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Xandari is like any place in Costa Rica, there are lots of bugs, but I don’t think as many here as some deeper forests I’ve been in. And this is butterfly season! Here’s a little slide show of 6 butterflies and 2 other insects photographed at Xandari Nature Resort. Enjoy!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
Here is a slide show of 15 birds I photographed here. You can also see my Xandari Birds Gallery in the Xandari Trip Gallery I am now building separately online.
¡Pura Vida!
Xandari is different and that challenges me to be different. One example is that more than in most places I am speaking Spanish with all the staff and they love it! They help me when I don’t know a word and they encourage me! When I walk into the dining room now they all come up and speak to me in español. I smile and we chat. It is a great feeling!
As the linked video below suggests, change is not easy. Change can be overwhelming like these 5 waterfalls here at Xandari. But wow! It’s wonderful as the college student show in the video. Thanks to Retire for Less in Costa Rica for sharing this video first!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
My room at Xandari Resort Costa Rica is like an art gallery sitting in a garden or surrounded by nature. Here’ two slideshows to explain; first is views of each part of my room or rooms – more like an efficiency apartment. Second is a slide of each piece of art placed somewhere in my room or rooms, including three outdoors.
The original owners or developers of Xandari were an architect and his artist wife. They included an art studio here where students came and created the art that is all over the property including each villa or room. Later I will show some of the art that is outside in the gardens around the buildings. It is one of the most unique places I have ever been and a lot of birds too! 🙂
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
~Henry David Thoreau
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¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
This is the view from my room after checking in around noon on a cool and rainy day. I have photos of the room I planned to share but too tired with 5.5 miles walking today. More tomorrow in a beautiful place connected to nature.
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
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Almost all of Costa Rica’s Energy has come from Renewable Sources for 4 Years Now Interesting article in the online English-language Tico Times – Little Costa Rica is setting the standard for all you big countries! 🙂
I just read an online article by a creative photographer named Dan Milnor who was sleeping in his truck as he traveled through mountain deserts making photographs. Someone asked him why he was doing that and what would be done with all the photos? He told them “possibly nothing” would be done with the photos but “I was doing it because the need to create is overwhelming, regardless of the end result.” Spoken like a true “starving artist.”
Well, he kind of speaks for me and why I travel all over Costa Rica photographing birds and other things in nature and the beautiful culture. THE NEED TO CREATE IS OVERWHELMING and I enjoy it more than anything else I do.
And tomorrow I leave for one of the most creative lodges I have stayed in yet in Costa Rica, Xandari Resort (click the Costa Rica section of this resort with 3 other locations being in India), just an hour or a little more from here, north of Alajuela on a mountain. There I plan to experience (and photograph) a blend of art, birds, nature, architecture, and 5 natural waterfalls – while resting and being creative myself with my cameras. Just 4 nights this trip (a more expensive place!). Expect blog posts from there starting tomorrow night (Saturday). And I will continue to fill in the static pages on my new website, now featuring this blog and I hope improving! More fun anyway! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One of the regular blogs I read is Christopher Howard’s Live in Costa Rica (he also does the best relocation tour) and his latest blog post quoted International Living Magazine on Costa Rica being one of the best places in the world to retire on less than $30,000 a year. Read his post or go to the online version of International Living and maybe find it there. And bear in mind that it is still true even with Costa Rica having the highest cost of living in Central America, but right now I don’t think you want to retire in any of the other Central American countries! (Panama being a sometimes exception.) I chose to retire in luxury in Costa Rica over sliding into retirement poverty in the U.S.
Description of 5 Locations in Costa Rica that Retirees Love in an International Living article.
Today’s photo is of a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, the most common in my garden and possibly all over Costa Rica or at least in many of the places I have visited. They are aggressive and chase other species of Hummingbirds away from feeders and even “their” garden sometimes. Thus I have mixed feelings about them! 🙂 ¡Pura Vida!
Plaque on the wall of my physical therapist’s office:
Reinventa su vida cada mañana
Reinvent Your Life Every Morning
8AM Spanish Class with Hilda my new “more mature” teacher who has been trying to help me understand past perfect participles in Spanish and I’m not sure I do in English! 🙂
An errand-running morning after class with about 5 stops and much accomplished.
2:30 bus to Alajuela gave me time for my late lunch or early dinner there before a 4:30 appointment with another new Jesus in my life, Dr. Roberto Jesús Gamboa Arend, Dermatologist. He looked at all my “tags” and other growths, moles, assuring me that I do not have cancer, then used the nitrogen or whatever to freeze-dry most of them. I have a cream to put on each of them until they fall off on their own, which took two pharmacies to find and I barely made the 5:30 bus back to Atenas which was standing room only. I stood less than a minute when a young man, maybe 20 I guess, got up and insisted I take his seat. This is typical of the high respect given to older people here. A good feeling.
I’m home and tired now with only 1 little errand for tomorrow. Whew! Photo is of sunset from my terrace last night.
¡Pura vida!
My friend Jason Quesada now works in Jaco and is only in Atenas on weekends. Well, he was back this weekend and showed up at my house this afternoon with a friend and a birthday cake. We had a great time visiting and I enjoyed meeting a new local friend, Christopher, who is about as far along with his English as I am with my Spanish. Language learning! Wow!
It has been a nice week. Friday I had my teeth cleaned by a local Spanish-only dentist and Monday I go to a Spanish-speaking dermatologist. Then next Saturday I’m checking out a new exotic lodge called Xandri. Never a dull moment! ¡Pura Vida!