Hotel Bougainvillea

I'm still working my way through my photos from Costa Rica. Of course, the longer it takes, the less urgency there is. I took over 8000 photos on this trip. (I take 20,000 in a good year so this was a lot.)

Given it's a favorite flower, a place called Hotel Bougainvillea was bound to catch my eye. (Curiously, there wasn't actually a lot of bougainvillea, which was fine because there were so many other flowers.) The hotel looked quite nice, had a restaurant, and the gardens (10 acres) sounded wonderful. The downside was that it was in the suburbs of San Jose so there wasn't much to do outside the hotel (without a car). I wondered if I'd be bored stuck in and around the hotel for two days but between the frogs and the butterflies and everything else, that wasn't a problem. Here's the view from my room:

And the view out the dining room window:

There were lots of birdwatchers/photographers around, like this couple with their matching giant lenses, small lenses, cameras, monopods, and backpacks.

I didn't spot a lot of birds (maybe the serious birders found more). This Lesson's Motmot was my best find, especially as it was quite cooperative. I offered to point it out to a binocular carrying passerby, but they weren't interested. Maybe they'd already checked it off their list.

Of course, there were lots of flowers, including (I think) quite a few orchids.

There was a lot of artwork in the hotel. It's common for hotels to have some kind of artwork, but I thought the ones here were better than most, starting with the one in my room:

A number of them were by Ana Broennimann.

There was also some sculpture/statues in the gardens.

There were quite a few interesting insects around.

At first, I was puzzled by what made these paths in the lawn. I realized they were made by the leaf cutter ants. Normally they cut leaves from a tree and carry them to their nest, but they must also cut the vegetation (grass) along their route.

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