptures from her and her students as are the gardens with sculptures. A large forest on a mountain north of the city of Alajuela (my provincial capital) with two major waterfalls, a farm, garden and forest trails and of course their Spa and a great restaurant! In their lobby is the only public library of Charlie Doggett photo books! 🙂 They are one of several nature-centered tourist locations in Costa Rica that I have bonded with and I’m always welcomed as a VIP guest with chocolate-covered strawberries and a room upgrade if I want it. Though their “small” rooms are much larger than most other hotel rooms and I’m sure some people retreat there just for their great rooms not to mention 3 pools or the trails for me! 🙂 Whoever bought it from them made it a part of the Xandari chain of exotic hotels out of India. Thus lots of international visitors here! 🙂
Like with most trips, I will probably do posts at night for the next two or three nights, then get back to my usual morning posts. Being able to visit special nature places like this is just one part of my Pura Vida retirement experience in Costa Rica and this is my first overnight trip this year! With 3 more planned for the rest of this year, to 3 of my other favorite places here! So it will be a very good year as I turn 86 next month at Maquenque Eco Lodge! 🙂 Stay tuned for more nature adventures!
¡Pura Vida!
“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some Americans here probably still call it “Torch Ginger,” the common English name, but I’ve always preferred the Costa Rican Spanish name of El Bastón del Emperador. And since I started walking with a Trekking Pole, most Costa Ricans call it my “Bastón!” 🙂
I noticed the other day, within sight of my terrace, 3 different stages of the ginger flower: bud, baby flower and mature flower. So here the are in that order . . .
“No matter how beautiful architecture men can make, they will never create such a wonderful thing as a tree.” ~Pier Luigi Nervi
¡Pura Vida!
And of course I have a Trees gallery!
Because we went after the Rio Tarcoles trip, it was too late in day for many birds, I got only 2 species, but I did get 10 species of other wildlife including some interesting species like the Helmeted Iguana, stick moth caterpillar, etc. and one of my dark monkey shots is visible. Click the first page of gallery below to enter or if you prefer an address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/Hiking-Carara-NP
I earlier did a post on the Helmeted Iguana and one on the Stink Bug, two of the 10 “Other Wildlife” seen at Carara this time. See gallery.
And tomorrow I will hopefully have completed the gallery for our morning visit to Los Angeles Cloud Forest Reserve and Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Hotel.
¡Pura Vida!
Like the Reddish Egret, this one can be confused with others, including each other and the Little Blue Heron, but Merlin confirmed this ID for the two very different photos below, dark & light. See my other photos of this species and the variety of looks in my gallery: Tricolored Heron – Egretta tricolor.
¡Pura Vida!
They are captivating birds at any age, as you can see in my gallery: Yellow-crowned Night Heron. This youngster was on the Tarcoles River.
¡Pura Vida!