Kurt Buzard, Author at Travel To Eat

November 19, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Gardens of the Hotel Bougainvillea in Costa Rica

Hotel Bougainvillea Garden. Costa Rica

The Hotel Bougainvillea is a relatively small, privately owned hotel in a suburb of San José in Santo Domingo near Santa Rosa in the Herdia province popular as a starting point for nature tours in Costa Rica. Part of the reason making this a popular choice is the affordable prices but the real selling point of the hotel is the 10 acre garden. It has been my experience that the most beautiful, varied and interesting gardens are created by a collector. While I never met the owner(s), this is truly a world class garden, with sculpture, mature local and special rare species from the surrounding countries and even an amazing rock collection. The rooms are typical of a Motel 6 but the restaurant is good, especially with local favorites and it has air conditioning. The Costa Rica National Gardening Association has given them an award as the best garden in Costa Rica. In this garden you can find small samples of the country’s crops, such as coffee, cocoa, bananas, pineapple and papaya. They have 22 types of bromeliads, 51 different orchids, 28 types of heliconia and 29 types of lilies among many other plants. Because it was winter, I only got to see a fraction of the garden in bloom but trust me, this is a garden you will want to visit.

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November 8, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Interesting Trees in Costa Rica

Pink Shower Tree (Cassia grandis). La Ensenada, Costa Rica

I thought I would add a post on the trees of Costa Rica since there are so many beautiful and unusual specimens. This trip, I visited during the winter or dry season, so many of the plants were without leaves or flowers. Nonetheless, there were many fascinating examples of trees that we in North America rarely get to see. I have roughly divided them into fruit trees, large trees and palm and palm-like trees. Cassia grandis, seen above, is one of several species called pink shower tree, and known as carao in Spanish. It is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the neotropics, that grows up to 98 feet (30 m). The species is distributed from southern México, to Venezuela and Ecuador. It grows in forests and open fields at lower elevations, and is known to be planted as an ornamental. In at least Costa Rica, its pods are stewed into a molasses-like syrup, taken as a sweetener and for its nutritional and medicinal effects, called Jarabe (or Miel) de Carao.

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October 9, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Plants of the Cloud Forest of the Cordillera de Talamanca

High Mountain Cloud Forest in Costa Rica

Most of Costa Rica’s forests can be primarily classified into three groups; rainforests, cloud forests and topical dry forests. And while rainforests are the most common habitat, the cloud forests of Costa Rica are a magnificent sight to behold. Rainforests can be found in the southwest of the country as well as in the Atlantic lowlands, with towering trees and looping vines that create a magical wispy environment. Receiving a high annual rainfall, these dense forests are characterized by a wealth of plant and animal life. Rainforests are located at lower elevations, and as a result, they tend to be much warmer, especially during the dry season. Cloud forests, on the other hand, are usually located at much higher elevations, and are much cooler. This difference in temperature contributes to the mist and fog that is often visible in cloud forests, as the milder temperatures slow the evaporation process. However, despite being a little cooler than rainforests, cloud forests are very humid. Cloud forests generate water by capturing water from fog (surface clouds). Water condenses on the leaves and branches of cloud forest trees, epiphytes and lichen, drips to the forest floor, and enters streams. The tropical evergreen cloud forests on the slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca in Costa Rica’s southern highlands is of vital importance both as a source of drinking and irrigation water to the main cities in the Valle Central and as a bastion of many endemic species. This is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the plants in the cloud forest, concentrating instead on important and noteworthy plants in this ecosystem.

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September 17, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Heliconia, Tropical Ginger, Bananas and Canna in Costa Rica

Heliconia is named after Mount Helicon, the seat of the Muses, nine goddesses of the arts and sciences in Greek mythology. These are known as lobster-claw, wild plantain, flowering banana, parrot flower, macaw flower and false bird-of-paradise. Heliconiaceae in the order Zingiberales, are among the showiest plants of the Neotropical rainforest and represent a spectacular co-evolutionary adaptive radiation with hummingbirds. Heliconia originated in the Late Eocene (39 million years ago), making it the oldest known clade of hummingbird-pollinated plants. Heliconia, the only genus of the family Heliconiaceae, has approximately 120 species in tropical America and the western Pacific. These large perennial herbs have brightly colored bracts and bear numerous flowers. Heliconia are typically pollinated by hummingbirds. Most of the 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku. Several species are widely cultivated as ornamentals, and a few are naturalized in Florida, Gambia, Thailand and Costa Rica. The plants have stout, reed-like stems and are related to Tropical Gingers, Bird of Paradise, Bananas and Canna Lilies, whose leaves are all similar. These are all grouped in the order Zingiberales, which includes many familiar plants, and are used as ornamental plants (Bird of Paradise flower, Heliconias, Prayer-Plant, Tropical Gingers), food crops (bananas, plantains, arrowroot), spices and traditional medicines (ginger, cardamom, turmeric, galangal and myoga). I saw a nice selection of these plants when I visited Costa Rica this year and thought it would make an interesting post.

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September 1, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Palm Tree Fruit

Mexican Fan Palm with Fruit (Washingtonia robusta). Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Over the past few years I have accumulated photos of fruit on palm trees and thought that I would bring them together into a single post. Members of the family Arecaceae, palm trees are an ancient and diverse group of trees that bear fruit containing one or multiple seeds. Surprisingly there are a lot of palms commonly harvested for their fruits, and some are hugely important to both local populations and economies throughout the world. Palms represent the third most important plant family with respect to human use. Numerous edible products are obtained from palms, including the familiar date palm fruits, coconut palm nuts, and various palm oils. Some less well-known edible palm products include palm “cabbage” or “heart-of-palm”, immature inflorescences/flowers and sap from mature inflorescences/flowers. It takes palms anywhere from three to 40 years, depending on the species, to flower for the first time. Palm trees have separate male and female flowers. Most of the time they are monoecious, with male and female flowers on the same plant, and sometimes, as in the date palm, the male and female flowers are on separate trees (dioecious).

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August 18, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

History of Greek and Roman Sculpture at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum

Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul

The Topkapi Palace is the biggest and one of the most popular sites to visit in Istanbul. It was built in between 1466 and 1478 by the sultan Mehmet II on top of a hill in a small peninsula, dominating the Golden Horn to the north, the Sea of Marmara to the south, and the Bosphorus strait to the north east, with great views of the Asian side as well. The palace was the political center of the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries, until they built Dolmabahce Palace by the waterside. The palace was opened to the public as a museum in 1924 by the order of Ataturk. The Istanbul Archaeology Museum consists of three museums: the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient and the Tiled Pavilion Museum or Museum of Islamic Art. The three museums house over one million objects that represent almost all the eras and civilisations in world history. As part of the core collection, on the second floor, they have spectacular collection of Greco-Roman sculpture from the 6th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Since almost all the important eras of sculpture in this time period were on display, I have compiled a history of Greek and Roman Sculpture.

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August 5, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Death Valley Road Trip

Coso Mountain Range

I stumbled on a really great blog on places in and around Death Valley by a guy named Steve Hall, aptly named “Death Valley Adventures”. His blog is particularly great because there are few maps and/or information on most of the area surrounding Death Valley. It encouraged me to do a little exploring on my own. I decided to drive home from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on the Fourth of July through the Searles Valley, Panamint Valley, Death Valley to Furnace Creek Inn and then on home. These valleys are between the Argus, Slate, and Panamint Ranges which are oriented north-south, or toward the north-northwest. The El Paso Mountains, Spangler Hills, Straw Peak in the Slate Range, and Quail Mountains are oriented east-west, and the Owlshead Mountains are arranged in a semi-circular pattern south of the valleys. Aside from the geology, there are some interesting places to see along this little drive and of course some of our beautiful desert flora. Admittedly it extended the trip home by a few hours but the scenery was worth the lost time.

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July 31, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Spiced Moroccan Lime Lentil and Quinoa Salad

When the summer gets hot, as it has been this year, nothing is more satisfying than a cold and easy salad. There’s just something I love about a fresh cold salad on a hot day, not to mention a perfect dish for outdoor potlucks. While I love tabouli, hummus and caprese salads I have recently started making a really fresh and nutritious salad for these hot days that I thought I would share. This salad combines two of my favorites, lentils and quinoa, which together are a formidable nutritional combination with with more than 16 g of protein from both the lentils and quinoa. This salad is also packed with fiber thanks to quinoa, vitamins B, C and E and iron, selenium and copper. But the real reason I make it is that it tastes great and I can make it in one pot in about 45 minutes. This recipe gives you a generous amount of food, easily enough for 4 people, which just gets better over time in the refrigerator and is perfect for snacks and lunches over a week or more.

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July 26, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Birds Around Arcata California

Allen’s Hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin). Mad River Fish Hatchery, Arcata California

This past spring I traveled to Arcata California for some birdwatching in the Pacific Northwest. In Arcata, they have a bird festival in April called Godwit Days that I could not attend. Nonetheless, I thought it might be an interesting time and place for birding. The local Audubon Society says birding is at its best from winter through early May. You’ll find songbirds in spring through fall, shorebirds, wading birds and waterfowl in the cooler months of October through April, and raptors year round. As predicted, April was not a particularly good time for water birds, although there were songbirds and plenty of spring flowers. Nearly 500 species of birds have been found in Humboldt County; many of these species are unique to Humboldt County. Fortunately I was able to secure Rob Fowler as a guide to the birding areas around Arcata. He knew when and where to look and made most of the following pictures possible. I suspect I will return in a different season to see a different set of birds and of course to see the beautiful scenery in a different light.

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July 24, 2019 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Spring Birds in the Arcata Marsh

Marbled Godwits (Limosa fedoa) and Dowitchers (Limnodromus griseus) in the Arcata Marsh

This past spring I decided to visit Arcata California a week after their annual Godwit Festival in April since I could not make the sanctuary festival.. The Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary is home to the City of Arcata’s innovative wastewater treatment facility. The sanctuary is 307 acres, including freshwater marshes, salt marsh, tidal sloughs, grassy uplands, mudflats, brackish marsh, approximately 5 miles of walking and biking paths and an Interpretive Center. Located at the north end of Humboldt Bay, the sanctuary is situated along the Pacific Flyway, a major migratory route for thousands of birds that breed in the far north and winter in California, Mexico and Central and South America. The Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary is touted as the highest bird populated coastal site between Bodega Harbor and Washington. While I had visions of masses of migrating birds the reality was somewhat more quiet. I did find a collection of Godwits, and some local ducks, egrets and shorebirds.

Keep on reading!

Gardens of the Hotel Bougainvillea in Costa Rica

Interesting Trees in Costa Rica

Heliconia, Tropical Ginger, Bananas and Canna in Costa Rica

Palm Tree Fruit

History of Greek and Roman Sculpture at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum

Death Valley Road Trip

Spiced Moroccan Lime Lentil and Quinoa Salad

Birds Around Arcata California

Spring Birds in the Arcata Marsh

Welcome to Travel to Eat

Civilization

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