2021 in Photos

This year was unlike any other in my life, not only because of the Covid 19 Virus Pandemic, vaccines, mask-wearing, hand-washing, and social distancing everywhere, but even more so as my year of major cancer surgery and radiation treatments. Yet through it all I managed to keep nature central to my life most of the time and even make a few photo trips.

I will not try to do a photo-a-month but rather 12 favorite photos depicting major life events, trips, and different types of nature starting with the 2 wonderful trips before the cancer surgery in March. The links in the photo captions are to my photo trip galleries for those events. I even have a gallery for radiation therapy (not one for surgery) and include surgery in my cancer journal and the combined photo book on my cancer adventure. 🙂 And the featured image at top is a Tiger Heliconian Butterfly on a “Hot Lips” Flower on my just completed Christmas trip to Uvita. 🙂

Resplendent Quetzal from January trip to San Gerardo de Dota & Hotel Savegre (gallery link).
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Uvita Trip Gallery Completed

6 Main Galleries with Sub-galleries of course. Lots of neat photos.

Click the above gallery image or:

https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2021-December-21-26-Cristal-Ballena-Uvita

Happy New Year!

¡Pura Vida!

Return Flight via Drake Bay

The return flight was from Palmar Sur, the closest airport to hotel but it has no ground crew, thus the co-pilot has to do everything from wheel blocks to loading luggage! 🙂 But Palmar Sur does have a new terminal building as does Drake Bay that we stopped in on the way back to San Jose and Drake Bay does have a ground crew! 🙂 I just love the sights from these short flights across Costa Rica. Below are 7 favorite shots from my return flight to San Jose . . .

Beaches are prettier from above! 🙂
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My Last Uvita Sunset

There have been 3 nice sunsets in a row now with the rain subsiding. This is the Dec.25 Sunset and early tomorrow I head back home in Atenas with an interesting flight from Palmar Sur to Drake Bay and then on to San Jose with lots of photo-ops! 🙂

Sunset 25 December 2021, Uvita, Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

I will be sharing more photos from this Uvita visit over the next few days. There is so much photography inspiration in the rainforest! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Tonight’s Sunset

Well – it seemed spectacular when watching but I was not able to catch that in the camera! Nine shots will give an idea of what it was like but all light cannot be captured in the camera. The wide ones were shot on my cellphone and the others on my Canon SLR. After two nights of rain during sunset, it was nice to have a little bit of a light show! 🙂 I’ll show one image here for the emailed blog version, then online a gallery of all nine.

Sunset 23 Dec 2021, Uvita, CR
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A Cloudy-Rainy Start

When I got here about 11 this morning it was cloudy and lightly raining and it stayed that way all day as you can see in the photos below, but at sunset I managed to capture a little bit of light through the clouds and by saturating the color in the photo it almost looks like a sunset! 🙂

Top End Room Mine above the “Pura Vida” Hedge with ocean view.
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Flight Photos

One of the fun things about some of my trips is getting to fly in a small plane. Though I almost had to hire a taxi to drive down today because yesterday I got an email from Sansa Airlines telling me my flight to Palmar Sur was canceled. But fortunately when I called Sansa they had one seat left on the 9 am to Quepos which is a little bit further from Uvita, but okay – an hour taxi drive which is better than 4 hours drive from Atenas. 🙂

I always keep my cellphone camera busy on these little short 30 minute flights. Here’s 5 of the many shots I made:

Over the mountains & valleys!
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My Christmas Treat

Tomorrow morning early I fly Sansa south to the Palmar Sur Airport south of Uvita and then back north by car to Uvita where I’m doing a repeat visit to the Hotel Cristal Ballena (Hotel site link) on a hill overlooking Uvita’s Whale-watching bay on the Pacific Coast (feature photo & one below). I will not be quite as active as I was on my last trip there: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita (link to my trip gallery). The photos from then will show you what a wonderful place it is to just hang out at the hotel and hike in their private rainforest not to mention all the nearby sights! December-February is the time for Humpback Whales from South America to be there, so I might get to see & photo one! 🙂

I have an Ocean View Room!

And here’s just two of the wildlife I photographed from my room terrace last time . . .

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My “Hill Walk” Vista

Well, just one of many vistas from the hill above my house, but one of my favorite, the hilltop farm of the local farmers’ university here in Atenas, usually covered in cows. 🙂

Hilltop Farm next door to Roca Verde Residential Community.

And that’s the last photo to share from my “Walk up the Hill!” 🙂 Just 4 more days before I go to a Pacific Coast resort south of here for Christmas where I will do daily “same day” reports on that part of my paradise! 🙂 Happy Holidays!

¡Pura Vida!

African Tulip Tree

There are several African Tulip Trees (Wikipedia Link) in Roca Verde which I have highlighted before with their bright orange flowers, but the one on the hill above me is such a bright spot, it is hard to not keep featuring it! 🙂 Another sign that summer is beginning.

African Tulip Tree
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