A Full-time Life

Category: Costa Rica

  • Monte Verde

    And on the seventh day (of our stay in Costa Rica) we moved from underneath the Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna to the mountains of Monte Verde in the province of Puntarenas. In the mountains, but we could see the Pacific Ocean clearly from our porch.

    This is our room (cottage?) at Senda Monte Verde near the village of Santa Elena. We liked every one of the places where we stayed in Costa Rica and had no complaints, but this was probably our favorite.

    Lessons Motmot

    On our first full day there, we enjoyed a half-day guided birding trip and on another day a walk in Monte Verde’s National Cloud Forest Reserve. Our knowledgeable guide would happily have made it a full-day hike in the mountains, but we opted for a shorter tour. (Once in a while you just have to act your age.) Instead of more time in the wild, we visited a hummingbird garden –a tourist attraction certainly, but a well-done one.

    Capuchin (white-faced) Monkey

    I’ve already showed in past posts some of the birds and some of the forest that we saw on those tours, but the rest of the birds and beasts in this post were all seen “accidentally” as we walked on the grounds at Monte Verde. Often just going to and from the on-site dining room (where the food was amazing.)

    Capuchin Monkey

    We saw spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys (a lot), but this white-faced capuchin was the only one I got a picture of.

    Motmot (again, but a different one)

    The first picture of the Motmot is from the bird tour, but we also saw this bird several times on our own. There were hundreds of hummingbirds on the grounds here too — again, no pictures, but it was amazing to see them flitting between all the flowers.

    Coatimundi (white-nosed coati)

    These guys, the white-nosed Coatis, were common. We saw them here as well as back in Fortuna. They weren’t a bit afraid of people and would sometimes come up to the outdoor restaurant seating.

    Coatis

    I learned that the males are usually solitary while females travel in packs, so I guess this is a picture of the ladies who lunch.

    This is the village of Santa Elena, zoomed in from the porch in our cottage. In between our tours, we could have visited the village and I’m a bit sorry we didn’t — it was within walking distance. But the grounds were so lovely and the food was so good right where we were. Especially after those mountain tours! We felt very fortunate to spend three nights at Senda. On our fourth morning, we would be heading back to San Juan and the end of this lovely trip. Thankful for living in the moments and for reliving and remembering them here. Thank you to the hosts of these sharing opportunities:

    SATURDAY CRITTERS; NATURE NOTES; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY

  • La Fortuna

    We stayed for two nights at a beautiful resort outside the village of La Fortuna. Our hotel was located in a forested area at the base of the Arunal Volcano, which we could see clearly from our private deck.

    Amor Arundal, La Fortuna

    I ‘m a little embarrassed to admit that I took pictures of our lodging when we arrived, but none of the volcano. I may have been temporarily stupefied … the amazing view was not the only highly-starred amenity offered by this hotel.

    Picmunnus

    When the phone alarm woke us before first light the next morning, it was quite tempting to realize we could stay and enjoy the view and that private soaking pool, but we had scheduled a private birding tour and so it was rise and shine and out-the-door time.

    Trogon

    We had a knowledgeable guide and a friendly driver who set out an early-lunch picnic for us to enjoy later. First, we climbed a small hill to an open meadow in the midst of a jungle — a perfect place to spend some quality birding time..

    Cinnammon Becard

    We couldn’t believe the number of birds that appeared. These are the best pictures, but we saw many more, nearly all new to us. Every time I thought about trying to take a picture myself, our guide would find another bird through his spotting scope and we would run to find and look at that one. We were able to spot nearly every one of the birds he saw with our own binoculars, but the view through his spotting scope was better.

    Yellow-throated Toucan

    This was quite a different experience. Unless we’re at a rookery where we know we’ll see wild birds, I’m strictly an accidental birder, happy to see (and hopefully take a picture) of whatever we happen to come across. Our guide took the pictures above after we’d looked at them through the scope. The picture below is my own accidental catch.

    Rufous-tailed hummingbird

    This was at the coffee and chocolate tourist experience where I also did the accidental birding shown in the previous post. We learned about chocolate and coffee too of course. (Which was the actual purpose of the tour.)

    It was enjoyable to learn a bit about the process of growing these two crops. In the picture above it looks as if Bill is demonstrating the process of sorting cacao, but really he was the student.

    We even made our own chocolate bars at the end of the tour, although our guide did the heavy stirring. Our candy was edible, but I can only say that Cadbury and Reeses are not in danger of losing our occasional patronage.

    Thankful to keep on traveling and learning, and eventually blogging about it. And thankful for the hosts of the following sharing opportunities and for all visitors. Please note: If you are visiting from Google or Blogspot, you have to click on the title of this post to comment.

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  • Bananas — and Birds

    We passed acres of banana plantations on the road between San Jose and our hotel in Tortuguero. Bananas are a major part of Costa Rican economy — this small country is the third largest exporter worldwide.

    The blue plastic hanging on the plants caught our eyes. We learned that these bags are used to protect developing fruit from insects, birds, sunburn, and such other “inconvenient” problems.

    Almost everybody loves bananas and we all expect each one we purchase to be a perfect yellow picture book example. This leads to unfortunate downsides which can include use of fumicides and insecticides. We did learn that there is some movement toward more organic practices at least in parts of the country.

    At first I thought this framework was some kind of elaborate play structure , but our guide explained that it was part of what he called “a banana train.”

    A ton or more of loaded banana bags hangs on hooks on these railings. One worker walking alone pulls the loaded “train” along these narrow rail tracks. A hard job, but an efficient way to move heavy fruit through the often wet terrain to the docks where they will eventually be loaded onto trucks.

    It can be quite thought-provoking to learn about what is involved in getting food to our table.

    The banana plantations above were seen on the first full day in Costa Rica, when we were our way to Tortuguero (previous post).

    The rest of these pictures feature bananas — and birds –seen in La Fortuna, which was where we stayed for a few days after we left Tortuguero.

    Red-legged Honeycreeper

    We wouldn’t buy or eat bananas that looked like this, but these honeycreepers sure loved them. These bananas here were never meant for human consumption, but were grown as part of a demonstration garden, where we had gone to learn more about Costa Rican agriculture.

    The Green Honeycreeper on the left above was certainly well camouflaged. I almost missed seeing it when downloading, even though I was looking for this particular picture because I remembered taking it.

    The bananas attracted some creatures besides birds. This is a Central American Agouti. The picture is zoomed — it was about the size of a housecat.

    We took two different excursions purposely to look at birds, but the ones we saw on this tour were all “accidental birding.” Quite often, I’ve found that those kind of sightings are every bit as rewarding. We enjoyed the part of the tour we came for and I was especially grateful to spot these interesting — and new to us — birds.

    LINKING to the following sharing opportunities: Thank you to the hosts. And thank you to all visitors. I’m still trying to solve the problems with leaving comments. I have learned that you must click on the title of the individual post in order to find the comment form. I always appreciate comments and especially the extra work involved until I figure everything out. Thank you. .

    SATURDAY CRITTERS NATURE NOTES;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; 

     

  • Tortuguero

    Very early in the morning after our first night in San Jose, we boarded a guided van at our hotel, and covered quite a few miles, passing some interesting countryside. We stopped for breakfast at a touristy place at a major crossroads, then drove some more to a riverfront docking place. There we boarded a boat that took us to Tortuguera. on a barrier island on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The village borders Tortuguero National Park, It is only accessible by boat. The whole area is basically rainforest on a lagoon It’s all stunningly beautiful and we loved it.

    Above some scenes from our hotel — beautiful grounds, friendly staff, and delicious food. Before we even deposited our luggage we watched a mother spider monkey and her baby swinging among the trees– no picture, because I was still a bit disoriented from a couple of long travel days and couldn’t even remember how to do it! But an unforgettable memory nonetheless.

    The next morning we had booked a guided boat tour of some of the canals bordering Tortuegero National Park (really the whole area is, I think, part of the Park). Our guide and the pilot both knew a lot about native fauna and flora and because we were the only two on the boat we had full advantage of their knowledge.

    Northern Jacana

    The boat was capable of gliding quietly into inlets near wetlands and we enjoyed sitting still and watching the water birds and other jungle denizens.

    Blackcrowned night heron

    Some we saw were the same species we often see at our Canal Cottage — we’re in a subtropical climate there too. But Costa Rica leans a little more toward the tropical, because .we spotted some very different species, like the one in the picture just below:

    Brown-throated three toed sloth

    I think the caption I gave this guy is correct — but even if it is a different kind of sloth, it is definitely a sloth and definitely a first-ever for us. We saw a few of them from the boat. It was pretty easy to get pictures — they don’t move very fast!

    Lots of birds hiding out — our boat was quiet and I don’t think it disturbed them at all.

    There were other “swamp creatures” as well– a couple kind of huge lizards and everybody’s favorite (not) reptiles, crocodiles, alligators and caymans. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them. Oddly we didn’t spot any turtles, even though the village and national park are named for the sea turtles that make the area their home.

    We loved everything about our day on the water, even the crocodiles, but it was nice to be back to our home away from home too.

    Manatus Hotel, Torguguero, Costa Rica

    Because our flight from Eugene had been delayed, we had only the one full day to spend in Tortuguero and we were sorry to have to leave the next morning. But other adventures in this beautiful country awaited.

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  • Pura Vida

    We went to Costa Rica!

    Sunset from our porch where we stayed in Monte Verde — looking over the bay and peninsula toward the Pacific Ocean.

    In real-time, we’re almost settled in at the Canal Cottage for another season. But we took a detour on the way from our Oregon home, spending a couple of weeks in the land of Pura Vida.

    Pura Vida, the country’s motto, translates literally as ‘pure life’ but in Costa Rica it means even more. People say it often as a greeting or, I think, just a quick way to say ‘things are good here!’ In our (too brief) experience that’s very true.

    Bill on our hike in the Monte Verde Cloud Forest

    The travel- planner of the family (above) did his usual magic arranging this long-time travel bucket list destination in a way that totally lived up to our expectations.

    yellow-throated toucan

    Bill does all the planning — I take the pictures. Except not even that sometimes. Our birding guide in Monte Verde took this through his spotting scope after I looked through in complete delight!

    Cinnamon Becard

    Lots more pictures to share in future posts, which I sincerely hope will be very soon, now that I’ve almost figured out again how to do this blogging thing.

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    Thanks to the hosts of the sharing opportunities where I’ll share this post for the first time in a while. It’s good to be back.

    THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;  SATURDAY CRITTERS;