Paraiso, Costa Rica

On December 30, our birding tour in Costa Rica left San Jose in the morning, and visited the Irasu volcano.
After lunch, we headed down the mountain. Along the road we saw people having picnics.

Our next destination was the town of Paraiso, where we stopped in the central square.
Obviously, our fellow birders saw an interesting bird here.

The Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow, endemic to Costa Rica, is a favorite local bird as you can see here.
We had searched for this elusive bird earlier in the day, but never saw a live one! Only the statue.

Across the street from the busy square was a church.

A wall painting down the street 
(unfortunately a bad photo)

The palm trees surrounding the church were buzzing with parakeets.

The real reason we stopped in this pleasant town: two tropical screech owls roost in a tree beside the playgrounds.

The road from the volcano to Paraiso, and our eventual destination, Turrialba,
where our hotel Rancho Naturalista is located. Our whole trip was highly rewarding, and I’ve
been posting follow ups because I have saved so many photos of the many beautiful things we saw.

After leaving Paraiso, we traveled for another hour and finally reached Rancho Naturalista.
Dinner was waiting for us: you can see the pretty table setting. 
All dinners were served family style, with choices of water, fruit punch, wine, or soft drinks.

Photos © 2024 mae sander

Shared with Sami's Monday Murals and with Elizabeth's Tuesday Tea Party.

CATIE Botanical Garden, Turrialba, Costa Rica

A mural inside the visitor center of CATIE.

(Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza)

CATIE is a research and educational institution in Turrialba, Costa Rica. In English, CATIE stands for “Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center.” We visited there one afternoon during our birding trip — it was quite close to Rancho Naturalista, where we were staying. The gardens and research areas are very beautiful, especially the lake where we photographed a number of bird species. Besides the visitor center, CATIE has a large research building that we didn’t visit.

 

The small lake belonging to CATIE

I waited to post these photos so that I could share the art work with Sami’s Monday Murals and the group of people who enjoy public art of various types (https://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com/ ) All photos © 2024 mae sander. I’m also sharing next Saturday with Eileen’s Saturday Critters:

Costa Rica Wrap-Up

 

Our return from Costa Rica was one week ago today. In the week since then I’ve been catching up on documenting this wonderful birding trip. I’ve enjoyed thinking about all the spectacular and colorful birds we saw, such as the six species of owls depicted above. (Crested Owl, Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, Black & White Owl, Spectacled Owl, Mottled Owl, and Tropical Screech Owl.) Now I think it’s time to move on and start writing about life back here in very dreary Ann Arbor where we have not yet seen a moment of sunshine!

A full-color photo of the view from our living room window yesterday afternoon.
Guess what? I’m staying inside and reading books, which you’ll be hearing about.

Shared with the Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz.

Blog post © 2024 mae sander

Costa Rica: What I know about food and drink

Diet Coke, of course! We also drank 
lots of fresh fruit juice.

We saw ads for Imperial Beer everywhere! Here shown with two of the ever-present hot sauces.

Whenever I had a chance, I took a few photos of the inside or outside of supermarkets.
Here’s the beer!

A supermarket featuring Imperial Beer.

I especially liked the mural on the wall of this market with several of the birds we were looking for.

The artist’s signature.

A fruit and vegetable stand on a street.

Produce in one of the supermarkets where we bought drinks & snacks.

Costa Rica agriculture is very productive both in tropical fruits and other produce.

Just like at home.

Some of the group with our drinks.

As we walked along rural roads looking for birds, we also saw lots of growing crops.
The chayote (called mirliton in the US south) was growing on a tree.

I also tried to capture the look of the many bakeries.

Two Restaurants

Other than the hotels where we stayed, we ate in only two restaurants, one on the
way from San Jose to Rancho Naturalista, and one on the way back.
This restaurant is located on the road up to the volcano, right near where we saw the quetzel!
I’ve included a few photos of these two places, which feature local Costa-Rican food.

The bar at the restaurant on the way back.

Lunch on the way there: a soft tortilla with a variety of roast vegetables and cheese.

Lunch on the return: trout, french fries (ubiquitous!) and palm heart salad.

I’ve already written about the meals at our hotels, but here’s another photo of
my favorite: tortillas, meat, beans, cheese, etc. And a diet coke!

Blog post and photos © 2024 mae sander