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My first afternoon was settling in, photographing the room, hiking the upper level of trails photographing mostly flowers and having a really great dinner! I love it here! Maybe my favorite hotel in Costa Rica! But I’m too tired to process photos tonight and this sunset is not great but will have to do. Good night! 🙂 Much more tomorrow!
¡Pura Vida!
I finally got all the photos sorted, filtered and labeled for a gallery called:
2019 December 22-28 — Tapirus Lodge, Braulio Carrillo Click to see
As usual, this park and lodge are different from all the others I have visited in the past – a very good experience indeed! Difficult to compare with not as many birds as many other places I’ve visited, but I got decent photos of the rare and hard to find White-tipped Sicklebill Hummingbird, a “Lifer” for me. Also first time shots of a wild Tapir! So those two alone were worth the trip! 🙂 The lodging and food was below what I’m becoming used to in the many nicer lodges around Costa Rica, but the real rainforest experience makes that minus worth the trip! I recommend it with the alert that it is not a luxury hotel! 🙂
For more information check out the lodge website: Tapirus Lodge
Or the National Park Website: Braulio Carrillo National Park
¡Pura Vida!
A few shots made my first day at Tapirus Lodge, enjoying the many “green things” walking around the lodge. And its a pre-made post for while I am getting settled back in at home in Atenas.
Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
On Christmas Eve, yesterday, my 5 year anniversary of living in Costa Rica I had a birding guide and got one “Lifer” (first time seen) bird, the rare White-tipped Sicklebill, plus a lifer mammal if you please! A Wild Tapir came right up to the restaurant building eating from the flower beds! 🙂 Though not new for me, I also got some more photos of a very rare Sunbittern! And all of the below photos from yesterday were made in the rain. It has not stopped raining for two days and nights now in this RAINforest. 🙂
I also got some interesting photos on the canopy tram ride which I will share in another post the next two days or whenever I return to the entrance for Wifi.
¡Pura Vida!
DECEMBER 24, 2014
Five years ago today I left my secure cottage at McKendree Village across from Andrew Jackson’s historic house in Nashville, TN with 5 suitcases for the Nashville International Airport and my one-way flight to San Jose, Costa Rica. I had taken more than a year to make the big decision to move my retirement from Tennessee to Costa Rica (2014 blog posts) and the big moment had finally come! I was doing it!
It was late afternoon when my delayed flight our of Miami arrived and getting dark as the taxista crammed 5 big suitcase in his little car’s trunk and backseat with me sitting up front with him. After a few short kilometers on congested Highway 1 or Pan-American Highway from the busy airport we exited into La Garita onto Ruta 3 for the last 15+ miles through the mountains in the dark to Atenas, Alajuela Province where I had decided to begin my new retirement adventure in the very center of the country, 45 minutes from the big airport and close to the medical services and shopping of the capital city San Jose in a quiet little coffee farming town of about 5,000 people.
My bad Spanish was even less then and of course the driver spoke no English. In the darkness of the country road going up and down hills and crossing one-lane bridges I must admit some doubts crossed my mind and I felt a little insecure. Did I make a mistake? Will I ever learn to speak Spanish? What will the apartment be like I have reserved? But then I already know an American couple living in those apartments, so not all strangers! And so on the many thoughts raced through my head on that dark, lonely road with almost no Christmas Eve traffic. Plus I was very tired, coughing from chest congestion, and physically not feeling well.
I had exchanged some of my dollars for colones in the airport and paid the taxista the agreed amount + tip when we pulled up in front of the Hacienda La Jacaranda Apartamentos office. The Dutchman owner/manager came out and I introduced myself. He said, “Oh, I thought you weren’t coming until after the first of the year.” (I had discussed that but told him in an email I decided to come Christmas Eve.) He then said, “Well, we have a vacancy but X (I don’t remember the name of his Philippine girlfriend.) will have to go up and clean it out for you.” She took off up the hill and after I got a key and all was agreed upon (I had already paid in advance for the first month). The taxista drove me and all my bags up the hill to the ground floor apartment. When I finally got to bed, I slept well and late!
SETTLING IN
It is just a simple fact that with any change there is adjustment and time needed to get settled into a new way of life and this was no different and possibly a bigger adventure than any other change I’ve made except maybe the move to The Gambia in 1999! 🙂
“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”— Judy Garland, “Over the Rainbow”
Photo of Breakfast Rainbow today at
¡Pura Vida!
I love it when a hotel collects art from local artists and displays it throughout their buildings and grounds. Cristal Ballena is another one of those hotels!
Because of the number of photos, I chose to divide the art into two categories, with the garden art heavily influenced by the local indigenous people, the Boruca tribe, sans their many ceremonial masks they make mainly for tourist sales now (many in the hotel gift shop!). And the indoor art that is a mixture of traditional and contemporary paintings/objects, mostly influenced by nature.
Art is subjective, so draw your own conclusions 🙂
“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin (of the Comic Strip)
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also my photo gallery: PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica
Or more photos from this trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
🙂
Retired in Costa Rica
We seem to have a lot of these neat tropical frogs here at Banana Azul, one of 7 different species of “Poison Dart Frogs” in Costa Rica. Read about them on Wikipedia. Or see my other photos of them at Poison Dart Frogs: Green & Black. or my whole Amphibians gallery.
Why are frogs so happy? They eat whatever bugs them!
¡Pura Vida!
See also my TRIP GALLERY: 2019 Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo
Good morning Costa Rica! It’s another beautiful day! Here’s today’s sunrise from the beach at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Caribe Sur. And if you like photos of sunrises and sunsets, check out my gallery: Vistas and while I post I’m watching a Gray-cowled Woodrail build a nest just below my terrace. Cool!
“Good morning . . . It will smile at you if you smile at it”
¡Pura Vida!
It is called Finca la Isla Permaculture Farm and Botanical Gardens. It reminded me of the old hippie organic gardening farms we had a few of across the states. Though they were picking fruit for tomorrow morning’s Farmers’ Market, they obviously aren’t making much money at farming or with tourist visits. The only other visitor there this morning was a really nice Indian Doctor/Surgeon from Trinidad who drove me to my hotel after our visit and snack of fresh fruits. He grows tropical fruits in Trinidad as a hobby and was collecting seeds from Costa Rica. Interesting! I continue to have such serendipity people experiences like him and the French family at the Sloth Sanctuary yesterday! It’s a small world in Costa Rica! 🙂
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
— Alfred Austin
!Pura Vida!