Tag: trails

Posted on

Two Nights at Xandari

This little visit to a favorite nature place nearby was scheduled for May 25 and had to be postponed at the last minute because of a sick stomach. I re-introduced Xandari in that May 25 blog post Two Nights at Xandari (linked) within which are links to my 7 other trips there including for one birthday and one Christmas celebration. It is my 3rd best butterfly location (for the number of species) after my Garden and Hotel Banana Azul in Caribe Sur.

In that post I did not link the hotel’s website because they emphasize things like their Spa and pools rather than nature, but if curious, here is the link: https://www.xandari.com/Resort-Spa-costarica-overview.php

Garden Art, Xandari

It was started and first operated by a Frank Lloyd Wright Style Architect and his Art Teacher wife who continued to teach in a special artist pavilion there. The contemporary rooms are decorated with art and sculptures from her and her students as are the gardens with sculptures. A large forest on a mountain north of the city of Alajuela (my provincial capital) with two major waterfalls, a farm, garden and forest trails and of course their Spa and a great restaurant! In their lobby is the only public library of Charlie Doggett photo books! 🙂 They are one of several nature-centered tourist locations in Costa Rica that I have bonded with and I’m always welcomed as a VIP guest with chocolate-covered strawberries and a room upgrade if I want it. Though their “small” rooms are much larger than most other hotel rooms and I’m sure some people retreat there just for their great rooms not to mention 3 pools or the trails for me! 🙂 Whoever bought it from them made it a part of the Xandari chain of exotic hotels out of India. Thus lots of international visitors here! 🙂

Looking out from one of several different rooms I’ve had at Xandari.

Like with most trips, I will probably do posts at night for the next two or three nights, then get back to my usual morning posts. Being able to visit special nature places like this is just one part of my Pura Vida retirement experience in Costa Rica and this is my first overnight trip this year! With 3 more planned for the rest of this year, to 3 of my other favorite places here! So it will be a very good year as I turn 86 next month at Maquenque Eco Lodge! 🙂 Stay tuned for more nature adventures!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Curassows on the Trails

The Great Curassow, Crax rubra (eBird link) with more information about this big bird, usually a little bit larger than the Crested Guan shown yesterday. But unlike the guan, the female curassow is more colorful than the male, unusual for birds. Though the male of this species has a bright yellow bump above his beak in great contrast to his all-black body, which I guess is to attract females and may be considered brighter to them. 🙂 See more of my photos of this Central-America-only species in my Great Curassow Gallery. I did not see as many of these on the trails but there were more of them at the fruit feeder by the restaurant deck, which is not my prefered place to photograph. These 3 photos were made on a trail.

Female Great Curassow, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
Continue reading “Curassows on the Trails”
Posted on

“AND Trails”

You who live in Costa Rica or visit here often may not have noticed, but the Arenal Observatory Lodge (the undisputed #1 for nature in the La Fortuna/Arenal area) has recently changed their name to Arenal Observatory Lodge and Trails, sometimes using the ampersand & or spelling out the “and.”

And I, for one, like the name change because it better describes what you come here for; whether looking for birds, butterflies, monkeys or frogs; there are trails that take you from the “Nest” birding tower to the Frog Pond or through the cultivated gardens on through the rainforest to the waterfalls or the continuing farm still on the property and of course the “Los Monos (Monkeys) Trail. And the map is, like much of my language here in Costa Rica, in “Spanglish!” 🙂 For example, the just mentioned “Los Monos Trail” uses the Spanish word for monkeys but the English word for trails, while “River Trail” is all English, as is most of the map, so you Americans don’t have to worry, you can read it and all of the signs! 🙂 Here’s my cell phone photo of the big map first, of the whole reserve, and then of the reverse side, an enlarged map of just the areas close to the rooms and most cabins, where most people do their most walking. If you come here, you must explore the trails! 🙂

All the Reserve Trails on one side of Map . . .

All the trails at Arenal Observatory Lodge

See the enlarged map of close trails on the reverse side, plus a gallery of actual trail shots by continuing online . . .

Continue reading ““AND Trails””
Posted on

One Last Post on the Xandari Visit

Because the 2023 Xandari Trip Gallery is now ready for you to see all this year’s photos from this colorful nature resort, I will just summarize what was to be the last 4 posts on that trip and you can see the photos in the gallery which is more and better than a few here!  🙂  The last 4 categories each have a gallery that I’m linking to with the 4 pix below:

I photographed only 4 birds mainly because of the high winds we were having there that week. Here’s just 1 of those 4 and to see the others, click the above link or this image:

Clay-colored Thrush or Yigüirro, the National Bird

Though there did not seem to be as many Flowers on this trip as in earlier ones (different time of year), there were still a lot and you can see the ones I photographed by clicking the above link or this one image.

Bird of Paradise Flower, Xandari Costa Rica

Thirdly are some of the Leaves & Nature Things that I love to photograph out in nature anywhere I go! And I think I got a few interesting ones this trip including the feature photo at top of the post. Check them all out at the above link or click this one photo:

Nature as Art, Xandari Costa Rica

And last but not least are a few photos I made of only a sampling of the Trees & Trails at Xandari. Click that link or this one image to see more:

Trees & Trails at Xandari Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

Or see all the 2023 Xandari Trip Galleries!

🙂

 

Posted on

WALKING PATHS in My Life Today

Next to maybe “Nature” in general or “Birds” specifically, nothing describes my life of being “Retired in Costa Rica” better than “WALKING!” For seven years now without a car I have learned to get to most needed places on foot; walking to town, to the supermercado or farmacia, to a restaurante; and even better, walking for fun or the discoveries of nature on city sidewalks, my “Country Lane” or “Country Road” walks for photos of birds or other nature and best of all the many wonderful wilderness trails I’ve discovered in national parks and reserves across this beautiful, natural country of Costa Rica. My life here has made experiencing nature and walking (hiking) almost synonymous! The feature photo at top is one of the horizons I experience on “Country Lane” and other paths in Atenas with one of my trip trails below . . .

Titi Trail, Bosque del Cabo Rainforest Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Continue reading “WALKING PATHS in My Life Today”
Posted on

WALKING PATHS of My Adult Life

Had I not married, hiking would have been my avocation or how I spent all my time when not working to pay the bills. 🙂 But that’s not the way my life worked out. So I squeezed in as much as I could, though mostly before marriage and after the divorce with some during marriage, and the memories of all those times among nature are some of the greatest treasures I have. Most of my photography on backpacking trips and day hikes were of the scenery and nature, but I have a few of me on the hiking trails I will show below on the post-email section of the blog, plus even more of hiking groups I either led (most of them) or participated in group hikes. These will be galleries and you can click an image to see its larger full-frame pix and/or a manual slideshow if you wish.

For the 10 years I lived in downtown Nashville I walked nearly every day in Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.

The feature photo at top is of my Vasque Hiking Shoes, the best hiking shoes I ever had!

Continue reading “WALKING PATHS of My Adult Life”
Posted on

WALKING PATHS of My Life

Walking – the main physical activity of my life since around age 1 – purposefully made important in my adult years – and now that I no longer own a car and live surrounded by nature in Costa Rica – WALKING the PATHS of Nature is even more central in my life. The feature photo at top is a hiking trail at the Trogon Lodge, San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica, one of many I experience here.

This begins a brief blog post series of just 5 more days on one of the most important things of my life, walking!

The motivation for the series came in part from the book, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature, by Torbjørn Ekelund, a Norwegian young man diagnosed with Epilepsy who now walks everywhere and also does cross-country hikes in a bigger way than I’m able to at twice his age! 🙂

I will not copy or repeat the book, but discuss the influence of walking since before my birth through my now car-less retirement in Costa Rica! 🙂

Above: A Walking Path at Xandari Nature Resort, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
Continue reading “WALKING PATHS of My Life”
Posted on

Trails & Trees

One of the many wonderful things about Hotel Savegre is the huge piece of property it sits on in a mixture of primary and secondary forest – the “secondary” parts being where early farmers cleared land that has now been “re-forested” as has a large portion of Costa Rica as farming methods have improved and are becoming less destructive of the natural environment. The guide in some of the photos is Marino Chacon, a son of the man and woman who pioneered this first hotel/lodge in the truly amazing hills of San Gerardo de Dota. His parents are pictured on one of the trail signs included below in my two collections. CLICK image in first gallery to enlarge, which you can’t do in the second one as a slideshow.

TRAILS at Hotel Savegre

  • Both a sign & a Paper Trail Map
  • Zoomed in on Map
  • Most are on Hills
  • Some Level Paths
  • “Rock Hop” or Wade Streams
  • 4X4 Road to all Trails
  • Marino
  • Trail Named for Founders: “The Pioneers”
Many Trails at Hotel Savegre, San Gerardo de Dota

TREES at Hotel Savegre

And I have my “Trip Gallery” finished at 2021 January, San Gerardo de Dota Hotel Savegre.

¡Pura Vida!

Nurtured by Nature

How one person found relief from the pandemic and politics in nature:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/12/28/isolation-pandemic-caused-her-form-new-intense-relationship-nature-she-was-hardly-alone/?arc404=true

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Wilderness Bridges

The several swinging bridges at Arenal Observatory Lodge connecting the many trails are a lot more secure than those rope bridges we made in Boy Scouts, but just as thrilling! 🙂 Here’s some shots of two of the hanging bridges I hiked over during my Arenal Visit Christmas Week. CLICK an image to see larger . . .

  • Danta Bridge
  • Danta Bridge
  • Danta Bridge
  • Approach to Spider Bridge
  • Spider Bridge
  • Spider Bridge
Crossing Rivers & Canyons on Arenal Conservatory Trails

 “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”

― Douglas Adams

Tomorrow Begins Another Adventure . . .

I don’t plan or intend to have trips just 3 weeks apart! It takes me longer than that to process the photos! 🙂

But because I had to reschedule this next trip, originally set for a March-April overlap week, just as the Pandemic was taking over . . . Soooo I told them to “reschedule it around the middle of January, not thinking about my Christmas trip – But anyway . . . I’m shifting gears from a rainforest at the base of a volcano to a cooler Cloud Forest in San Gerardo de Dota, starting tomorrow at the Savegre Hotel and Nature Reserve. (NOTE: their website is under reconstruction and only the home page shows for now.

This is one of the lodges I stayed in on my first trip to Costa Rica in 2009. It’s the best place in the world to see and photograph the Resplendent Quetzal bird. And the coldest place I’ve been in Costa Rica with fireplaces used at night. Since no rain in January, it is a little warmer at 13° C or 54° F average low to high of 27°C or 81°F, but hey guys! I freeze to death here in Atenas when it gets down in the 60’s F. 🙂

The new lodge website linked above is under construction, so instead of their photos, you can see my photo galleries of 3 previous visits, all a very long time ago 🙂 . . .

¡Pura Vida!