Goose Egg Falls

Hmmm! What is this? Well, you see, my trip planner, Walter, works very hard to please his customers with little “extras” and knew about an unnamed waterfall along our return highway near San Ramon or in that Canton (county), just 20 meters off the highway! So we stopped and parked in the edge of the mud by the highway and walked through the mud down a rocky little decline (that I almost fell on) to a stream to be where we could see this waterfall with minimal water right now in dry season. Well, it was rocky as you can see in one photo and the bottom of my shoes were muddy. I put my weight down on one, possibly wet, rock and slipped falling backwards on the rocks, banging my head on one of those big round ones. It hurt bad for about a minute or 2 only. Then I felt a growing bump on my head.

I thought I was dead or seriously injured and so did Walter who was concerned about me for days. But I’m fine now, just immediately after the fall I had a big “Goose Egg” which is what we called a “bump on the head” as a child in South Arkansas! 🙂 The goose egg on my head lasted until the next morning and was gone. no more pain after the fall and I was already crazy, so you can’t tell if it affected me that way! 🙂 And I got to add one more waterfall to my collection from this one day trip. (45 sounds better than 44 in my gallery) 🙂 And I will try to work it into the photo book if I can.

When we drove over the bridge over that stream a sign said: “Rio Catarata” which in English would be simply “Waterfall River.” Thus my own name for the falls works for me! 🙂 Pura vida from Goose Egg Falls!

Unnamed Waterfall in San Ramon Canton, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
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Rio Celeste Waterfall

The Rio Celeste Waterfall (a tour company site link) is in the Tenorio Volcano National Park (NP website link) and is one of the more popular waterfalls for tourists because of the unique turquoise water in the river due to minerals from the volcano. It was fun to go to the point in the park where two clear rivers come together and watch the new mixture of water turn blue or turquoise in color. See my 2017 Tenorio NP Visit for photos of the turquoise water which had more color than we had yesterday because it had rained all day the day before, making the water a little muddy. I did not get to see the waterfall in 2017 because the hurricane that came across northern CR destroyed the stairs and trail down to the falls. Note also that the National Park does not allow swimming in this plunge pool, making if better for photographers and nature lovers! 🙂 It is in the Cloud Forest so it gets rain year around.

For the email recipients, please click the MORE button after this photo for not only more waterfall photos but also a pix of my guide and driver plus one of me at these falls.

Rio Celeste Waterfall, Tenorio Volcano National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
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Llanos de Cortés Waterfall

My waterfalls trip finally happened yesterday and here is the first of three we visited plus some other interesting sites that I will be sharing about in the coming days. Yesterday was a wonderful day in many ways and typical of my frequent adventures as a retiree in Costa Rica.

The Llanos de Cortés Waterfall (link to their commercial Facebook Page) which of course is Catarata Llanos de Cortés in Spanish! 🙂 And yes, it is spelled correctly for them and the adjacent community. The other spelling with a “z” instead of the “s” is simply a different family name. 🙂 I’m familiar with having a “different” family name. I’m Doggett not Daggett! 🙂

Llanos de Cortés Waterfall, Bagaces, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
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Waterfalls Trip Postponed

My driver has an ear infection that’s making him dizzy, so my trip for today was postponed until next Wednesday, the 19th, while he sees the doctor today. Guess I shouldn’t have announced it in advance. 🙂 But you will hear about it when it happens. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

From Overfly to Up-close

Tomorrow (Friday the 14th) is a one-day photo trip, my only planned trip for January, to get photos of two special waterfalls. The first is . . .

Flying over Llanos de Cortes Waterfall in 2019.

The Llanos de Cortes Waterfall I caught from a Sansa small plane flight between Liberia and San Jose Airports in 2019 and finally tomorrow I get to photograph it up close! Llanos de Cortes Waterfall is . . .

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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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The Hobbit Re-read

“I’m going on an adventure!”  said Bilbo Baggins

~JRR Tolkien in The Hobbit

Only great books deserve “re-reading” and The Hobbit (Wikipedia link), the 1937 published book by JRR Tolkien, is certainly one of those! I just finished reading it again on my Kindle and of course discovered “new stuff” not in my memory! He pretty much introduces a new character or creature in every chapter and then brings them all back together for the epic “Battle of Five Armies” at the end of the story.

Cover of The Hobbit on Kindle.

I will not write a full or formal review but just share some first impressions and personal feelings on the re-read of a favorite book, which I followed by a re-watch of the 3-movies version of the book . . .

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King Louie Waterfall

Friday morning I did my birding hike with guide Carlos and after breakfast he offered to take me to the King Louie Waterfall which said could take me all day hiking, so off we went on a golf cart by the roads, not the trails! When we got there the only marked trail is to get in the creek and hike over slippery rocks up hill to the waterfall. But, he said, someone made a land trail along the side of the mountain that would be easier! Not! Someone took a pick and chiseled out a very narrow path that was all crumbling rock or sand. With every step, part of the trail would slide down the side of the mountain and almost me several times. We finally gave up before we go all the way to the 100 foot waterfall. So goes life sometimes! 🙂

Or see all four shots . . .

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Experiencing Nature

My newest photo book is my cheapest ($8.83), smallest ( 6×9 in, 15×23 cm) and shortest (30 pages) as an introduction to why I retired in Costa Rica with 47 photos demonstrating my nature photography here. It’s not exactly a portfolio because of the cheaper paper, but . . . it actually is a cheaper version of a portfolio 🙂 and it also describes the 5 ways I experience nature and share it. As with all my books there is a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages in the bookstore at:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10782574-experiencing-nature-retired-in-costa-rica

Or click the front cover image below:

My Newest Book

This will become my “give-away” book to guides, lodges and others here in Costa Rica, since some of my other books are too expensive to keep giving them away as I have been. But I’m still not in the photo-selling or book-selling business. I’m retired! 🙂 I make my photos to share with others online and the books become ways to do that physically on occasions. Prints and wall art are available in my gallery with no profit for me, just a good service of (and profit for) my gallery host. 🙂

And while you’re in my bookstore, check out some of my other photo books! They have free previews too!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

El Silencio – GALLERY 2

The “Trip Gallery” for last week’s 4 nights at El Silencio Lodge & Reserve in Bajos del Toro, Alajuela, Costa Rica is now completed and ready to visit by clicking the image below or this web address with many photos not yet shared on the blog:

https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2021-02-15-20-El-Silencio-Lodge

And because I was there just 6 months ago, last September, and was not having a knee problem, I have even more photos in THAT FIRST TRIP GALLERY, especially more waterfalls! 🙂 Just click the gallery title below to see it . . .

2020 September 14-19 — El Silencio Lodge & Reserve

The joy of being “Retired in Costa Rica!”

¡Pura Vida!