Hacienda Guachipelín – THE BOOK

The book is finished with 4 new lifer birds for me and now I’m off to other creative activities. Remember – you can PREVIEW the book electronically (flip through the pages) for free at my bookstore by clicking on this link and then each page to turn a page. Fun! And best seen in full screen mode!   🙂

https://www.blurb.com/b/9712481-hacienda-guachapel-n

Or click the book cover image below to get there:

¡Pura Vida!

 

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Morning Contemplation

Saturday morning on the terrace!

Sleep late – breakfast on the terrace – wandering mind.

Bible reading – Jesus’s exorcism of demons.

No Washington Post on my Kindle because no WiFi – CableTica  (my internet & cable TV provider) told me Tuesday they had a problem with all current routers and would come install a new one Saturday afternoon, that’s today! With better service! And cheaper!

And it was only a 5-day wait!  🙂   Plus I will get to practice my Spanish when the cable guys come! As I did with the 2 confirmation calls which I was told in advance that if I did not understand, just press “1” at the prompt – I only understood “uno” and pressed it!   🙂

Gazing out over my vista above – what are the people in those other houses doing? Who are they? Then the tranquility of this place takes over – a vulture glides serenely overhead while the chatter of chachalacas in a neighbor’s tree draws my attention before flying off – bringing sudden quietness – stillness for just a moment.

A truck load of topsoil breaks the stillness and is soon followed by the garbage collector who stops at my “canasta” (basket), tossing the trash bags into the truck as I wave a friendly greeting to them! Soon followed by a “moto” (motorcycle) with a young man headed to work at someone’s house up the hill, possibly as a gardener or handyman?

My thoughts go back to the Kindle in front of me with no newspaper – So I decide to read a chapter or two of my current adventure book (occasionally read instead of an Agatha Christie mystery):  Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I was notified of this book because I gave a positive review of another Preston book also about archaeologists, and closer to where I live, The Lost City of the Monkey God, where they search in nearby Honduras up a crocodile-infested river for a different lost city. Terrific book!

Thunderhead is about a female Santa Fe archaeologist and her team that just floated to the end of Lake Powell, Utah (reminding me of my 2012 float trip there) and are riding horses up a canyon looking for an  Anasazi indigenous people city called Quivira. In both books the lost cities are rumored to be “cities of gold” with many indigenous myths of protection and dangers at entering the impossibly hidden cities. And already Nora has been warned by animal-skin clad humans. And my reading is constantly interrupted . . .

The low whir of a coasting bicycle passes by as another young man coasts down the hill toward our development’s exit gate.

Amidst my book reading, I go inside to look up something on the internet through my laptop’s cable connection (no WiFi remember) and find the power is off! Wow! Life in the tropics! (But power came back on in about 30 minutes.) Oh well – not that important! I don’t even remember what I was looking up!    🙂

My neighbor starts up his diesel RV motor which he likes to “warm up” (rattle, rattle, rattle) before leaving on his one or two trips a day, to the gym for exercises or to the super Mercado. He’s generally more of a “homebody” than me!   🙂  And beyond my understanding, he never travels around Costa Rica to see all the beauty and adventure!   🙂

After he roars out the gate it is peace & quiet again and back to reading and thinking about my fortunate life in this little lost corner of the world. Gazing around at my tropical plants and flowers, I realize that my friends to the north now have flowers freezing, trees changing color (which is nice!) but then losing all their leaves while I enjoy the flowers, greenness and unique plants in my year-around garden! Pura vida! Suddenly the bright song of a bird in my strangler fig tree changes my focus and woefully I can’t identify what bird.

By now I’m trying to jot down these random thoughts/activities from my breakfast and morning time on the terrace. Just a tiny sample of a couple of hours for someone “Retired in Costa Rica,” the title of my blog &website with a large collection of photos. Check out the “Gallery” of photos since “a picture is worth a thousand words! ”   🙂   And they show my Costa Rica best of all!  🙂

I thought I might walk to town before the cable guys come between 12 and 5 pm today. But more likely I will just hang out here in the peace & quiet – Now that the diesel has rumbled back into my neighbor’s carport.    🙂

AND . . . uh oh! The cable men are here early – before 12!  Todo en español – difícil! But I now have WiFi again + more megabytes they say + more channels on my TV with some new cheaper plan than what I was paying for before! Go figure!? ¡No entiendo esto!  ¡Pero pura vida!

And now I’m off to type this blog post – different from most – maybe boring – ruminations? – Saturday morning on the terrace!    🙂

 

“To gaze is to think.”

~Salvador Dali

¡Pura Vida!

Garden Remodel Yesterday

Yeah, I recently added the white caladium border and another little improvement, but this was a BIG change! With 2 hours of rain delaying some of the work, my gardeners spent most of the day on my flower garden yesterday including buying all the plants, soil & rocks. It was for a requested restructuring and elimination of some invasive plants.

The results will look better in a week or two, but we needed to get it done now because the rainy season will end in mid to late November and new plants need rain. I am so fortunate to have such a good crew to do work that is much more difficult for me now.

I’ll update the blog from time to time on the garden, but tell you now that they added a new “feature plant” at the corner by my door called in English an “Elephant Foot” plant which you can see in one photo with the “Elephant Ears” behind it!   🙂    It will grow and bigger ones are beautiful! Much of the other is for color without competing plants and providing a little more cohesive, flowing look to the garden with mounds of new dirt adding to the flow. In a few weeks it will be great! And the Elephant in a year or two!   🙂

Garden Crew Working

 

The New Garden

Please click an image & do manual slide show.

Life begins the day you start a garden.     – Chinese proverb

¡Pura Vida!

 

 

Oktoberfest

“Willkommen zum Oktoberfest.”

Yesterday a bus of load of about 30 persons “Retired in Costa Rica” boarded a charter bus in Atenas for a German Restaurant in downtown San Jose, Paulaner München, for a great German meal including roast chicken, knockwurst, kraut and my favorite – apple strudel! We were also entertained by a Latin-flavored Costa Rican “German Band” complete with fake leder hosen!   🙂   And many of our group of retirees danced with the band, especially one couple who really know how to dance as shown in the feature photo. She even tried to teach the group to dance the polka with moderate success!   🙂    And who says old people don’t have fun?

Oktoberfest Costa Rica

 

oktoberfest
. . . .   AND the beer for many in our gang! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Rincón de la Vieja National Park

Johnny took me to the Rincón de la Vieja National Park today and we hiked 5 kilometers. My favorite part was the two waterfalls, one in the park and one outside near the entrance but on hotel property. Currently it is not safe to go look into the active volcano but we did see the smoke, hot water and bubbling mud which reminded me of Yellowstone. It is a tight forest so difficult to see birds but I did get some shots of a Crested Guan and some other wildlife.

Waterfalls

 

2 Hikers & the Park

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Volcanic Activity

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Wildlife

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

And at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.

– Shanti

¡Pura Vida!

Hacienda Guachipelín

Birds!

Yesterday was my guided bird watching hike and business is so slow in this low season (few tourists in rainy season) that I was given two guides for my solo birding hike. Great and very productive! We saw more than 25 or 30 species but not that many photos!

Below are the ones I got usable photos of with 2 of these as “lifers” or first time photographed for me: Lesser Ground Cuckoo (also the featured photo) and the Magpie Jay. Plus a third lifer without a very good photo – Western Wood-Pewee. A very good morning!    🙂

Guachipelín Birds!

 

With My 2 Guides

And Javier really likes to get group photos, securing another employee to snap this on both our phones. Johnny on the left was technically the main guide who is more experienced and been around here awhile, but Javier (my guide the day before also) was the “Eagle-eye” –  really good at spotting hard-to-see birds.

Johnny will be my guide today into the national park, which won’t be as many birds with the volcano, hot springs, mud pots, etc. like visiting Yellowstone!

“I WOULD RATHER OWN LITTLE AND SEE THE WORLD THAN OWN THE WORLD AND SEE LITTLE OF IT.” 

¡Pura Vida!

Hacienda Guachipelín

La Victoria Waterfall

20191014_085157-WEB
Santiago, left, & his dad Javier

One of the 5 waterfalls on the hotel property is where the whitewater tubing adventure begins but I did not want to do the tubing, so the adventure tours staff let me ride on the early guide’s bus (5-miles) to the falls and ride back on the return bus.

I just photographed the falls which included a short hike down the mountain to the falls with my guide Javier and his 8-year old son Santiago (asst. guide).  Fun guides that also took me to the butterfly garden and snake exhibit after the waterfall + birding along the way. A very good morning before it started raining! Bird, butterfly & snake photos will come later.

Quebrada Victoria (a small stream) forms the waterfall at the point where it flows into Rio Colorado and at that juncture is where the tour staff & participants depart on the whitewater tubing (in big tractor inner tubes) down the rocky Colorado River – see feature photo above. Easy enough for families with children to participate. I did that growing up in Arkansas as a kid and had a day-long tubing trip on a similar river when in college and decided it was not needed again!   🙂

The tours here also include a serious whitewater rafting trip down a bigger, wilder river with class 3 & 4 rapids, but I’ve also done that in TN and once was enough!   🙂

La Victoria Waterfall

It was not the prettiest but one more check off the list!

 

Javier insisted on making a photo of me with his son, who, like all Tico children and youth, was very respectful of age and very helpful, polite & friendly! A joy!

20191014_085210 -WEB
Santiago & Charlie on the trail to Victoria Waterfall.

 

“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”

– Lovelle Drachman

This happened yesterday. Today I have another guide (Johnny) + Javier taking me birding here & then on a tour of the national park. Lots more photos!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Arrival Day Photo Overload

By the time I get to a place and settle in I usually have less than half a day there but seem to get as many or more photos as other days – the excitement of a new place I guess!   And so it was yesterday at Hacienda Guachipelín!   🙂

So to spare you, I’m saving today’s birds and butterflies for another day and putting today’s other photos in slide shows so it won’t look like so much.   🙂

Airplane Shots

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Hotel Grounds

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Hotel Mirador (Vista Point)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Hotel Flowers

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart”    –Confucius

 

¡Pura Vida!

The Craziness of My Passion

Yesterday I hired Walter to drive me to the three hotels within an hour and a half from my house to deliver the photo books I made about the three hotels:  Jaco-Carara Birding Hotels.  (Click to preview the book.)

I visited these 3 hotels in March, June and July this year and because they are all in the same area of Costa Rica near Jaco Beach and Carara National Park I decided to do one photo book instead of three, thus the title and combination of photos. A nice book if I do say so myself, with a large variety of coastal and forest birds and other wildlife plus the best sunset photos yet and an interesting sunrise photo I used for the front cover. Check out this book about Punta Leona Hotel, Villa Calletas Hotel and Macaw Lodge by clicking the above link. An electronic “Preview” is free!

Walter picked me up at 10 am and I was home by 3:30 pm which included a super lunch at Villa Calletas which the book notes as the best of the three for food (according to me)!   🙂

Why would I spend as much money on delivering 3 copies of the book as I did on printing them? Because I’ve had 2 hotels not receive their book through the mail and most of all I’m passionate about making nature photos and sharing them, especially with the people who helped me make them and love the nature of their surroundings as much as I. One young hotel employee was thrilled to see his work surroundings depicted in a photo book – his smile alone made the trip worthwhile!   🙂

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”       ― Mother Teresa

Visit my Bookstore  for other such books.

¡Pura Vida!

Sitting on Rocks? Park Remodel Update…

The other day I showed that they were now building the concrete seating in a circle around the “Kiosk” or Band Shell. Well today as I walked by before my haircut I noticed something interesting. Instead of using re-barb inside the huge concrete two-level seating they are using locally harvested rocks – yep – big rocks around which they hand-pour concrete from buckets. Hmmm. Well, it does help fill in the space with something more than just concrete! And I’m not an engineer, so maybe it is as good as re-barb though I have my doubts, especially since we regularly have earthquake tremors around here. Oh well, not my problem!   🙂   Pura vida!

Step 1: Fill each level of form with rocks.

20191008_114802-A-WEB

 

Step 2: Hand pour concrete around rocks.

20191008_114750-WEB

 

Step 3: Finish with smooth concrete.

20191008_114853-WEB

 

Step 4: Finished product looks great!

20191008_114833-WEB

 

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”      ~George S. Patton

¡Pura Vida!

 

My growing gallery of progress on the Atenas Central Park Remodeling.

The city has  a Facebook Page presenting the remodeling with architect drawings of how they expect it to look.