Category: Retired

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Playa Cativo Photo Gallery

It’s finally completed! And now I can focus on more photos here in Atenas and my garden, though I might still blog some more from Cativo that I haven’t shared yet 🙂 since probably few of you will actually go to this trip gallery linked below. 🙂

This was a better than usual trip and rainforest lodge, though maybe not in my #1 choice yet 🙂 — it’s so hard to compare nature lodges when all of them are so good and each have their own unique things that the others do not! 🙂 If you want to learn more about this lodge, check out their website with this link: Playa Cativo Lodge, Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica. And note that the night-shot of a cabin at the top of their first page is of the cabin I stayed in for a week. 🙂 One of my best cabins ever, anywhere!

This was the third of the 3 “new” lodges I tried this year and was definitely the best cabin of the three and possibly the best overall experience than those at Chachagua or Guayabo, my other two “first time” lodges this year, both of which I loved and enjoyed very much! And I would consider returning to all three! The Cativo food was gourmet like Chachagua’s and the girl guide I had, Alejandra, was one of the best I’ve had anywhere plus the dining room staff gave me one of my best birthday celebrations yet in Costa Rica when I turned 82 there! So, overall a very good experience! 🙂 But I recommend both of the other new lodges also plus my only new lodge of 2021, Bosque del Cabo near Puerto Jimenez, which rivaled this lodge in many ways though I was still to weak from cancer treatment to fully enjoy it.

To see my Playa Cativo Trip Gallery, click that linked title or the image of the first page below. Photos tell a lot about a place if you are considering a visit there! 🙂 And remember that you must travel to either Golfito or Puerto Jimenez and then the hotel arranges a taxi from airport to dock for a boat ride to the lodge. Or if you drive a car, like my Tico doctor friend did, they will suggest where to park it safely before your boat ride to the lodge.

¡Pura Vida!

Trips like this are one thing that make my simple retirement a constant adventure along with the wonderful people and tranquility of the little coffee farming town I live in between these trips. I own no car or house, living happily in a rental house and walking or using public transportation, including for these trips.

You can virtually experience all my trips and tranquil home life through this blog “Retired in Costa Rica” and/or the past trips in my Costa Rica TRIPS Gallery which of course has a sub-gallery for each of the 96 trips I’ve made to every corner of Costa Rica plus 2 to Nicaragua and 1 to Panama since moving here in 2014. This number of trips does include several day-trips but mostly multi-nights lodge trips which are the best of course! And for me, 6 nights somewhere is needed to both relax and experience everything! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Royal Firetip Butterfly

Another new butterfly for me! And in my home garden no less! 🙂 The Royal Firetip or Mysoria barcastus is found from Mexico through most of South America, and just one more of our myriad of butterflies here! Though I’m finding new butterflies on most of my trips to different forest locations, the vast majority of my Costa Rica Butterfly Collection (150+) has been photographed in my Gardens here in Atenas! And I have now become as interested in butterflies as in birds, with both being somewhat of a challenge to photograph. 🙂 Here’s 3 photos of this new species for me:

Royal Firetip Skipper, Mysoria barcastus, Atenas, Costa Rica
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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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Dusky-blue Groundstreak

Another “First Time Seen” butterfly for me, so I’m doing a second post today! 🙂 One of the “Hairstreak” butterflies, the Dusky-blue Groundstreak, Calycopis isobeon (link to butterflies & moths.org), is all over Costa Rica and another fingernail-sized butterfly! 🙂

I’m posting more butterflies than birds now partly because I haven’t had many birds in my garden and this is the time of year for more butterflies in Atenas is one reason. Another is that my interest in butterflies is going up and I have just become the “Costa Rica Coordinator” for the website butterfliesandmoths.org and since they haven’t had a CR Coordinator for 7 or more years here, I inherited a backlog of 450 submissions which will take months to go through, identify and approve while I’m anxious to submit my own 150 species photographed here. 🙂 I seem to always have plenty to keep me busy! 🙂 Enjoy this cool and different tiny butterfly and go outside and look for some where you live!

Dusky-blue Groundstreak, Atenas, Costa Rica
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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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“A Lifestyle Thing” Returns

NOTE: I still plan on my first report from Chachagua Rainforest tonight, but for morning readers, this lifestyle report 🙂 . . .

Now you could call my bus-riding “cultural” or “simple living” or “green living” etc. But Saturday I road the bus to Alajuela again after almost cutting it out for 2 years because of Covid and the dangers of infection in such close quarters. For example, one of my old bus drivers died of Covid he caught as a driver to and from San Jose from Atenas.

But during this past Saturday’s bus trip I felt all the tension and stress caused by the fraudulent use of my debit card just disappeared and I vowed then that I would do this regularly again now. Covid is waning here and I’m feeling safer with all travel now, though I still consider my hidden jungle lodges safer than the cities! 🙂

Fountain in Central Park Alajuela.

First you must know that I have not owned a car since 2014 when I moved to Costa Rica and even though I rented cars a few times during my first 2 years here just for trips outside of Atenas, I soon discovered the joy of walking and taking buses and taxis and for awhile was taking bus trips all over the country. I now use a private driver for more of my trips (especially with Covid), but the more regular bus trips to Alajuela (and fewer to San Jose) will now continue while still wearing a mask. And as a senior adult, the Alajuela trip is free and to San Jose half price, like the equivalent of 75 to 80¢! 🙂

My Saturday Experience

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Park Sign at Night + Other New Views

Here are more views of the new Central Park Sign including a selfie and what it looks like at night and from behind! 🙂 My earlier reports on the sign did not include the finished product at night or from behind! 🙂

At night your eyes see the color of the art on the letters and thus not as bright as this white in my camera. And that white spot in middle of sun is yellow to your eyes, though still bright! 🙂
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People Watching in Quiet Town

I occasionally have a morning coffee and pastry in a little café upstairs above Canario Supermercado which is in the row of businesses across the street from the Atenas Central Mercado or the “every day farmers’ market” and bus station. Saturday sees this street packed with people but on a weekday morning it was quite tranquil!

I drank my coffee by a glass window overlooking the street and Central Mercado and the main taxi stand in town. It reminded me of a similar place in Serrekunda, The Gambia where I did the same thing but with larger throngs of people to watch. 🙂 Here’s 4 photos at different times during my coffee break . . .

A lady crosses the street after visiting the many shops on this side of the street.
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