Spelling Bee and Carara National Park

All the students walk to and from
school, are clean cut, polite, friendly

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPELLING BEE
Tomorrow, Thursday, 30 July 2015, I’m starting the day as a “Native English Speaker” at Colegio Liceo de Atenas, the big high school near where I live, to serve as a judge and maybe to pronounce the English words for their English Language Classes Spelling Bee. They have 3 full-time English Teachers in a Spanish-speaking school! A big high school!

How fun this will be! Even though I was going to leave early on my birding adventure, I can’t turn down an opportunity like this to relate to the community! I’m trying hard to not be like most of the segregated expats who only associate with each other. I didn’t move to Central America to spend all my time with North Americans! I’m here to get away from them! 🙂 (No offense now! I still like some of you! But I sure like the culture down here better.) So I will leave for Carara at 11:00 after the Spelling Bee! FYI the school Facebook Page.    or  School Video   and    Google Images  of the school or just Google the school and you will see pages for the students to do homework, etc. You will get a report from me on this for sure!

Hope to get a better shot than this one on
my 2011 Tarcoles River Cruise as a day trip
from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship,
our FBN Panama Canal Cruise

CARARA NATIONAL PARK
Now for the planned trip: I have a rent car and I’m spending two nights at Hotel Villa Lapas at
Tarcoles, the closest one to the Carara Park and have scheduled a 5-hour guided tour of the park with hopes of Scarlet Macaw photos. This is mating season in the second most populous Scarlet Macaw forest of the country, so maybe some cute, cuddly couples to photograph!  🙂 But regardless, there will be many birds and much else to photograph! And if not raining too much, I will hike to the tallest waterfall in the country or at least see it from a distance at a nearby botanical gardens. I’ve done the nearby Tarcoles River cruise 3 times, but that is always another option if I get bored – ha, ha!

Tico Times article on Carara National Park

Costa Rica Bureau Page on park (not sure if it is official park page, if any)

One National Parks Page on the park (maybe not official)

A Guide Service Page     and the Wikipedia Page is good

And hopefully more than overfly shots like this one I made in 2009 at
Corcovado National Park in the South on Osa Peninsula. 

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ― John Muir, Our National Parks

And my PHOTO GALLERY of Costa Rica Birds if you want more!  🙂

Church Possibilities in Atenas

“Atenas New Community”

About 4 or 5 blocks from my apartment in Atenas is a non-denominational Bible Church Iglesia Biblica Atenas

They have Sunday morning services in Spanish language that I’ll attend.

Iglesia Biblica Atenas

Connected with it is an English-speaking Atenas New Community with Bible Study on Tuesday night and English Language Worship on Wednesday evening in the same building.

Both the Tico church and the English speaking community are somehow affiliated with LifePoint Church in Plano, TX and the English leader, Steve Lucas, was formerly on staff at that Plano church. The auditorium above seems to be used for Spanish on Sunday morning and English on Wednesday night.

40 minutes away in Escazu is the large, English-speaking International Baptist Church if I really get in the mood for a larger North American style Evangelical Church, though I expect to stay close to Atenas at first.

International Baptist Church
Escazu, Costa Rica

Click the links to each church above to see what I have to look forward to. The two in Atenas just have Facebook pages, but IBC has a full website and busy program. Christian fellowship and worship is important to me. I may try others I discover in Atenas.

And oh yes, I have already been invited to the Atenas New Community Christmas Eve service in English if I get in and settled in time. I am to arrive at airport at 2:00 and service is at 5:30 – so we’ll see!   🙂