charliedoggett.net
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| Red Passion Flower This is same family as the more common purple passion flower which we also have here in Costa Rica. Several neighbors have this red variety, and like the purple one is also a vine that can take over other plants. Atenas, Costa Rica |
See my photo gallery, FLORA & FOREST for many more tropical flowers here.
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| On Ruta 135 going north out of Atenas is this B&W Sign pointing to (maybe 500 meters on this road) Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| I failed to photograph the entrance sign because I’m attracted to the park-like atmosphere inside! Next time I will include that attractive sign & more of the campus. Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| One of the children’s’ cottages with a worker hanging out the laundry. Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Another children’s cottage on campus. Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Playground Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Rancho, which is what we call a picnic pavilion or covered dining/meeting patio here. Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| 8:30 AM Prayer Meeting every morning with all children, staff and volunteers. The table & chairs is for the children’s snack time after devotional. Breakfast is much earlier! Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Sunday evening I was watching the 5:30 TV News when the loud chattering began of 30 or more Chachalacas landing in the tops of my trees, including the above Guarumo. A few came down low enough for me to get this decent shot of full name: Gray-headed Chachalaca There is a huge colony of this chicken-sized, noisy bird in Roca Verde and they occasionally visit my trees. Atenas, Costa Rica |
Check out my photo gallery BIRDS. https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/BIRDS
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| On a walk over my hill today, not quite to the top, a different view. Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Click image for larger view.
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| A new business in Atenas is quite popular, especially with young adults. Fresh tropical fruit juices/smoothies frozen on a stick. Some with ice cream filling Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| I had the green one on the right, Cas/Mora, Cas fruit (CR Guava) with Blackberry filling – Tart but Yum! Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Along wall by windows are a “Crown of Thorns” that blooms constantly year around and I just moved from white pot, as it is growing! Stair-stepping down is my favorite which is a Desert Rose or Adenium Obesum. And the tiny pot is a now small Jade Plant. Desert Rose came from it in my transplantings. There are of course more pot plants on the terrace all the way back! 🙂 Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Desert Rose or Adenium Obesum It too is growing and I just moved it from that smallest pot above. Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Desert Rose Blooms This is the most blooms together like this yet in 2 years. For those who knew Anthony, this came from him when he moved to states. For locals: they are available at Vivero Central in La Garita, but not cheap. Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Cimarrona (small band) Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| This time the band was paid to play for this politician who was talking to people and giving out literature. An election is coming up soon in Atenas, Costa Rica |
Definition of a Cimarrona on Wikipedia
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| Soccer Fields are the most defining thing of a community in Costa Rica even along a dirt road among farms out in the country! Necessary! Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Mango Tree Grove Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Lots of Purple and Yellow Flowers if you look close Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Calle Nueva Atenas, Costa Rica |
After the walk we had a late lunch in a little Soda in the village of Rio Grande on the river of same name and our expressway Ruta 27 where there is an Atenas exit just south of Atenas. In this same little village is a chicken processing plant (low-pay jobs) owned my Walmart and a small air conditioner plant, both on the expressway. We road the local bus back to Atenas Central which went by these two job sources locally. And back in town a political experience which I will share tomorrow. See the Photo Gallery Walking Calle nueva – PS: WARNING! I learned later that two days before this walk an expat man from Canada was walking this same road solo (as I often go) and he was robbed at knifepoint by two young men on motorcycles, supposedly Nicaraguans, which is who most Ticos blame crime on. This is highly unusual in little Atenas, but of course can happen anywhere. It is more common in parts of the big city of San Jose.
International Living magazine again ranks Costa Rica the #1 Place to Retire!
The USA Today article on Costa Rica, the Country Without an Army & the Happiest Country
“Blessed is the Costa Rican mother who knows her son at birth will never be a soldier.”
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| A pastoral vista like this sometimes requires a trip far away from a busy town, yet I found this one maybe 500 meters from my house as the crow flies and maybe twice as far walking the streets to this spot. Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| The cow pasture across the street from my house. A stream runs under that row of trees on opposite side. On the other side of the stream and to the left is a little known street, Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| First I walk into town on Avenida 8 and turn left on Calle 1 making another left turn at next street, Avenida 10 for 2 blocks where I walk past our technical high school above. The pavement stops just past the school and I’m on a gravel road called Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| It is so cool to suddenly be in the country! Past Roca Verde it becomes a dirt road going on to Rio Grande village. Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| After 200 or 300 meters on a rise you see Roca Verde up ahead, those roofs. Before I saw this, I saw the pastoral scene photo above, my opening photo. Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| Then down that hill to a bridge behind the Roca Verde duplex facing the pasture. That house is about one block from my house! But seen here from behind on Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| The little stream opposite the cow pasture in front of my house. Which the above bridge crosses over behind the duplex. Calle Nueva, Atenas Costa Rica |
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| At the foot of the bridge I snap this shot of the cow pasture in front of my house from the backside. The duplex and two single family houses are to the right of those shrubs, all facing the cow pasture. Calle Nueva, Atenas, Costa Rica |
–JOHN MUIR, US naturalist, 1838—1914
If it the link works, here is the Google Map showing where I walked:
And I was having so much fun on my anniversary day of December 24 that I forgot to mention it in the blog post that night or celebrate. You may remember that I had Christmas Eve Dinner Around the Pool with Friends. It was that night three years ago that a taxi brought me and 5 suitcases from San Jose Airport to Atenas (late plane meant arriving after dark) to Hacienda La Jacaranda Apartments where I lived my first 4 months in Atenas Costa Rica. On this anniversary I was too busy to even think about it! 🙂 “The past is prologue!” Maybe I will have a celebration when I’ve been here 5.5 years on my 80th birthday. 🙂
And earlier that same happy day I saw my first King Vulture in the wild and got a photograph! Along with a juvenile King Vulture and other birds and wildlife on what my guides called “Raptor Ridge” on a hill above the Tambor Bay beach resort where I was staying. It was a great day! And the day before I got to release 12 baby Olive Ridley Turtles into the Pacific Ocean, so why would I think about it being my 3-year anniversary of living here? 🙂
Well, a lot has happened in three years and I’m quite at home here now, loving life in a little mountain coffee-farming town, learning to speak Spanish, though very slowly! Trying to have as many Tico friends as gringos and maybe more now!
My passion is finding and photographing some of the over 900 species of birds here along with other nature photography and the thrill of traveling Costa Rica. I have learned to travel as the locals do on buses to anywhere in Costa Rica, though I am a sissy old man who sometimes goes to the far away places on a little local plane, Sansa or Nature Air. Some of my Tico friends say I’ve seen more of their home country than they have and I probably have. I try to go somewhere new every month or two and of course report on these trips in progress on my blog (here) as well as in photo galleries in what I call Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA. And I even have a series of photo books on many of the birding lodges and national parks I have visited. I can’t get rid of the desire to create something! It is fun to me! And I do none of it for money (it actually costs me) but as my fun hobby.
I have Pensionado Residencia with the government health plan called CAJA (better than Medicare) and I am settling in for the rest of my life here with paperwork done for my body to be donated to the University of Costa Rica Medical School. I am not active in church but attend a little Bible Church here some, trying to avoid the right-wing Americans that also attend some, most only on the one Sunday a month with English translation. My goal this year is to attend mostly on the Español only Sundays.
I have volunteered service to the Angel Tree project, three schools, my language school, and most recently led an after school club at one high school which I talked about 2 blog posts ago. I am trying to integrate into the community without becoming a catholic or marrying a Tica! 🙂 That is quite feasible.
I am overall healthy for a 77 year old (though walking a lot slower now believe it or not). I get plenty of rest and exercise walking everywhere. One of my best decisions was to not buy a car! Good for my health and budget! I eat well, sleep a lot, and I am very happy in my new home. So with this little summary, I place a marker down at my three-years point of living in Costa Rica. None of us know how long we will live, but I’m expecting many more years of adventures in Costa Rica! ¡Pura Vida!
🙂