Category: People

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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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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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Nest Surviving Strong Winds

We’ve had strong winds today meaning the Dove nest I introduced the other day is being tested. She has not left the nest for at least 2 days now, implying that she has laid her egg(s). In the wide photo you can tell that the nest, circled in red, is in a palm frond that is partly held secure by the fork of the Cecropia Tree (did the Doves figure that out?) and behind that frond is a row of bamboo palms blocking some of the wind. So the nest might make it, especially if she doesn’t leave it or leave it much when the wind is blowing. I don’t know if the male will bring her food; I haven’t seen him around. I will be pleasantly surprised if this nest continues to survive and we see baby doves! 🙂 Remember that earlier an Inca Dove nest did not survive a palm frond location, but it was more in the open with no shelter or support like this Cecropia Tree fork of limbs. Time will tell.

Nest (circled in red) is on a Palm braced by Cecropia limbs and shielded by ornamental palms. It may survive the winds!
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Last Shot from the Pacific

Of course there’s more photos and even more wildlife I haven’t shown like the White-nosed Coati and more butterflies, but I have them in the Christmas Trip 2021 Gallery, so check it out if you want more! 🙂

This was another favorite rainforest shot from Cristal Ballena that also includes the sea, so I just had to add it as my last post on that trip. As you can see, the rainforest not only surrounds the hotel, but flows all the way down to the ocean and the national park beach. It’s a beautiful place that I enjoy visiting and will probably go again someday. Now back to shots from my garden, the neighborhood and the little coffee farmers’ town of Atenas. For awhile anyway! 🙂 I’m trying to schedule a one-day waterfall trip and then in February I’m back to a tree house at Maquenque Lodge, Boca Tapada. 🙂

Rainforest & ocean view, Cristal Ballena Hotel, Uvita, Costa Rica.

“If man doesn’t learn to treat the oceans and the rainforest with respect, man will become extinct.”

~Peter Benchley

Tico Times article: Costa Rica Tourism in 2022: Demand is back

Most Read Blog Posts 2021 is Humbling

I finally figured out how to get to historical statistics on my WordPress Blog/Website, wanting to see what kind of nature photos more people are interested in. Well, it was not my nature shots in 2021 but the posts labeled “Cancer Update” that all had over 200 readers or “hits” with none of my nature posts over 200 except the weird exception of an old one on a Truck Centipede. So THANK YOU for being interested in my health! It has been a long slow recovery still in process but I am so much closer to “normal” now and I was quite active on the last trip. I see my oncologist tomorrow and hopefully not many more times needed after that. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Indigenous People in Garden Art

Some manufacturer here is depicting Central American Indigenous People in concrete garden art that is not necessarily accurate of what the early people looked like or blessed by the few indigenous people still left here in Costa Rica. And I’m pretty sure not made by the indigenous people. Yet I like the historical or almost archaeological “look” of this garden art found in several hotel gardens like these 4 photographed at Cristal Ballena Hotel in Uvita which are similar to what I saw at Bosque del Cabo on the Osa Peninsula in July and even the one piece I’ve added to my garden. They remind me of what you see more of in Guatemala and Mexico where the indigenous had bigger cities and left more archaeological ruins & art than the simpler, early agricultural peoples of Costa Rica who are still very important to the history of this country. I will be visiting one of the indigenous people city ruins in April as noted in yesterday’s post, Guayabo. And in my earlier writings you can find several articles on visits to different Bribri villages on the Caribbean Slope or see links at bottom of post.

Uvita is in the South Pacific area which is where the Boruca People lived and still have at least one traditional village. Their Boruca Artisans are famous for the brightly colored animal masks available in all the souvenir shops. They are too bright and unrealistic or “touristy” for me, but I like the “antique” or archaeological look of these concrete depictions of indigenous people, especially when older and weathered or covered in moss. Here’s 4 such “statues” in the gardens of Cristal Ballena Hotel in Uvita . . .

Indigenous People Garden Art
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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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