This is Tony and Barbara's home in the upper Tandayapa Valley
as on November 9, 1999 - a little piece of Paradise:-
Pics from March 2006:
For a small donation (to the sugar fund!) visitors can enjoy the hummingbird feeders and flowers at Linda Loma - be sure to check the white datura flowers for the scarce Wedge-billed Hummingbird drinking from a flowerpiercer hole at the base of the flowers. The garden regularly hosts Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan, Toucan Barbet, and sometimes the elusive Plushcap (here at its lowest usual evelation.) The frequent flocks of swifts zipping close by regularly include Spot-fronted Swift. This may be the best location for seeing this rarely-seen swift, and Tony has sorted-out the call from the abundant Chestnut-collared Swift, so if he's there, he may be able to alert you to their presence overhead (we saw two on this visit, and I had seen them there six years previously).
Tony and Barbara live a totally admirable environmentally-responsible life: they don't own a vehicle; they have chosen to wait on electricity until it can be provided efficiently by solar panels; they grow most of their fruit and vegetables; they have bought some previously-cleared land on the far side of the valley and are embarked on a project to remove the exotic grasses and re-forest it; they employ local labor from the nearby villages whenever they scrape up enough funds to work on their land. Tony guides for VENT for a few weeks of the year - otherwise he is normally at home, working on restoring the natural magnificence of the Valley. Barbara is usually around, working on the garden, and she is a talented artist - I couldn't resist buying some of her watercolor hummingbird postcards! I can't think of any other place I'd rather make a donation to. NOTE: it's almost impossible to find the discrete trail down from the road to their place, unless you know where it is - ask one of the locals to help you find it (it's c. 1.8km downhill from the entrance to Bellavista, on the left just past a sharp right curve in the road that has power-lines going over it, next to a giant Agave.) When you get to their gate, pull the chain to ring the bell; if someone is at home, they'll call up to invite you in!
... just two of the many orchids found in the garden; the one above is large and showy - but only for one day; the one below flowers for longer - but each flower is smaller than a pea:
