Finding joy in nature and little things

Maybe it’s a new type of hobby because we, as humans, keep evolving. Or maybe it’s just the crisis of my 30s, but lately, I’ve found myself picking up hobbies that revolve around nature and literature.

Okay, I’ve always been a fan of nature, animals, and flowers, and yes, I’ve always read quite a bit. But this time, I’m doing it more intentionally.

For context, my main group of friends (the ones I go out with often) is made up of:

• A 33-year-old (and no, it’s not Jesus)

• A 31-year-old (who is cute and definitely doesn’t look her age)

• A 30-year-old (yours truly)

• And our little friend who is 28 (a huge fan of plants)

Most of us are into sports in one way or another—yoga, aerial yoga, CrossFit, running, etc. We try to meet up often, even though we all work in corporate or health-related jobs.

Lately, we’ve been joking around a lot that we’ve become the cliché of 30-somethings—exercising, going birdwatching, and hiking. We’re even toying with the idea of starting our own "4 People Club" and making t-shirts. The problem is, the stuff we do varies so much—brunch, arts and crafts, sports—that we’re having a hard time agreeing on a name. So far, the best idea we’ve come up with is The Random Club, but nothing’s set in stone. If you have any cool suggestions, feel free to share!

Now, onto what I’ve been up to!

Hiking, birds & Nature

So far, I’ve visited three different places these past few weeks. The first one, and by far the most amazing, was Park Tricao. I don't think my writing can do it justice (first, because of how beautiful it is, and second, because English isn’t my first language lol)... BUT I’ll give it a try.

The park is lovely, close to the beach, and has a botanical garden (where I bought a Bergenia crassifolia), an aviary, a hiking trail, and a gigantic path inspired by Monet's gardens in Giverny.

I’ll show you some pictures since it’s easier that way.

a) The aviary: Okay, this place was crazy. It’s supposed to be the second-largest aviary in the world, with more than 800 birds. I saw so many birds I’d never seen before, and I have no idea what their actual names are, so I’ll just give them nicknames.

These orange ones were one of my favorites, like neon flamingos. Such a lovely group; I spent about 20 minutes just watching them.

This little buddy is an exotic parrot, and he was super friendly. You’re not supposed to touch the birds, and I didn’t, but he came really close because we were lucky enough to watch them get fed!

This guy was really cute—very blue and spunky.

I have no idea why there were dragon statues, but I love this one! He’s so friendly and fun. Anyway, what else can I say? Nature is amazing. We spent two hours in the aviary exploring and admiring these lovely birds. 

Me and my friend.

   

b) The trail and gardens: The trail was super fun. We saw baby birds, plants, and even a few Coipos—a cousin of the capybara, but not as friendly (though still super cute)!

   

We took a boat to the other side of the park and visited the Monet-inspired gardens. I thought the aviary would be my favorite place, but this truly took my breath away. I was almost in tears, I couldn’t believe how many beautiful flowers I didn’t know existed.

Since we arrived early in the morning, we had most of the park to ourselves.

My friend took some lovely pictures of us exploring. Colors and textures always excite me, and we spent a lot of time admiring all the small details.

     

Saint Cristobal and Saint Lucía hills

Over the next two weekends, I went to two different hills (we call them cerros). We hiked for about three hours with my friends. I didn’t take many pictures because I’m trying to be more present in the moment, but I did snap a photo of this cool dog in a backpack we saw.

The following weekend, I went with my lovely mother and our dog and climbed a hill that’s actually really close to my house. We had fun looking at plants, chatting, then went for a coffee and bought some books.

My lovely mother and a part of the trail I really liked.

Other things for fun and closing thoughts: books, fashion and dogs

I realize this post is getting long (and maybe a bit repetitive), so here are a few closing thoughts. Sometimes it can be a big effort to go out early in the morning after a week of work, but I’ve found so much joy in spending time with loved ones in nature.

Besides hiking, I’ve been reading a lot. So far, I’ve finished The Theory of the Archipelagos and Emma, and now I’m about to start Pride and Prejudice.

I can talk about books in more detail in another post, but I just want to say I’m obsessed with Jane Austen, and I deeply relate to Emma Woodhouse (both the good and the bad haha). I even looked it up, and we’re both ENFJs according to the MBTI test. I find that hilarious!

Pride and Prejudice is my favorite movie, so I’m excited to finally read the original material. I’ll let you know what I think!

Other things I’ve been doing: organizing my closet. It’s my goal to only own clothes I love. Anything I don’t wear for more than a year, I try to sell, gift, or donate. This shirt you see below is one of my favorites right now. I feel so Audrey Hepburn every time I wear it with black pants and ballet flats.

I’m thinking of getting a full-length mirror so I can share pictures of my outfits—would you like that?

In any case, I can’t compete with Alfie and his fashion, though. Look at him in those tiny shoes!

    

What other analog hobbies would you recommend I try? I’m super open to ideas. I was thinking of getting back into analog photography or maybe doing some puzzles.

Let me know what you think!

A new year, a new chance for analog and doing what feels authentic (mostly)

I know a lot of people say that resolutions are just silly or a capitalist ploy, well that might be true, but still I do them every year. 

The thing is that I feel that the new year and the middle of it, are great places and times to see what we are doing with our time and efforts. Do these things still matter to me? Do I want to relax a bit more? Am I just doing 20% of the things I wanted to do? Will I, again, write down "getting my driver's license" just to "forget" to do it for 12 months?

Well this year is a bit different, and as always my resolutions change in focus each year following the seasons of my life (for example my goals last year were more of the ambiguous kind focused on staying chill and healthy, spending time with animals and loved ones). Now that I'm the big 30 I was confronted with checking what I like about my life, what I don't like so much and where I want to put my energy.

I will talk about my goals for this year 2026, but frist I would like to talk about the idea of creating this blog. It was very spontaneous, it was actually Lily's idea. She made a post on tumblr about creating a blog and sharing there. I remembered my teenage dream of being a fashion blogger online and how I grew up as an internet girl (always finding a place online when I didn't have one offline!)

 
The idea of creating a blog felt very aligned to the things I set out myself to do this 2026.

Anyways, let's talk about resolutions and social media.

Social media, burnt out but also not wanting to disappear

As I briefly commented, I have always (and I mean always) have had a computer, -Thanks to my grandpa who had a computer education institution in the 80s and 90s- and I've also had internet access since I was about 5 (when it became more accessible to people here in the 2000s). I've met some of my best friends here on the internet, learned to write html while obsessively spending all my school free time on Neopets and kind of launched my career as an illustrator once I started university.
And while now illustration cohabitates with my career in consulting (which I also love) it's still an important part of my income, life and above all one of my biggest passions. I feel attached to the possibilities and spaces the online world provides for me and others, otherwise I don't know how I would have done this at all, and it's because of this that it's taken me so many years to finally decide I need to make a change on my approach to social media.

We, probably, have all heard talk about how addictive it is, and before I just thought "ok it is addictive sure but it's also fun and it adds to my life" now, I'm not so sure. I don't know if it's something that happened as I approached my 30s and my friend group stabilized and we started doing little side quests  (birdwatching, trekking, etc)  or if it also has to do with my self steem became something that actually existed... but! I started to dread being online too much while being online, a lot.

I don't know when the shift happened, maybe when instagram became tiktok? or when we saw twitter/x become a trashbin with more fire than usual, or when after spending 2 hours looking at tiktok videos during the pandemic I left only feeling "wow what a waste of time".

It doesn't matter how much I love funny dog videos, it's still not as good as spending time with my actual dog.

Pictured: Oreo, my brother's dog (left)
and Alfie, my dog (right) during their christmas meet up 2025.

A decision made with time and patience

I have a tendency to make impulsive life changing decisions (like moving abroad with no plan in my 20s lol) or dating a best friend only for it to end dramatically. I wouldn't say I'm an impulsive person myself BUT when I make a decision I make it for real, cutting people off, changing careers, moving, you name it I have probably done it once. Time, wisdom that comes with the years and regrets over things that could have been done in a better way made me change my approach to decisions that felt like lifestyle changes (that does sound silly about internet usage no? haha)

I took one year and tried different methods to decide what I would do about social media and my relationship to it. I tried different techniques and ways of engaging -we can maybe talk more about that other time- and came to a conclusion:

I was wasting so many hours of my day and week looking at things that didn't make me happy instead of doing interesting, boring, calming things.

So I came to my 2026 intentions and flexible rules. Most of them have to do with lifestyle adjustments.

1. Personal life:

- More offline hobbies: skating, drawing, reading, painting, doing puzzles, taking pictured with my analog camera instead of cellphone 

- Avoid: Using my cellphone too much to take pictures instead of enjoying the moment (one picture is enough!) or to avoid looking and listening to the world around me. 

- More painting and illustration in general... and to keep exploring my personal style  (would you like to see pictures of that?)

- Exercise more mindfully at least 3 times a week (2025 was my year of yoga and walking, 2026 I would like to add trekking and skating) 

 2. Health

- 2025 was good. I started doing to therapy again and got a treatment that has made my anxiety very manageable, I stopped eating out of nervousness and I have never been as far away as I am now of my ED.

- In 2026 I want to maintain that and focus on nutrition, eat things I like, invest in good food (that's why I have a good job!) 

- Stay close and enjoy being with my loved ones, it's good for the heart, the mind and body. 

3. Work and finances 

- Save an X amount of money (not telling besides we all live in different places!)

- Low buy (only 6 pieces this year), focus on quality, using and saving.

- Keep learning at my job and making my goals a reality :-) 

*Also get my driver's license this time for real, I even talked with my mom to teach me.

What will I talk about here?

Well I think my main focus will be sharing how the year is going, or to serve as a motivation to stay sharing online but actually doing instead of consuming. I also like that you can barely have income associated with blogs haha. 

I will try to share my interests mostly, on fashion, art and things about my life, my goals, my journey to a more analog life and things that interest me.

Closing thoughts on social media

I know this post was all over the place but wow it felt great to actually write something! that I won't be checking with the AI option the site gives em, so please forgive me as English is not my mother tongue.

I'm glad to be making this change, ti realize how bad social media was affecting me and finally decided to do something about it. 

Maybe other people are not as sensitive to these things as me and that's great but I must make myself accountable for my decisions, life and taking care of my mind. I think I will be ok being a little more offline, and sharing without expecting that dopamine hit that the next video or post might bring.

I don't want to become isolated, but I want to be more mindful of the life I'm building inside and outside my mind. I hope you will like this blog, but if you don't that's ok. I feel at peace my decisions now.

Love and happy new year,

Cam.

In case you want to check my art or other sites:

• Instagram for art posts
• Portfolio
• Store