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My profession is to always find God in nature.
– Henry David Thoreau
There are so many good photos of flowers, architecture, the farm, public art and one very surprising vista! (I may share here tomorrow.) And I decided not to fill another week’s worth of blog posts with them. So I encourage you to check out the 2018 Xandari Resort Photo Gallery. This was one of my most photogenic places to visit yet!
I just love every little corner of Costa Rica!
¡Pura Vida!
Xandari costa rica (their website)
If you count the unofficial paths and trails there are possibly 5 miles of walking/hiking ways within the Xandari property. And I think I have walked over every portion except a little section that dead ends along the river. Around the villas and through the gardens is paved while through the farm and to the waterfalls is dirt paths, sometimes muddy this time of year! I came back to my room with muddy shoes every day! Just a sampling of trails and I did not include some grass-covered paths. Trails are a great way to immerse yourself in nature!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
Xandari is like any place in Costa Rica, there are lots of bugs, but I don’t think as many here as some deeper forests I’ve been in. And this is butterfly season! Here’s a little slide show of 6 butterflies and 2 other insects photographed at Xandari Nature Resort. Enjoy!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
Here is a slide show of 15 birds I photographed here. You can also see my Xandari Birds Gallery in the Xandari Trip Gallery I am now building separately online.
¡Pura Vida!
Xandari is different and that challenges me to be different. One example is that more than in most places I am speaking Spanish with all the staff and they love it! They help me when I don’t know a word and they encourage me! When I walk into the dining room now they all come up and speak to me in español. I smile and we chat. It is a great feeling!
As the linked video below suggests, change is not easy. Change can be overwhelming like these 5 waterfalls here at Xandari. But wow! It’s wonderful as the college student show in the video. Thanks to Retire for Less in Costa Rica for sharing this video first!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
I just read an online article by a creative photographer named Dan Milnor who was sleeping in his truck as he traveled through mountain deserts making photographs. Someone asked him why he was doing that and what would be done with all the photos? He told them “possibly nothing” would be done with the photos but “I was doing it because the need to create is overwhelming, regardless of the end result.” Spoken like a true “starving artist.”
Well, he kind of speaks for me and why I travel all over Costa Rica photographing birds and other things in nature and the beautiful culture. THE NEED TO CREATE IS OVERWHELMING and I enjoy it more than anything else I do.
And tomorrow I leave for one of the most creative lodges I have stayed in yet in Costa Rica, Xandari Resort (click the Costa Rica section of this resort with 3 other locations being in India), just an hour or a little more from here, north of Alajuela on a mountain. There I plan to experience (and photograph) a blend of art, birds, nature, architecture, and 5 natural waterfalls – while resting and being creative myself with my cameras. Just 4 nights this trip (a more expensive place!). Expect blog posts from there starting tomorrow night (Saturday). And I will continue to fill in the static pages on my new website, now featuring this blog and I hope improving! More fun anyway! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One of the regular blogs I read is Christopher Howard’s Live in Costa Rica (he also does the best relocation tour) and his latest blog post quoted International Living Magazine on Costa Rica being one of the best places in the world to retire on less than $30,000 a year. Read his post or go to the online version of International Living and maybe find it there. And bear in mind that it is still true even with Costa Rica having the highest cost of living in Central America, but right now I don’t think you want to retire in any of the other Central American countries! (Panama being a sometimes exception.) I chose to retire in luxury in Costa Rica over sliding into retirement poverty in the U.S.
Description of 5 Locations in Costa Rica that Retirees Love in an International Living article.
Today’s photo is of a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, the most common in my garden and possibly all over Costa Rica or at least in many of the places I have visited. They are aggressive and chase other species of Hummingbirds away from feeders and even “their” garden sometimes. Thus I have mixed feelings about them! 🙂 ¡Pura Vida!
8AM Spanish Class with Hilda my new “more mature” teacher who has been trying to help me understand past perfect participles in Spanish and I’m not sure I do in English! 🙂
An errand-running morning after class with about 5 stops and much accomplished.
2:30 bus to Alajuela gave me time for my late lunch or early dinner there before a 4:30 appointment with another new Jesus in my life, Dr. Roberto Jesús Gamboa Arend, Dermatologist. He looked at all my “tags” and other growths, moles, assuring me that I do not have cancer, then used the nitrogen or whatever to freeze-dry most of them. I have a cream to put on each of them until they fall off on their own, which took two pharmacies to find and I barely made the 5:30 bus back to Atenas which was standing room only. I stood less than a minute when a young man, maybe 20 I guess, got up and insisted I take his seat. This is typical of the high respect given to older people here. A good feeling.
I’m home and tired now with only 1 little errand for tomorrow. Whew! Photo is of sunset from my terrace last night.
¡Pura vida!
A sampling. To see more go to the 2018 Bocas del Toro gallery.
See my “Trip Gallery” at:
2018 Tranquilo Bay, Bocas del Toro, Panama
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| Our dock at Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
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| A Little Island within swimming distance of our dock This was the best area for snorkeling with colorful coral and fish! Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
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| 15 year old Scott, one of the owner’s sons and an excellent birding guide! Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
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| Sunrises & Sunsets were mostly indirect for my times on the water Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
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| A common view when we went away from the island Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama |
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| I think this is a lodge or restaurant on one of the islands Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama |
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| And many people lived on the islands and thus on the water as here in Bocas Town Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama |
See my “Trip Gallery”:
2018 Tranquilo Bay, Bocas del Toro, Panama