This is one of the oldest and most visited national parks in Costa Rica and has been greatly missed for nearly a year now after some serious eruptions. Safety is always the first concern and you can be confident that it is safe to visit again now. Some say that it is the best or one of the best volcano parks in the world to visit. It is the only one here where you can look down inside the cone. Plus it is a beautiful cloud forest and nature reserve! I highly recommend seeing it when in Costa Rica and always best early in the morning since clouds often move in to hide the volcano by or before 10:00 AM!
The photo above is one of many made on a trip to Poas in 2015 with Kevin Hunter. See the TRIP Gallery Poas Volcano 2015.
It was time for my one-year checkup with my public hospital cardiologist yesterday, 27 Agosto, made by the doctor one year ago, Dr. Hernandez. In the meantime I heard around June from someone else with the same cardiologist that Dr. Hernandez (whom I really liked) had gone to Spain to study heart surgery and I would be getting his substitute whom the other person also liked very much, especially because he spoke English! So I was already expecting a new doctor, whom I learned today is Victor Andres Garcia Rojas (called Dr. Garcia) – and I will do another article below on Spanish Names using his.
Adventure 2: I Forgot Pre-appointment Blood Tests
Yeah! No good excuse! It was on my calendar that I wasn’t watching and I forgot that appointment a week earlier. The results were to be with the doc by yesterday so they would be part of his evaluation of my heart. I rationalized and said, “oh well, he will reschedule that and add to my file later. No big deal! Pura vida!” Well, it is a big deal! Hospitals are very serious!
So I wait in the adultos major line (for old people & shorter than other line) for about 30 minutes. When I get to the desk there is suddenly a computer problem with a bunch of supervisor types coming in to explain something on the computers to all the clerks. Then finally my clerk takes my cita (appointment paper) and my cedula (ID card) and starts to check me in and I casually tell her about forgetting the appointment for blood workup. She stares at me, shakes her head and tells me she is sorry (this is all in Spanish of course) but “the doctor cannot see you without the blood tests.” Thus she makes a new appointment for me with Dr. Garcia on September 5 (Whew! I leave Sept. 6 for my Caribe trip!) Then, with multiple attempts, she explains to me that I must go down to main lobby (photo at top) and wait in line at the laboratorio for a new appointment and show them that it is needed for a Sept. 5 doctor visit. By then I remember waiting in that line a year ago for the missed appointment. My punishment for living a pura vida life! 🙂
So back downstairs to that crowd in top photo and actually the laboratory line was not as long as some of the others. I had my new lab appointment for this Friday in less than 45 minutes! This girl was not as slow a speaker or as patient with my bad Spanish and so she used her phone translator some with me, though I was understanding more of her Spanish than she thought. Language is all part of the adventure!
So now, (with all the complaints about slowness in public healthcare), I’m doing blood workup this Friday (just 4 days later!) and I see the doctor next Wednesday! Pretty fast I think! And this delay is the fault of my forgetfulness or not setting the phone calendar alarm on my lab appointment! Now I get to go back to the hospital two more times (More adventures!). And I will remember to fast 12 hours before my 6am appointment Friday! Aren’t I lucky? 🙂
Adventure 3: Spanish Names – Why 4?
Be aware that this can be slightly different from country to country, but for the Costa Rica explanation I will use Dr. Garcia as my example:
Dr. Victor Andres Garcia Rojas
Victor = First Name; Andres=Second or Middle Name;
Garcia=His Father’s Last Name; Rojas=His Mother’s Last Name (maiden name)
Most people go by their father’s last name, thus he is “Dr. Garcia.” But on legal documents and other places they use all four names, like on the Cedula (ID Card) and in the hospital. Since I have only 3 names, the hospital or national healthcare program has given me a fourth name that is on all my hospital records = “Noindicaotro” as a replacement for my Mother’s last name. Interesting since it is not a word in my Spanish Dictionary! 🙂
Adventure 4: Talkative Old Man on Bus
On the bus ride back to Atenas (45+ minutes) I sat next to a very talkative man who did not stop talking and even singing the entire trip. It was mostly in Spanish with an occasional English word or phrase to show me that he knew some English. I had a crick in my neck when I got home for having my head turned to the left the whole trip. And no, what he said was not very interesting, but I appreciated his friendliness and I guess he appreciated me listening attentively. 🙂
The above photo is of the sign on the City Hall building (municipalidad). I was recovering from surgery and did not participate in the 5-day long weekend (Friday-Tuesday) celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Canton (County) Atenaswith the Pueblo (town) of Atenas the same age. Central Park was full of tents with food, crafts and venders plus a stage to present music groups several times each day with even the American retiree’s oldies band “Flashback” performing one afternoon. And for awhile there was a sign with pictures of the plans for a remodeled Central Park. I didn’t get a pix.
Anniversary Project
On the final day a government program made the birthday official and on this auspicious birthday they presented their plans for a Remodeled Central Park that I have already presented in an earlier post where I referred you to the official Facebook presentationwith 18 drawings and photos. They say it will be done this year, the anniversary year, but it is August and no work has started yet. Of course it rains every day now, so if they wait until dry season, it will be started in December! 🙂 And thus may be completed in 2019. Maybe! It is being done by government officials remember! ¡Pura Vida! 🙂
The Plain Longtail Butterfly or Urbanus simplicius proves that all butterflies are not colorful. In fact, I had one of the many different longtails in my bathroom one night and thought at first that it was a bat! Yes, he is fury! But you have to admit that he is very interesting and beautiful in his own simple way, photographed here in my garden. I have a photo of a White-striped Longtail in my butterfly gallery and there are other varieties.
See also my Photo Gallery Butterflies and Moths with more than 80 species photographed here in Costa Rica.
I also have a little 7X7 inch photo book titled My First 50 Butterflies in Costa Rica. You can preview all pages electronically for free at this link. Best viewed full screen for bigger photos.
¡Pura Vida!
Report on My Surgery Last Night
My right arm is still numb, so limited left-hand typing. Hospital and docs/staff were super! I see doc tomorrow and schedule physical therapy. No problems, still numb. No pain.
This name or label is the closest match found in online searches with the scientific name of Ganyra josephina, found from South Texas all the way through Central America to northern South America. It is similar to the Felder’s White found in the book A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America with scientific name Ganyra phaloe (which name I almost gave it). Another web page had a similar butterfly labeled Godart’s White, almost identical to Felder’s, both having a little brown edge around the upper wings which mine does not have. Mine more closely matches the “Giant White” photos and descriptions online but is not in Swift’s book.
Butterflies are so difficult to identify, especially in Costa Rica where we seem to have millions of different ones! This was photographed in my garden in Atenas, Costa Rica.
See also my Photo Gallery Butterflies and Moths with more than 70 species photographed here in Costa Rica.
I also have a little 7X7 inch photo book titled My First 50 Butterflies in Costa Rica. You can preview all pages electronically for free at this link. Best viewed full screen for bigger photos.
Monday 30 July. Yep! That does seem different, evening instead of morning, but that is the way it is (and maybe when an operating room was available at the small private hospital). And the doctor said the sooner we do it, the less damage will be done to the tendon and the sooner I will be without pain. And instead of using the main Hospital Metropolitano in downtown San Jose we are going to one of their 4 suburban campuses, the only one with an operating room. It is in the Lindora barrio of Santa Ana which is on “my side” (west) of San Jose just off our “freeway,” Ruta 27, and about 30 minutes closer than the downtown hospital campus, especially during rush hour, thus easier and quicker for both me and my driver whom I’ve already scheduled.
I am to be there at 5PM, with the surgery scheduled for 7PM to 8PM with one hour in the Recovery Room and return home soon after 9PM. That should be a good way to get sleepy for bedtime! Ja, ja, ja, (español for ha, ha, ha) 🙂 though the anesthesia is only local.
He says my activities can be normal in a week to 10 days though I will have 5 weeks of physical therapy (2X a week), the hardest part one U.S. friend said. But I did cancel or postpone my August trip to Sarapiqui, which I now have rescheduled for next May. Before then I will be a new man who will try harder to not fall off the bed or on the rough sidewalks of Alajuela! It’s just that time of life! 🙂 No cane yet and hopefully not soon! But maybe needed someday?
Click the image or title for link to a free online review of the book in the Blurb Bookstore. It was one of my more interesting trips here in Costa Rica! Truly Enchanted by Nature!
The other afternoon I was eating a pizza and salad at Napo’s Pizzeria when I looked out the window and this guy stopped his horse at the little pulperia (corner grocery) nextdoor for a beer, while staying on his horse. And today a local FB Group “Atenas Info” had someone to post 3 pages from an old history book describing downtown Atenas full of horses, wagons and beer drinkers. Culture dies slowly! 🙂
History never really says goodbye. History says, ‘See you later.’ ~Eduardo Galeano
You might also be interested in seeing this few seconds local video during a recent rain storm in Atenas. That roof flying off is from the bus station where I catch my buses to both Alajuela and San Jose. I wondered yesterday why roofers were there with a new tin roof – now I know!
By using my new 600mm telephoto lens instead of my usual Samsung Phone Camera for a vista from the hilltop resort Xandari, I zoomed in on the Alajuela Cathedral with Central Park to the right and the bigger surprise, at top edge of photo is an American Airlines plane landing or taking off at the San Jose International Airport in Alajuela! Luck of the timing on the plane and sorry that the blog template crops off part of the plane, not so in my original photo (see in gallery).
Below is another shot in same direction from the same restaurant with my phone camera to help you see how much I was able to zoom in and crop a little! 🙂 The cathedral is on the left side of the city that you see between the restaurant and the mountains. My last day at Xandari, Wednesday, Walter picked me up and we got my internet order package 5 blocks east of the Cathedral, ate lunch 2 blocks north of the Cathedral, then drove 24 km (15 miles) west to Atenas where I live. My small world! 🙂
Looking south over Alajuela, Costa Rica (& San Jose Airport) from Xandari Resort. I stood in this same spot for the Cathedral-Airplane photo, just zooming in!
There are so many good photos of flowers, architecture, the farm, public art and one very surprising vista! (I may share here tomorrow.) And I decided not to fill another week’s worth of blog posts with them. So I encourage you to check out the 2018 Xandari Resort Photo Gallery. This was one of my most photogenic places to visit yet!
