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Orange Yellow Haiku & Next Week Plans

Still playing around with Haiku!  And my garden!   🙂  
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Tomorrow is the annual oxcart parade in Atenas. I plan to be there again and post a few photos from it tomorrow night.

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http://www.greentiquehotels.com/

NEXT WEEK:
Then Monday morning I plan to take off for Corcovado National Park (largest rainforest preserve in Central America) & Drake Bay for 6 days of nature adventure & photography. I will have three trips into the park and one to an island out in this bay of the Pacific. I’m ready!

And I’m staying in what looks like a really nice lodge, Aguila de Osa Rainforest Lodge with all meals included and all trips/guides pre-scheduled. This is going to be one of my better trips!  🙂  Boat & hiking in the rainforest, explore a little tropical island, snorkle in the Pacific, and hopefully photograph a lot of birds!   🙂  I fly down.

http://www.aguiladeosa.com/
¡Pura Vida!
Charlie Doggett
Retired in Costa Rica!
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A Quiet Introvert

One of the books I’m reading now is turning out to be a bit biographical at times. It is  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As a child all the way through high school and into college, I was definitely an introvert, just check my old Myers-Briggs personality test scores! And it was considered something like a disease by some people who wanted to help me come out of my shell. 

But in college I was remade by Southern Baptists into an outgoing, extroverted personality. After all, that was the only way to be a dynamic or witnessing Christian and unfortunately is still the expectation of most evangelical Christians, their churches, and of course their leaders. So, I really wanted to become a good Christian and serve, and that meant being an extrovert. And I was for most of my adult life. It was necessary to keep my jobs working for Baptists! (Some who knew me as a youth minister or leadership consultant will have trouble believing this!) But as I neared and entered retirement I began to move back to how I was born, an introvert, and moving to Costa Rica has given me the opportunity to be myself maybe more than ever before. I’m very happy here as an introvert!

Now, don’t worry. I have friends and socialize, just not as much as some here who can’t stand spending a half a day alone, while in contrast I have to schedule such! And prefer to travel alone! I’m only a fourth of the way through this book, but enjoying it! Then I will be ready for another adventure or mystery story! I’m reading more here than in many years before. Guess why?


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Chromatic Ginger Haiku

Red Ginger flower
My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Count it a coincidence that my ex-wife’s nickname was “Ginger.” She died last summer of cancer in Gatesville, Texas. And that she too was chromatically colorful in her own way.  🙂

Photo Gallery of My Home Garden
Link to post About Ginger & Jason just before she died.  
And the announcement of her death: Ginger Is Gone
Some may call it poetic justice that my garden has many of two kinds of flowers called “Ginger,” this Red Ginger and a yellow Shampoo Ginger flower. Only fellow divorcees can understand all the many mixed feelings when something reminds you of your ex, especially after her death. Then life goes on!
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In Memory of Mary Alice McMains

I just got word that Mary Alice McMains of Nashville, Tennessee died. My memory of her is as a quiet, ever faithful, behind the scenes Christian and “Prayer Warrior” at First Baptist Church Nashville. When I served as a missionary in The Gambia, West Africa she was possibly the most faithful person to pray for me and respond to my prayer requests. Anytime things were difficult I was reminded that Mary Alice was praying for me. I pray now that she and her life will be an inspiration to the many other people she has touched over the years.   ~Charlie Doggett
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This Morning in the Garden

White-winged Dove
In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Blue-gray Tanager 
 In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

One of my favorite things to do is to sleep until I wake up, shower, eat a liesurely breakfast on my terrace admiring flowers and the visiting birds. So, after a busy, early, hard day hiking yesterday, I had one of my relaxed mornings today (23rd) and recorded part of it in the above photos. There were other birds and more flowers, but this is a good sample for today.

Enjoying Retirement in Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!
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El Camino de Costa Rica HIKE

Earth Day 2017

Today I joined a group of supporters of the new coast to coast trail called
El Camino de Costa Rica
Hiking an 11 km section, with 8 km uphill! Very difficult.

One of many vistas along the trail
El Camino de Costa Rica

It was all on roads, mostly gravel
El Camino de Costa Rica

One of the many very steep uphill climbs (2 dropped out early)
El Camino de Costa Rica

We cossed and followed several streams
El Camino de Costa Rica

Passed a continous flow of small, poor farm houses
El Camino de Costa Rica

Had breakfast in a little rural Soda
El Camino de Costa Rica

And our after-hike lunch at a rural trout farm restaurant
El Camino de Costa Rica

Enough participated to fill a tourist bus!
El Camino de Costa Rica

One more vista, this near end of the hike
El Camino de Costa Rica

We did just one small section of a 263 or so km trail coast to coast and as the project proposes, walked through small farms in rural Costa Rica, this one in the Talamanca Mountains west of Cartago, but going through no town. See the video introducing the trail which uses some of my bird photos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7euE5oQPC8


And if you would like to donate to the development of this trail through “crowd sourcing,” go to the website: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/el-camino-de-costa-rica–3#/
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