charliedoggett.net
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| Music is the best cure for a sorrowing mind. Latin Proverb |
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| Most cart are filled with family members! Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Errrrrr, hmmmmm, son, this is an oxcart parade! Kids pushing their limits everywhere! 🙂 And here, people just say “¡Pura Vida!” |
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| And the line goes on and on! Three years of these and I’ve had enough, leaving early for lunch! They used to all be so unique, now they all look the same! 🙂 |
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| Hey! You need to get in the spirit of the parade! Cowboy hats and belts! |
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| As with all fiestas here, the Central Park is filled with venders selling everything from food to arts & crafts and even kitchen utensils! I had a caramel-filled churro and a Churchill to drink. See below. |
Costa Rica Churchill, is sort of a drink and a dessert found in lots of fiestas across the country, but mainly associated with Punterenas, the port city on the Pacific. Click the title to read an article about them and started in my birth year, 1940. Mine here was a little different than the one he describes. It was about 1/3 vanilla ice cream, 1/3 red snow cone (strawberry I think), and 1/3 canned fruit cocktail, not the fresh fruit in the article. Needless to say, Ticos love sugar! Me too! Like, would you ever find a churro in Mexico that is relleno with caramel? Costa Rica is just a sweeter place! 🙂
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| And little town kiddie thrills! A bouncy house too! |
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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.
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| http://www.aguiladeosa.com/ |
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| The steep hill I walk up every day! It’s just outside the Roca Verde gate. At least 45 degrees! HEART HEALTHY! Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Going downhill is easy! Calle Boquerón o Avenida 8 Atenas, Costa Rica |
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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| 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. 🙂
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| One of my joys in retirement; just walking out the door! |
