Category: Places

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Oxcart Parade 2018 Atenas

Rural Families is always the focus of Atenas’ Annual Oxcart Parade, last Weekend of April.
 Atenas, Costa Rica
Here a teen is the “Boyero” (Oxen Master) with sis in cart and Mom & Dad Walking behind
Atenas, Costa Rica

One of the many colorful Oxcart Wheels
Oxcart Parade, Atenas, Costa Rica

A few Oxen are entered into the contest without carts, some by older children or teens
I guess it is like FFA in the States or other programs to help budding farmers.
Atenas, Costa Rica
Last year our local University provided Latin Dancers – This year a team of ropers!
Oxcart Parade, Atenas, Costa Rica

The university campus on the edge of Atenas is one of the many UTN (Universidad Técnica Nacional), this one focusing on farming with students coming from all over Latin America as possibly the best agricultural school in Latin America or at least the best in Central America. They are good about participating in major local events like this – good neighbors! Good citizens! We like our student farmers at UTN!

Though I’ve seen them before, I always enjoy! They’re good!
Oxcart Parade, Atenas, Costa Rica
PEOPLE! You will have to go to my online gallery to see my interesting people shots.
And there are always some very interesting and colorful people! 
Oxcart Parade, Atenas, Costa Rica

I know that I still post too many photos for a blog, but I have so many more interesting photos I want to share, thus it has to be on the photo gallery: 2018 Oxcart Parade.  I’m working on it now and will try to finish today or tomorrow. Takes time!

This gallery is a part of my section called PEOPLE & FIESTAS. And of course there are other sections like BIRDS and TRIPS that pretty much document my 3 1/2 years in Costa Rica thus far and you can see them all at my SmugMug Gallery titled: Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA.


Enjoy photos of my 
¡Pura Vida!


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Jane Goodall reads about Costa Rica with ‘Guardian of Nature’

Article copied from The Tico Times online edition, April 19, 2018
Famous primatologist, anthropologist and chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall posed this week with a copy of the book “Guardians of Nature and her Friends: Save the River,” written by Costa Rican marine biologist Jessica Sheffield Zamora and illustrated by artist Shannon McWhirter.
This is the first book in a series focused on environmental education for children; for each hardcover book sold, a softcover copy is donated to a Costa Rican public school student in a rural school as part of the Guardians of Nature environmental education program. Kids can follow the story of Lucía, a nine year-old who loves nature but doesn’t believe she’s big enough to protect it.
Stay tuned for more on Sheffield Zamora and Guardians of Nature. For more information, visit La Guardiana de la Naturaleza’s webpage.

-o-

Photo Gallery of Nashville Group at Hogar de Vida is now posted. Sorry for the delay, but I focused on the book first, then got busy! Just sorry you can’t see the children’s faces, but online security is important now! I like my real world in Costa Rica better than the online world!  🙂    ¡Pura Vida!

And tomorrow is Atenas’ Oxcart Parade, so expect photos of that tomorrow!  🙂
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A Map of My CR Travels Thus Far

Click to see a little larger and thus easier to read. It may be that only people who live here or travel in Costa Rica a lot can appreciate the broad variety of places I have visited in 3 years and this is only the big name places like National Parks. There are so many little towns and places I have visited like Zarcero, Sarchi, Pura Vida Gardens, La Paz Gardens, Zoo Ave, waterfalls, fiestas, farm tours, etc. that simply won’t fit on this little map! Continuous adventure!

I am so fortunate to live in such a beautiful natural place with so much to see and photograph! I love it here! And I enjoy every moment of every day whether traveling, sitting in my garden, or waiting in some long, slow government line. ¡Pura Vida!  

AND ADDING TO THE MAP THIS YEAR:
I earlier listed some of the places scheduled for my visits the next few months and now I have extended the list for one trip every month through next February 2019. So if any of you guys in the states want to visit, you will have to work around my trips or join me on one of them!  🙂   I have a trip-a-month for May through February with reservations for places that will help fill in the white spaces on the above map with 4 repeats: 


It promises to be my best “bucket list” year yet here in Costa Rica and I’m doing exactly what I planned to do when I made the decision to move here in retirement for these final “golden years” of life! (The “decision process” was documented earlier on this blog, starting with my first post, June 26, 2014.) Wonderful decision! (Not fully made until September that year.) As my friend Bill Peters at LifeWay used to say: “Every day’s a holiday and every week’s a vacation!” (In jest about working at LifeWay) But when you retire in Costa Rica that is almost true! ☺  


Copied from a blog of an expat living in Jaco, Costa Rica.    🙂


¡Pura Vida!
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Crocodiles

American Crocodile
“Crocodile Bridge,” Tarcoles, Costa Rica

American Crocodile
“Crocodile Bridge,” Tarcoles, Costa Rica
Our van with the Nashville group stopped here on the way to Jaco Beach. A regular stop for tour buses here on Ruta 34 is called Crocodile Bridge (Link to very good Animal Planet Video); the highway 34 bridge over the Tarcoles River is near the small fishing village of Tarcoles. Tourists usually walk over the bridge and look down to see the crocs sunning on the riverbanks or swimming in the river for a fish snack. (See above video link.) The nearby village has several vendors who will take you on the river in a boat to see the crocs up close and even better, for me, up to 30+ species of birds! There are of course several souvenir and food vendors at the bridge to oblige your needs!  🙂

American Crocodile on Wikipedia

Species Profile: Everglades National Park

¡Pura Vida!

Links to my float trips on the Tarcoles River (Bird Focus): 


2017 July    (1 croc pic)

2017 April   (2 good croc pics)




2015 February    (6 croc shots)

2011 April    (Cruise Ship stop, 2 croc shots) 
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Both Bizarre and Common Insects

Dobsonfly
Hogar de Vida Campus, Atenas, Costa Rica

Common Grasshopper
Hogar de Vida Campus, Atenas, Costa Rica
To read more about Dobsonfly:  Wikipedia  in 5 languages, but not Spanish!
To read more about Grasshoppers:   Wikipedia   in 5 languages, but not Spanish!
There are 11,000 known species of grasshoppers in the world and with more than 300.000 insect species in Costa Rica there has to be a lot of different kinds of grasshoppers here! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!
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Rufous-naped Wren

Rufous-naped Wren
Hogar de Vida Campus, Atenas, Costa Rica

Rufous-naped Wren
Hogar de Vida Campus, Atenas, Costa Rica
This noisy and aggressive little bird is the most numerous at my house and seemed to be likewise at Hogar de Vida during our week of living there. I shared a different shot than these in the photo book for the participants. To read more about this Central American bird, see:   
Neotropical Birds  where you can learn the most, see a locations map & hear them sing  
Wikipedia  where you can read about them in 10 languages and learn that the bird’s name in Spanish is Ratona de nuca rufa
And a search for my photos of this wren at my house, if interested. The only bird that flies inside my house. Click an image to see it larger.

Though wildlife was not the emphasis of the mission trip last week, I have a few animal shots that I will share the next few days from both the campus and the tourist day trip. 

¡Pura Vida!
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Cloudy Afternoons with Rain

We seem to be entering the “Rainy Season” ahead of May.
Atenas, Costa Rica

So what will my May trip to Arenal be like? We will see. I will expect and prepare for rain!   🙂
Already it is greening here! The “Green Season!”

¡Pura Vida!

Postscript: You may wonder if I will advertise a photo book about the mission trip to Hogar de Vida Children’s Home. I have already completed it and it is available for purchase by invitation only because the faces of the children cannot be shown on the internet in this blog, Facebook, or anywhere else. The team members have been invited already. If you are interested and I consider you “safe” I will invite you if you email me and request the link. It is a 50-page book, 7×7 inches square with 87 photos, available in softcover for $20.99 and in hardcover for $35.99.  Email me at  charlie@charliedoggett.net 
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Thanks to Nashville First Adults for Bringing Rain!

The First Adult Mission Team from First Baptist  Church Nashville, Tennessee
on my terrace after lunch last Sunday. Photo by Jason Quesada on Pam’s phone. Me back center in blue shirt.
Atenas, Costa Rica

The national bird of Costa Rica is the Clay-colored Thrush or Yigüirro in Spanish. It is a rather plain brownish robin-sized bird to be a national bird – BUT – the story is that it’s singing in April (mating season) is what brings the rains in May. Well, this year the rains started in April (the day the Nashville group arrived), so we don’t know whether to credit that to the little thrush or the First Adults!   🙂   But whatever – it’s been raining ever since! Each afternoon. ¡Muchas gracias!

¡Pura Vida!
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A Day with Helen!

Helen (seated) at Hogar was our helper, translator, and inspiration today – another great day!
Hogar de Vida, Atenas, Costa Rica

Also today I walked some of the group to town for a look around and the walk was too much for some of them, but we enjoyed seeing the Central Mercado, Central Park and Catholic Church.