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https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2021-December-21-26-Cristal-Ballena-Uvita
Happy New Year!
¡Pura Vida!
Uvita Trip Gallery Completed
BIRDS at Uvita
The Cristal Ballena Hotel is listed as one of Costa Rica’s “Birding Hot Spots” and my 20 bird species photos help to demonstrate that in the gallery below this Brown Booby photo.
Dolphins & A Whale
Today I took the “Whale-watching Tour,” 4 hours on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with 4 other tourists, all from Germany, and we saw much more than a whale which we only saw during our last hour. Later I will post about the natural arches, birds on Whale Rock Island, snorkeling, and other things we did or saw – just the dolphins and the whale today with 3 photos of each. Note that whales come up for air only every 10 to 15 minutes and stay up for only 3 or 4 seconds and one doesn’t know where they will come up! 🙂 Almost impossible to photograph! 🙂 Below whale shots are me barely catching the tail as it goes back under water – same whale, 3 different times. Fortunately, Dolphins stay on the surface longer! 🙂
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:
Why I’m Traveling with Covid Up?
With the huge increase of Covid Omicron engulfing the U.S. and other parts of the world, you may wonder why I risk traveling here in Costa Rica? At least 7 reasons:
- Covid is not increasing here but down to near nothing.
- We have a VACCINATION MANDATE for all of Costa Rica (Biden tried, Republicans said no). I have a cool code on my phone showing proof of vaccination + a printed version & my vaccination card.
- All our adults and teens are vaccinated now and the children in process and adults are in process for their 3rd or booster shot, with no one allowed in the country without proof of vaccination (2 shots minimum) or into some business here and in all after Jan. 8.
- MASK MANDATE is still in effect for anywhere outside your home!
- HAND WASHING is required to enter any business anywhere in Costa Rica.
- 1.8 METER DISTANCING (6 feet) is required anywhere outside your home!
- Costa Ricans listen to science and do what our Health Ministry says to do with no stupid American Republican Party fighting it. What a great place to live! 🙂
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! 🙂
And here’s just two of the wildlife I photographed from my room terrace last time . . .
Continue reading “My Christmas Treat”Church Christmas Décor
At the Catholic Church Central Park, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
There is an inside manger scene to the right of altar, but people were praying in that area and I did not want to disturb them.
My Atenas Catholic Church GALLERY.
My 2021 Christmas Photos GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
Cloud Cuckoo Land a Must-read for . . .
. . . lovers of stories, books and libraries – the 3 main characters in this multi-layered story of totally different people from the 1450’s all the way through 2020 and to the future in 2164, all impacted by this fictitious lost and found story by a very early Greek writer who called his story “Cloud Cuckoo Land” (in Classical Greek of course!). It touches on so many life issues and about our own future on earth that I won’t try to list them all. You move between the stories of totally different people (ages 12 to 86) affected by Cloud Cuckoo Land (the Greek novel) in Constantinople (1450’s), Bulgaria (1450’s), Idaho (1940’s to 2020), Korea (1950’s), and outer space (2164) so that like his “All the Light” book (just 2 overlapping stories) you can get confused at first (if not more so). Eventually the many complicated pieces of the puzzle start coming together and you too begin to get what all these others are getting from Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is more multi-layered than Anthony Doerr’s previous classic All the Light We Cannot See (Goodreads Reviews), but just as impactful (if not more so) and will certainly become another classic! I highly recommend both books! 🙂
Read some other Goodreads Reviews of this NY Times best seller, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Now I will simplify my reading escapes with another Agatha Christie mystery! 🙂 Rest my simple mind which is still spinning from this read. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Rocking Chair + Book + Terrace
Reading my latest book in the rocking chair on the terrace . . .
And when I look up from the book, one of these two views . . .
Continue reading “Rocking Chair + Book + Terrace”Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
This book is my current read as the #1 on the New York Times best seller list by Pulitzer Prize winning author Anthony Doerr who wrote the best WWII novel I’ve read yet, All the Light We Cannot See that at first I found hard to read with two different parallel stories during WWII of a 12 year old girl in France and a 12 year old boy in Germany and of course their lives eventually cross. A powerful story! Worthy of all the awards! And now . . .