Pitahaya, Costa Rica.

This week, our challenge guest host is Karina of Murtagh’s Meadow. In issuing her challenge, she writes in part, “Your special place may be a certain room in your house, it may be a place you like to visit, or it may be a building such as a library, museum, or church.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

I could have certainly picked many special places in my home state of North Dakota or many places in the great western United States where I have spent much of my retirement time. Instead, I chose a special place that I have only visited once in a country where I have spent less than 48 hours.

Natuwa’s focus is on the conservation of the Macaw through the auspices of the Macaw Conservation Sanctuary. The sanctuary provides a home for Costa Rica’s macaws with special needs. The Sanctuary rescues, rehabilitates, and releases the macaws back to the wild. Many birds are confiscated from poachers by Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) and brought to Natuwa for care and treatment as needed.

The opening photo features a healthy Scarlet Macaw that happened to be on the sanctuary grounds. Birds that are injured, being nursed back to health, or being prepared to be returned to the wild are kept in large cages for their own protection.

The blue and gold macaw is one of the larger parrots native to South and Central America. The sanctuary provides very tall cages to allow the birds that are able to fly around inside their protective environment. You can see the chain-link cage in the defocused background in this image.

These scarlet macaws are gathered around a feeding station. From the Natuwa website, “The conservation of Costa Rica’s macaws is important to keep intact the functions performed by these wonderful birds in the ecosystem.”

I discovered a trick for photographing these caged birds. Using a long lens and focusing on a distant subject causes the chain-link fence to virtually disappear. If you look carefully, you can see a section of the fence that is visible in front of the macaw. Ideally, it would have been nice to be able to put the lens in front of one of the openings in the fence and avoid the foreground fence altogether. Unfortunately, the lens was too big to fit.

Also from the Natuwa website, “NATUWA, does not reproduce these birds in captivity. Rather, it conserves the parrots devoting efforts in combating the looting of nests and the illegal trade of chicks, works with the local communities in the installation of artificial nest for the wild scarlet macaws”

Illegal trade in these beautiful birds is a major problem, especially for those raised in captivity from chicks. “For the confiscated macaw chicks that have been victims of illegal trade, our Macaw Management Program provides adequate conditions for these parrots to learn the survival skills of adoptive parents.”

This juvenile sloth was “hanging around” the sanctuary. It was not in a cage, so I don’t know if it just happened to be on the grounds of the sanctuary or if it was an “invited guest.” In addition to the macaws, the sanctuary also cares for animal wildlife injured in the wild or confiscated by local authorities. “Therefore, the NATUWA Wildlife Sanctuary, in addition to scarlet macaws (Ara macao) and great green macaws (Ara ambiguus) and other exotic parrots, also gives sanctuary to mammals of great biological importance for the ecosystems that need to be conserved.”

I conclude this virtual visit to my special place with this final quote from the Natuwa website. “

This fauna of Costa Rica is supervised and cared for by a team of specialists in order to provide them with the following freedoms: -From thirst, hunger, and malnutrition.  -Of discomfort.  -From pain and illness. -To express normal behavior.   -From fear and stress. 

Thanks to Karina for this week’s challenge, and thanks also to Sarah of the blog, “Travel With Me.” Her post about Costa Rica here reminded me of Natuwa and I realized it is a special place worth sharing for this week’s challenge.

I have many more images of the wildlife homed in Natuwa on my Flickr site in the album here. I invite you to visit and check them out.

John Steiner

On our first visit to Costa Rica in 2013 after crossing the Panama Canal, our first stop was Puntarenas. Back then, we opted for a jungle cruise and train ride. We had so much fun on the jungle cruise, we elected to do it again. Fortunately for us, that excursion was sold out by the time we went to reserve our excursions for the trip. It was indeed fortunate as we elected instead to visit Natuwa. We would have missed a visit to a fascinating place.

A 45 minute bus ride from the cruise ship docks at Puntarenas brought us to a wildlife sanctuary known as Natuwa. The birds and animals there are typically recovered from the wild and are cared for as they have some disability that keeps them from living a normal life in the wild. Birds and animals are kept in enclosures, however the large number of beautiful scarlet macaws, like the one in the opening image, and other birds native to Costa Rica have found a shelter and friendly people to come and visit. In the trees above the refuge we saw many of these wild birds taking advantage of a protected area, but still living in the wild and free to come and go as they please.

The bird and animal guests are kept in enclosures during their time of rehabilitation to be returned to the wild, unless they will no longer be able to survive in the jungles of Costa Rica. Those who can’t survive on their own will be permanent guests of the facility. This blue and gold macaw is one of many tagged and kept in captivity for its own protection.

Though known around the world for its large quantity and variety of macaws in rehabilitation, the sanctuary now houses several species of land animals as well, all kept in simple chain link enclosures. This jaguar is a youngster who kept to himself in the back of his enclosure. This was, unfortunately, the best image I could capture as he rested high on a ledge in his enclosure.

This spider monkey was attracted to something about one of the cruise ship guests and studied intently while he happened to be hanging on the fence directly in front of me. There were several varieties of monkeys in the care of the technicians who operate the sanctuary.

Here’s a tip for photographers. Sometimes you can ignore fences. The lens on my camera was far too large to insert in the opening of the chain links. Cell phone and point and shoot cameras can position the lens to shoot in the openings of the fence. People with larger lenses on their cameras aren’t out of luck, however. If you pick a subject that’s back from the fence some distance and then set the camera for a large lens opening, focus on the subject, and take the shot. The fence you are shooting through will “magically” disappear as in this image above.

That technique doesn’t always work, especially when in this case, the subject was a little too close to the fence for the camera to completely “defocus” on the fence. Still, this portrait of a macaw at least allowed me to demonstrate how the technique works, and the photo still turned out acceptably for me.

Another image of a scarlet macaw inside a sanctuary fence again demonstrates the technique of “shooting through” the fence. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to eliminate the pattern of the fence in the background without a lot of work in a program like Photoshop.

As I noted in the opening of this post, the sanctuary attracts wild macaws who, like this pair, come and go as they please. There were plenty of wild birds to capture in the sanctuary whose images were captured with a natural background instead of a chain link fence.

I conclude this post with an image of a three-toed sloth sleepily “hanging around” the park. This juvenile sloth was not caged, but I never did find out if it was truly wild or simply being allowed to live outside a fenced area as it matured. I submit for your viewing enjoyment, images in the form of a gallery so that you, dear reader, can navigate through them in an enlarged format for better viewing. Click on an image to enlarge and scroll through the set.

John Steiner

An enigma wrapped in a mystery. That’s what this photo is. The date stamp from my cellphone indicates the image was captured at 5:18 PM. It’s obviously a sunset so we must therefore have been looking to the west. Here’s the enigma. We were on our way to transit the Panama Canal. The other images captured on that date were all of Costa Rica. We docked at Puntarenas that day. This image was captured as we departed toward our date the next morning with our Panama Canal transit. We were on the west side of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean. So, how could there be a land mass to the west between us and the sunset? Could it be the time stamp was wrong and this was a sunrise? It took my loading Google Maps to view Puntarenas to see that it is located in a natural harbor.

About the photo: When this photo was taken, we were transiting the Gulf of Nicoya on our way back out to the ocean. Mystery solved (See Google map above). This image was captured with my Samsung S6 cell phone, aperature set at f/1.9; 1/1000 sec.; ISO 40. As with all Cellpic Sunday images, the rule is that it must be captured on a mobile device.

John Steiner

This week, Tina Schell asks us to interpret our own concept of “wild”. She focuses her camera on animals captured in the wilds of Africa, but allows the freedom to explore the other many definitions of the term as we see fit. You can read her entire challenge post here. Though I could have gone with images of “The Wild West” or “Wild in the Streets”, I decided instead to feature some wildlife from Costa Rica.

A 45 minute bus ride from the cruise ship docks at Puntarenas will bring you to a wildlife sanctuary known as Natuwa. The birds and animals there are typically recovered from the wild and are cared for as they have some disability that keeps them from living a normal life in the wild. Birds and animals are kept in enclosures, however the large number of beautiful macaws, like the one in the opening image, and other birds native to Costa Rica have found a shelter and friendly people to come and visit. In the trees above the refuge we saw many of these wild birds taking advantage of a protected area, but still living in the wild and free to come and go as they please.

Near the exit, hanging lazily in a tree, a juvenile sloth completely ignored the many people from our cruise ship who wanted a photo of this little guy. He was high enough in the tree that I had to use my 300 mm zoom lens at its maximum reach.

High in the trees above us in the sanctuary, a macaw couple rested on a branch. I have many more images captured from the sanctuary that I will be sharing in a future Travel Tuesday. This week’s challenge allowed me to provide a “teaser” preview of some of the exotic birds and animals we saw at Natuwa.

John Steiner

This week, Cheri Lucas Rowlands asks us to share a quest. You can read her entire challenge post here. For me, one journey that I hoped to take led us to the Panama Canal. I don’t even know why that was an important goal for me. No matter, in the spring of 2013, we departed Miami on the Norwegian Pearl bound for the Canal and other Latin American ports. In the opening image, the Pearl, our home for a fortnight is in port at Puerto Chiapas, Mexico, awaiting our return from the day’s excursions.

The first stop on our cruise docked us at Cartagena, Colombia. We toured the oldest parts of the walled city by horse drawn carriage. As part of this challenge, I decided to review all of the images captured at each stop of our quest. Almost all of these posts are being shared for the first time, and every  image has been reprocessed from the original camera RAW file. I’ve learned much about processing images since the original photos were uploaded. I thought it might be fun to share new, hopefully higher quality images. The gallery of images below features one image from every stop on our canal cruise. Click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

Feel free to search for the category Cruising. All of the Panama Canal cruise blog posts as well as all other cruise experiences will be listed. Cruising is a popular activity and my post about the Norwegian Pearl is still the most viewed page on my site even though it is now over three years old.

John Steiner

The small gallery of images I selected for  this week’s challenge could be called, “Dinner is served!” As you can see by the opening photo, the crocodile is eying the fish… or is it that delicious-looking arm and hand? Good news for the guy in the orange, at least on this day, the croc only got the fish. The image was captured on an excursion to Costa Rica’s Tárcoles River (Rio Grande de Tárcoles). You can visit the original post about Puntarenas and our excursion here.

Moving back to the United States, the hummingbird in the photo above is enjoying a bit of sugar water supplied by the friendly folks at the Hassayampa River Preserve near Wickenburg, Arizona. An afternoon in the preserve will reward the visitor with at least glimpses of a wide variety of avian wildlife and some beautiful vistas. You can see more images from that post here.

Finally, less than an hour’s drive from Wickenburg in Litchfield Park, Arizona, guests of the zoo can purchase a small amount of food for the giraffes and, after climbing a tall stairway to the observation area, can feed the giraffes. You can view more photos from our day trip to the zoo here.

I’d like to stick around and write some more… but it’s almost dinnertime here in Fargo, North Dakota.

John Steiner

Tárcoles River, Costa Rica

This week we are challenged to share photos that take the observer on a photographic adventure. From the challenge post, “It could be an image of someone setting off on an epic journey, a photo you took on an adventure of your own, or something more metaphoric that represents a personal or psychological adventure. ” To view the entire post, click here. I submit for your photographic adventure, a Tárcoles River Experience.

In the photo above, one of the large tour boats departs the dock with a full load of passengers ready for a river adventure. We’ve been told we will see crocodiles, a wide variety of land animals, and many different bird species. We would not be disappointed.

At first sighting of the tour boat, the crocs come swimming toward the boat. It’s then one of the tour guides surprises everyone by jumping into the water, chicken in one hand and fish in the other. It appears he’s a total idiot bent upon suicide. He’s bringing hors d’oeuvre along with his own personal main course.

Keeping his hands well away from those powerful jaws, the guide drops the food into the croc’s open mouth. He’s probably not sure whether the croc knows that old adage about not biting the hand that feeds you.

To see more photos of our Costa Rica Experience, check out these two blog posts:

Puntarenas Jungle River Safari

Our Costa Rica Journey, More from Puntarenas

John Steiner

Near Puntarenas, Costa Rica

I had planned to move on tell you about to our next stops on our Panama Canal cruise, but I decided at the last minute to share more photos from our excursion in Costa Rica with you. I present for your anticipated approval, a further photo essay about our Costa Rican boat trip and train ride.

I’ve seen banana trees loaded with fruit before, however this day would be the first day I would actually see a banana flower. The blossom is as bulky and heavy as it looks, weighing in at an average one pound (0.45 kg) or so. The flower is actually an Asian delicacy enjoyed by many when properly prepared.

You may recall from last week’s post that I ended my story when we left the river, stopping only to view a pair of nesting scarlet macaws. From there, we traveled by tour bus to a train station where we boarded a 1910 era passenger train.

The trip, lasting around an hour, was one way, and traveled through some rural developments and a long and very dark tunnel. Views along the way gave us a snapshot of rural Costa Rica.

I expected that the tracks made some sort of loop and that we would return to the train station from where we departed. I was surprised it was a one-way trip and when we exited the train car at the end of the trip, the tour bus was waiting. We reloaded the bus for the ride back to the pier and our ship.

After the long excursion, we thought about hanging around the pier and visiting the makeshift shops that always spring up along the pier when a cruise ship comes to town. Deciding there would be plenty of opportunity to shop along the shore in Mexico, we decided to head back to the ship to rest up for that wonderful evening meal. Next week we will review our first stops in Mexico.

John Steiner

Near Puntarenas, Costa Rica

If we had known that the Rio Grande de Tárcoles, (Tárcoles River), is arguably the most polluted river in Costa Rica, we might have chosen another excursion on our day trip in Costa Rica. Ironically, we would have missed the best excursion on our Panama Canal Cruise. This day was to be filled to the brim with wildlife, mostly birds.

The Tárcoles River, almost 70 miles (about 110 km) in length flows southwest from central Costa Rica to its outlet in the Pacific Ocean. The river is home to 50 species of bird and the American crocodile, as well as many other types of wildlife. Our trip, only a couple of miles up and down river, provided so many opportunities for photographs, that I had a very difficult time narrowing them down to the few that I could include in this photo essay.

The river trip, in a boat that holds twenty or so passengers, provided beautiful views of Carara National Park. The northern border of the park meanders along the river. The park is a national treasure containing rain forests, dry tropical forests, and many species of wildlife including the rare scarlet macaw.

The park and river are home to over 2000 American Crocodiles. On our short boat excursion, we probably saw a dozen crocs either swimming in the river or sunning themselves on the shore. At one point, the boat captain pulled up alongside two swimming crocs and exited the boat with a handful of raw chicken. Two hungry crocodiles knew the routine and readily swam up to him, opened their massive jaws and patiently waited to be fed.

After feeding the crocs, the driver hopped back onto the boat and we continued up river. Along the shore we saw many reptiles; the most prevalent being the gecko. There were also a couple of iguanas and a basilisk lizard. The latter is popularly known as the Jesus Christ Lizard for his ability to walk, or more correctly, run on the surface of the water.

A native of Costa Rica, unfortunately, this basilisk male did not show off his amazing aquatic ability, instead choosing to sit quietly on the bank apparently eyeing some tasty insect morsel for lunch. Since I was unable to provide a photo of the basilisk lizard in action, here’s a link to a YouTube video that shows this amazing predator lizard in action.

The highlight of the river trip was the bird life we observed. Birders, take note, Costa Rica is a birder’s paradise. According to our tour guide, this tiny central American country, only about the size of South Carolina in area, is home to over 890 different species of bird and fifty of them are commonly found along the Tárcoles River. Here is but a couple examples of the variety of birdlife we observed on our trip along the river.

After our trip, we re-boarded our tour bus for the next part of the day’s excursion. Before we got back on the highway, while traveling on the road from the river, one of the passengers spotted a couple of birds in a tree some distance from the bus. Believing them to be scarlet macaw and knowing that sightings of them in the wild are relatively rare, the tour guide immediately asked the driver to stop the bus and we backed up several hundred yards on the road. These rare and endangered birds, maybe only 450 living in the Carara Park, were quite a distance from the bus in a relatively dense forested area. It took the guide about 15 minutes to point out and make sure that everyone on the bus could see the birds that appeared to be preparing to nest. My camera, only equipped with a 200mm zoom lens, and hindered by the tinted bus window, did the best it could to capture the two beautiful birds. I apologize for the quality of the photo, but given the circumstances, it was the best I could do.

I am very thankful that there was a sharp-eyed birder who knew what she was looking for, and just happened to spot the pair even as the bus was driving by at probably 20 miles per hour down the gravel road.

John Steiner