We had a spectacular sunset as we enjoyed dinner!! Afterwards, we went on a night walk with a local guide. It was amazing to see creatures that thrive at night!!Our first encounter was a poisonous frog!! Our guide held the frog by the back of his body to avoid the area where poisonous substances are secreted.Our next encounter was this small snake. Our guide said that this snake was not poisonous. However, I do not like to be too close to snakes!!This is another view of our friendly snake. I thought it was interesting that he had a white color on part of his head.Our next encounter was a Costa Rican scorpion. There are a number of different scorpions in Costa Rica. Our guide found this guy in a tree and sort of scooped him into a plant “wrapper.” He carefully opened the wrapper with two rocks so we could see him. This guy was quite a bit larger than most of the scorpions I have seen in Arizona.This is another view of the same scorpion to show that he glows under a black light.We next came across this friendly frog. He patiently sat looking at us as we photographed him.Our next discover was a tarantula sitting on a tree trunk. As long as we kept some distance, he did not seem to mind being photographed. As we walked closer, he moved inside the tree.We next discovered this amazing spider. She had quite a large web and seemed to be waiting for a large bug to be caught in her web.We next discovered this frog that was enjoying the night!! He seemed happy to be photographed!This little guy is the star of the show!! This is Red Eye Tree Frog and he is very famous in Costa Rica!! A photo of this guy is the lead photo for the tour I am on. He is small, but his huge red eyes capture everyone’s hearts!! We were very excited that we were able to find one of these guys!!Our last night creature was this amazing bug that had two green lights on the front of his head!! When he was getting ready to fly away, he had an orange light start on his abdomen and then he flew away!!The next morning, I got up at 5:30 am to photograph birds near the lodge. The lodge staff put out fruit on some nearby branches for the birds to eat. I have been infatuated by this bird for the past few days. I love the brilliant orange color and jet black feathers. He moves around quickly, so he is hard to photograph.I love the gorgeous colors of all the Costa Rican birds!! They are amazing!! Many people in our group have a strong interest in discovering these birds!The birds really seem to enjoy bananas!!I really like to blue colors of this bird!!Brilliant yellow feathers are so gorgeous!!I really like this bird!! His colors are amazing!!This cute guy seemed to be quite intrigued with being photographed!!This rotund guy was very happy enjoying his banana!!I loved the colors with this bird!!The multiple colors of this guy were beautiful!!I thought this yellow and black combination was fantastic!!This guy was a happy eater!!Fruit is very popular with the birds!!
We had an absolutely fantastic time running the river today!! We felt like we were 10 years old as we laughed and splashed through the rapids!! It was so much fun!! I am on the left boat in the front. Everyone has been so wonderful on this trip!!I am grateful that some of the river guides took photos of everyone as we were paddling and trying not to fall out of our boat!!This is my favorite photo of our great team!!Part way through the trip, we stopped at a gorgeous waterfall!! the water was a fantastic temperature!!We ate fantastic Costa Rican watermelon and pineapple on our break. I am grateful that our guide, Danny, took this photo!!We went on a hike through the jungle on our way to the river. We are all still dry in this photo. But not for long!!As we were walking, one of the boat guides saw this owl sitting in a tree near the trail. Fortunately, our guide Danny brought his telescope with the cellular phone attachment to capture this fantastic photo!!The Costa Rican scenery is so beautiful!!This small bugs, that almost look like ants are actually termites!! Our guide told us about them and then he picked one up and put it in his mouth. He said it tasted like carrots!! After that, people waited their turn to grab a termite and eat it. So now I can say that I have eaten termites!! Our guide was correct. They actually do taste sort of like carrots!!The learned about different types of ferns in Costa Rica!! Our guide pick one that was green on the top and silver on the bottom. He showed us that if we put the leaf on our clothes and then taped the leaf that we would have an impression of the fern. I thought it showed up great on my grey pants!!It rained on us while we were on the river. As we were driving back to the lodge, we could see one place where the original river was on the right, and muddy water was flowing down the mountain and into the river. It was interesting to see such a drastic color change!!I understand why people that like birds love visiting Costa Rica!! There are all kinds of birds everywhere!!This guy was sitting in a tree as we drove back into our lodge!!As we were eating, this amazing iguana started climbing up the stone staircase. He lifted his head and looked around at everything! It is simply amazing to see so many unique things in Costa Rica!!
Today was a huge travel day!! We spent 5 hours in our van traveling to the amazing Rafiki Lodge. Along the way, we stopped at this woman’s home and she prepared an amazing meal for us!! Here she is showing banana that was cooked flat like a tortilla and then she served it with deliciously flavored beans on top. It was fantastic!!
Sometimes we traveled on some rough dirt roads on the way to this woman’s home. Our guide described our bouncing around in our van as a “Costa Rican massage!!”
She had a wonderful paradise of flowers and fruits growing in her yard!! It was a photographer’s paradise to take photos of all the colors.I loved the delicate petals on this white flower!!Everything seems to grow well in Costa Rica!!The colors and shapes of the flowers in this woman’s backyard were astounding!!I think this is called a star fruit. I loved its shape. She served us slices of this fruit from her tree!!I really enjoyed photographing the delicate flowers!!
Amazing flowers seem to grow easily in Costa Rica!!She told me the Spanish name of this fruit, but I am not sure of the English name.Her avocados were fantastic!! She served each of us a large slide from her backyard!!The colors were absolutely amazing!!After an amazing and “over the top” lunch, we drove 20 minutes more and arrived a the Rafiki Lodge. This has an African emphasis, here in the middle of Costa Rica.!! It is super humid here right now. I have sweat dripping off me as I type!!This is my room. I will finally have the opportunity to try “glamping” for two nights. The bathroom is in the stone structure and the beds are inside a tent. We do not have doors. Instead, we have a tent zipper!! Despite the heat and humidity, there is no air conditioning. Instead, I have a ceiling fan and two floor fans on stands. Hopefully, it will be much cooler when we go to bed tonight!!!This is the stone staircase that leads to the porch outside my bedroom.This is the view from my porch to see where the 3 beds are located in the sleeping area. There is a plug next to the bed for CPAP use.Here is the bathroom area with running water!!This is my very large shower!!
We got up at 4:30 am to drive to a nearby area that has a nest for a male and female Quetzal birds. This gorgeous photo was taken by our group leader Danial using a telescope connected to his cellular phone. This is a male Quetzal. They are very colorful and have large tails. I think this may be the most beautiful bird I have seen in my life! It was well worth dragging ourselves out of bed so early in order to see such a gorgeous bird!!Using my telephoto lens, I was able to take a grainy photo of the male when he flew back to this branch. From his back, it is easy to see that he has a huge tail!!This is the female Quetzal and she is eating some food. The female is not as colorful and has a shorter tail. It was absolutely phenomenal to see both of these Quetzal birds!!This is our motley crew that went on a hike after breakfast. It was taken using our group leader’s (Daniel) cellular phone. It is amazing how green everything is in Costa Rica!I thoroughly enjoy seeing all the wonderful colors in the flowers that grow in Costa Rica!!I have always loved Mexican Bird of Paradise! They grow very well in Costa Rica!!I thought the bright green ferns were beautiful!The shapes and vibrant fern colors were beautiful!This photo shows how the moss grows everywhere. In addition, there are vines and ground roots that grow along the trees up into the canopy of the trees.The moss was thick and held water from all the rain.This small waterfall was next to the trail from our hike. Our group leader drank straight from the water, but he suggested that we probably should not try it without filtering the water.Our guide told us that a jaguar has been seen walking along the trail where we were hiking!! Gulp!!I loved seeing the bright colors and rich greens as we walked along the trail!!There were beautiful colors everywhere we looked!!I liked looking up and seeing the sun and shadows on the leaves above us!!The vibrant colors of the flowers was amazing to me!!This friendly hummingbird was at our hotel. He was difficult to photograph because he kept zooming around to different locations!
We had a wonderful first day in Costa Rica! After checking out of our hotel, we drove to a place that grows coffee. It was interesting to learn all about the coffee plant and sampling of their products! We were in the Dota and Santa Maria in Costa Rica.This is the beginning of the coffee blossom that will eventually turn into coffee beans. We drove up into the mountains to reach this site with very fertile soil and it received lots of rain. Many beautiful flowers grow in this area of Costa Rica!!This was our excellent tour guide. He was very helpful explaining everything about growing coffee. We were able to sample three different blends of coffee. The boldest coffee was my favorite!!This is a photo of one of their coffee plants.This photo shows how well the coffee plants grow in this area of the country.We also saw banana plants growing in the area!!Dota is the name of this region in Costa Rica. I loved this colorful sign as we entered the town where they were growing coffee.This was my fantastic passion fruit drink I had at lunch!! It was wonderful!!Several people ordered cappuccino and they were served beautifully decorated!!Our group leader’s cappuccino was served with a swan!!
Another person received their drink with a flower. I took the photo after they had taken one sip.
Here is our motley crew of 10 people that made great friendships and thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Mayan people. This photo shows the incredible Mayan architecture and their famous Mayan arch.We saw some absolutely incredible sites together!!There were so many beautiful places to visit!!I thought this was an interesting photo they took of me as I was photographing the pyramids.This is proof that I got into the cenote!! It was quite fun to swim in the fresh water. Wearing a lifejacket was a wise requirement to get into the water.
I thought is was especially fun to swim under the waterfall!!Each morning we met together for breakfast! We stayed a beautiful hotels and the food was wonderful!!Riding in the tricycles was fun and a little bumpy!!It was amazing to see so many different Mayan ruins!!Soon after this photo was taken, the dark clouds opened up and it started to rain!The aqua-colored water of the Caribbean Sea was amazing!!
Sadly, today is our last day to see the sites in Yucatan. Our goal was to see the amazing ruins in Tulum, but we first visited the local market in Valladolid.I absolutely love all the bright colors of vegetables available in Yucatan. I do not think I have ever seen radishes so huge!!Everywhere you look in the Valladolid market, there a beautiful foods to eat!!This trip has taught me that habanero chilis are extremely hot!! I can only use a small amount on my foods.These friendly people were proud of the high quality of their produce!I liked all the bottles of items from vanilla to honey!!These small bananas were extremely flavorful!! We bought enough for everyone to have one while we drove to Tulum!!I absolutely loved all these bottles of miel (honey)!!I wanted to sample all these items!! From garlic to rice to beans!!This cacao is where chocolate is made. Our guide knew the owner and she gave us samples to try!!It is not every day that you see a beef head!! You can buy anything at this market!!I loved all the cheerful colors on the shoes for sale!!Next, we drove for quite a while to get to the Caribbean coast to the famous city of Tulum!!The Tulum ruins are an entire city of Mayan ruins. We walked through various sites to see all kinds of buildings. It was also fun to see the tropical setting of Tulum!!There were many Mayan structures that our guide showed to us!!This building was used to demonstrate the unique door jamb and lintel framework the Mayans used in Tulum.The beach is part of Tulum and the water is the Caribbean Sea!! There is a break in the large reef that would allow ships to come to this beach.I was amazed at the complexity of all the different buildings in Tulum!!The presence of all the palm trees was so different from the other Mayan ruin sites we have visited!!This is the highest structure in Tulum and the Spaniards were able to see this building when they were sailing in the Caribbean Sea. The building is called “the castle.”I especially liked this house!! Someone wealthy must have lived here.We just kept walking from one impressive building to another! Tulum is huge!!As we walked through the ruins, we kept encountering many iguanas! This male was massive!! He carefully watched us as we walked by.I thought this was absolutely hilarious! I never expected to see the tail of an iguana sticking out of a hole in a Mayan wall!!This is another view of “the castle.” I thought is was absolutely amazing!!The corner view of this mask took up the whole corner and is one of the best preserved masks in the Mayan ruins. You can see the person’s chin and mouth on the bottom. Above it is the nose and eyes.Tulum has an absolutely spectacular view of the beautiful color of the Caribbean Sea!!This iguana seemed especially interested in watching us!!I loved seeing the combination of the palm trees, some of the Tulum structures, and the gorgeous color of the Caribbean Sea!!
We started our day by driving to the Coba ruins. These are the tallest ruins in Yucatan!! We all thought about climbing these stairs, but common sense prevailed and we instead, enjoyed watching other people climb to the top.There was a ballcourt at Coba, but it was much smaller than the one at Chichen Itza. The ring hole was much larger here too.Another characteristic of Coba is that the limestone is softer here, so the stones needed to be make overall smaller to make it easier to stack them.I saw this spider web while we were looking at the ruins and I thought it was intricate and amazing!!This wild turkey was walking among the ruins and I thought he was beautiful!! I have never seen a turkey with so many colors!!This is a view of the main Mayan pyramid at Coba. There are many other pyramids in the area that have not been excavated.To make it easier to get around among all the Coba ruins, we were chauffeured around the grounds in sexy tricycles!!We next drove to the Spider Monkey Reserve and started walking through the jungle looking for monkeys. Our guide discovered a family moving through the canopy above us. I learned that it is very difficult to photograph monkeys in the wild because they move around very quickly!!Here is a baby spider monkey looking at me with big eyes!!This guy was moving quickly through the branches!!They were busy eating and you can see food all around this guy’s mouth!!This is the mom spider monkey with her baby nearby!!
For me, the highlight of this trip has been to see Chichen Itza!! It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site!! It is absolutely amazing too see the Mayan engineering and mathematical applications as they built such an incredible structure!! Two sides have been repaired and two sides have been left in rustic conditions. This angle of Chichen Itza shows a fully refurbished side of the pyramid.The ballcourt at Chichen Itza is the largest ballcourt in the entire Mayan region!! It is absolutely huge!! The ring can be seen in the middle of the wall.This is the ring in the middle of the ballcourt! I have absolutely no idea how the players manage to hit the rubber ball through that hole!!This Mayan carving shows incredible detail of a ballcourt player. One foot is wearing and sandal the other foot is wearing a “boot” to kick the rubber ball. He has an amazing headress!! The players wore elaborate dress when playing.This player has the same shoes (sandal and boot), and is in elaborate dress as well with his helmet and body armor.This structure was built at the end of the ballcourt. It is one of the many different viewing areas.This snake head was near the ballcourt and ran along the edge of the wall.This warrior has all of his war materials, including spears and blow darts!!This guy is holding the head of someone in his left hand!! Maybe it is the head of the loser in the rubber ball game? I like this guy’s headdress!! You can see he is wearing knee pads.This is the cenote at Chichen Itza!! It is notorious for having been used for sacrificing people. They would throw live people over the edge and into the cenote. If they lived after two days, they were considered a semi-God.All kinds of venders were along the causeway. I loved the colors of this pottery. I bought a t-shirt!This building is called the “observatory.” It was built to study hundreds of heavenly bodies. The Mayan understanding of math and astronomy was amazing!!These are building are behind the king’s palace and may have been built by a son to honor his father the king after his father had died.After leaving Chichen Itza, we drove to Selva Maya to eat lunch and swim in their cenote!! The water was a bit chilly, but not bad once you were in the water. It was so much fun to swim in this cenote!! I is continually refreshed by underground rivers!! We swam under the waterfall and it was fun when the water came down on our heads!!
This afternoon we traveled from the hacienda to Valladolid. We made a stop at a cemetery and our group leader described the current Mayan way to bury people is to put them in the ground for 5 years (to decompose), and then the family claims the body and places them in a mausoleum. Over time, a family may add additional family members to the mausoleum.Some mausoleums are well cared for and others are more rustic. A skull from a family member may be seen in this mausoleum.This beautiful plant as growing wild in the cemetery and we all thought it was beautiful!When we arrived in Valladolid, we first went to the church and adjacent monastery. The church grounds covered the city’s water supply at the cenote.
Fiesta on Wheels 