Category: Culture

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My Radiation Treatment Testimony

Siglo XXI Radioterapia, the private clinic that treated me post-cancer surgery asked if they could interview me on camera as a way of helping future patients understand a little more of what they will go through. So I did and it is now on YouTube with me speaking in English and of course they added Spanish Subtitles. I’m always embarrassed to see and hear myself on a video, but if it helps even one other patient face the treatment, then more power to them! 🙂

My Cancer Treatment Testimonial Video for Siglo XXI.

¡Pura Vida!

And that book in the feature photo can be previewed free at True Grit in my bookstore.

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Funny Dancers Statue

In Alajuela a couple of weeks ago while waiting on my bus I snapped this statue of dancers in a neighborhood city park where I temporarily catch my bus back to Atenas. Ticos love dancing and do in the parks a lot when bands perform, but it is rare to see any Tico this overweight! Maybe the couple is suppose to be tourists? 🙂

Dancers Statue in a city park in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

See my Alajuela Gallery for more photos from the provincial capital.

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This Lens

The host of My Photo Gallery is SmugMug.com and they regularly produce little short videos about photography or photographers and the little one they released this month shares in 3.5 minutes how four or fve different persons see their world through “This Lens” chronicling a growing family, promoting a cause, capturing nature like me and another the magic of outdoor sports. I thought it interesting enough to share on my blog:

My lens? I’ll just keep capturing the works of God through nature! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

The feature photo by Tom Oakley is of me many years ago on a nature photography trip in Tennessee with the Nashville Photography Club. You can read more about the history of my love of photography after retirement on my Photography Page.

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Morning Clouds

I can’t seem to quit photographing the clouds on the hills opposite my terrace! 🙂 See many other better vistas from my terrace in my gallery titled: From My Roca Verde Terrace! The vistas from my terrace are just one of the many blessings I have from my decision to color my sunset years “Retired in Costa Rica.” The two shown here were made on different days, June 2 & 15, one zoomed in on the distant clouds with my Tamron zoom lens and the second one with my cell phone camera. 🙂

Go to the top of my GALLERY and browse through many topics including especially my TRIPS galleries (my favorites) to see many more reasons I enjoy Costa Rica beyond the vistas!

Morning Clouds from My Terrace, Atenas, Costa Rica, June 2, 2022.
The hills of Atenas seen from my terrace, June 15, 2022.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

~Rabindranath Tagore

¡Pura Vida!

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Garden Upgrade Photos

Day before yesterday my gardeners came with several upgrades for my garden which, like lots of my projects, started with just one flower and then, well, I kind of kept expanding it! 🙂 It started with this flower I saw at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel and liked so much, I wanted one! I sent this photo below to my gardener. He told me he could get one and then when he was here and we talked in person I “remembered a few other things” I would like for them to do when they bring the new flower. 🙂

My extras ended up being the biggest job (and expense), but I’m so glad that I got all of this done! This is where I live and I’ve slowed down a little on traveling, meaning I want my home to be a tropical paradise – my continuous vacation place! 🙂

Pagoda Flower, Clerodendron paniculatum, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica that I wanted in my garden.
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“Upside-down Yogi” (Sloth)

This Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Wikipedia link) was in this Guarumo or Cecropia Tree long enough for multiple efforts to photograph it, though in the shadows or no good light, at Chachagua Rainforest Hotel grounds. A peaceful creature! 🙂 In a peaceful place! 🙂

Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

“The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips…I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing.”

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

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Chachagua Waterfalls

The feature photo is their main or largest waterfall with several other small ones like the one at the swim hole I showed in my May 16 Arrival at Chachagua Post. And repeated here:

Some swimmers get photos on those rocks by the little falls.

Their Main Waterfall . . .

Chachagua Waterfall, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, Costa Rica

And tourists getting their photos by this falls . . .

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