Hummingbirds- Iridescence Can Be a BITCH

The Rofous-tailed Hummingbird is probably the most common species of hummingbird found in Costa Rica.
D'Angelo and I never knew how much we loved birds until we moved to Costa Rica- Toucans, Oropendolas, Honeyceepers etc., and especially the HUMMINGBIRDS! We love watchin' those little guys jettin' around from flower to flower with such determination- little flying caffeinated pieces of artwork.

Needless to say we have about 8 feeders around our vacation rental property in la Fortuna (video below), which is precisely how Cynthia Walpole and her husband, Charles Fritsch, found us. They are professional photographers and love to photograph hummingbirds, and if you've ever tried, you know how difficult it can be too truly capture a hummingbird's beauty- iridescence can be a bitch. Anyway, they can, but you'll have to ask them how they do it, I'm supposing it's both daunting and technical (strobe lights and such) and you probably need as much patience as the hummers have energy.



After a few emails back and forth confirming that we do indeed have quite a few species of hummingbirds at our feeders, Cynthia, Chuck and Cynthia's brother, Julio, rented our place out for a few days to see if they could get the shots they were looking for. *I believe they were very interested in getting the White-tailed hermit, which we do have, but Hermits are typically shy and the more aggressive hummers chase them away from the feeders as soon as they see them. However, Hermits are fairly stealthy themselves, sneaking up on the feeders but quickly leaving when they sense another hummer, so needless to say, they can be even a little more tricky than the usual hummingbird to capture on film. *Here's a short video when a White-tailed hermit got stuck in our house. We're not exactly sure if they got all the pics they wanted but we're guessing probably not since Chuck was telling me it takes about 2000 shots to get the 'one' and I believe it. I know, D'Angelo and I have tried on many of occasions to get a decent pic. The above foto of the White-necked Jacobin is just one sample pic of what Cynthia and Chuck shot at our house. The most excellent pic of the Rofous-tail was also taken by Cynthia and Chuck but not at our house. After only talking them with a few minutes it's obvious they're passionate about what they do and talk about a WEALTH of information.... so if hummers are your thing, I would say check out their their website or shoot them an email- FocusFrog. Great stuff. ENjoY!

Our vacation rental video just in case you haven't seen it yet.



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Our La Fortuna Rental Property FINAL VIDEO

Our La Fortuna Costa Rica vacation rental property is NOW ready to rent and ENjoY!
We call it the 'Mountain House'. It's located about 9 minutes by car from La Fortuna Central and basically sits at the base of the Arenal Volcano. The La Fortuna Waterfall is also close by. But you know what? The video we made speaks a lot louder than any words I can write... so CHECK it OUT, we think it came out pretty good... *Go HERE if you're interested in more INFO or would like to rent it.

TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Pics of Our NEW Vacation Rental Property

Our La Fortuna, Costa Rica, vacation rental property is finally on Flipkey (HERE) and ready to ENjoY! *Flipkey is the owned by TripAdvisor and specializes in vacation rental properties (and no, we don't like TripAdvisor but yes, we understand the irony). We've been working feverishly these last months to be ready for the busiest time of the year here in Costa Rica which is the couple weeks of Christmas and the New Year. Sadly, we didn't really make it because it just wasn't ready, oh well. BUT now it's 99% ready to go and just needs a few minor touches, which I'm sure it will always need. We should have our last and final VIDEO installment done soon and when you compare the first with the last, I think you'll understand why we're so excited. But for the time being, here's a few pics.

LOT'S of Costa Rica style decorations...LOVE the Boruca masks.

Living Room area with a Volcano View and hundreds of birds just outside.

Hot Tub on the porch. The porch area s BIGGER than this, just need some more pics. Breakfast outside with the hummingbirds and the Arenal Volcano can't be beat.

Master bedroom, comfy bed, ceiling fan, flat screen tv.

AND if all that wasn't enough, a Japanese toilet seat... your genitals will thank you.... no really.
These pics don't really capture the house, hopefully the video will...but trust me, it's a very, cute cottage/cabin style house that sometimes I think we're crazy to RENT out. But if you're ever in the area and want a great experience... we're here.

Anyway, not a fan of Christmas but for those of you who are, I hope you have the BEST Holidays EVER!

TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Our Vacation Rental in Fortuna pt. 2

Our Vacation Rental in La Fortuna Costa Rica.
Our first video about our vacation rental property took some crap. I think it was something about, 'unprofessional' and of course the 'drinking/drunk' thing. Whoops! We didn't mean anything by it, just trying to show our real life here in Costa Rica- zits and ALL. I guess some folks don't like that, they'd rather see a glossed over picture of paradise. lo que sea.

I know this looks like FUN but this took 4 days with 3 people doing it...so glad it's done.
So, like the video below will show, we've been busy, VERY BUSY. BTW- the fist pic is a view of the back of the house. It's looking pretty good, but landscaping will be an ongoing thing, too many beautiful plants/flowers/trees and the plan is to LUSH the property out- we're well on our way. But really, we can't wait until our next video to show you the inside- COMPLETED.

Here's the second installment video of our vacation rental property in La Fortuna Costa Rica:



TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Our Vacation Rental VIDEO Gets Harsh Feedback

michael alan and D'Angelo (Travel Costa Rica NOW) have a vacation rental property in La Fortuna Costa Rica.
Yup, we now have a vacation rental property in La Fortuna, so we decided to do a preliminary video about it, which is below. We posted it yesterday and received this message on Facebook from a guy we don't know:

"This video is not professional and does not represent either of you or your business. Why would you want to show anyone the mess, refer to it as “this fucking house,” and expect anyone to want to rent anything from you? I would delete it immediately. When you sober up and look at it again, you will agree."

First I want to say, we put ourselves out there with what we do and realize we're going to get the spectrum of feedback, folks who love us, those that don't and everything between. In other words, we're fine with taking the good with the bad- to us it's all GOOD and if we can't take it, we shouldn't be doing it. And really, most of the feedback we receive is extremely positive anyway.

To be honest, this comment irked me a little and I'll tell you why. We have over 240 informative videos and THOUSAND + pages (blogs/website) about traveling and living in Costa Rica. We have maybe 3 videos like this one and I'm thinking if he knew our 'body of work' so to speak, he wouldn't be judging so harshly.

So we have this new vacation rental property that's about 2 months away from being ready to rent. We need furniture, decorations, a little minor repairs and landscaping (we're totally going to LUSH it out the grounds). We started the renovation but wanted to show you the place even though at this point it's basically a mess. We'll be doing 2 more videos as things progress and the quality of the videos will progress as well. But on this particular 'first video' we decided to do it raw. If this video was about the effects of Dengue on a 10-year old in Costa Rica, we would have been 'professional'

but to get friends to help you with your house for FREE, you need a LOT of pizza and beer... and we had it. D'Angelo and myself work very hard- everyday. Really. Everyday. And since we weren't doing a Dengue video, we had a little fun and yes, had a few too many beers. Work hard - Play hard. We deserve it from time to time. I guess what I'm trying to say is, D'Angelo and myself are 'real' people, living a 'real' life in a foreign country and struggling everyday to make it work. We're not trying to be 'slick' but it's true, we have a couple videos that are not very professional. So what? At least we're 'real' and we are honest. We don't have an agenda like most every Costa Rica website on the internet today, but even if we did have an agenda, we'd tell you what it was. And I got news for you, this IS us and we don't expect anything. I'm also sober enough to know I'd rather drink with my friends and be unprofessional from time to time then be who you think I'm suppose to be to make you happy. So the video stays. But really, feel free to stay off our channel and our sites and FaceBook.

Here's our video about our new vacation rental in La Fortuna. BE WARNED- If you don't appreciate beer and unprofessionalism, don't watch, you'll be so disappointed with us.


TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!