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Finally! Rainy Season seems to have started with rains every afternoon for 4 days straight now, but oh so much later than usual and from what I’ve read, we may still have a drier rainy season than usual. It is amazing how much greener it gets here after even one rain! And how many more birds! Below are photos of 4 birds I managed to snap this week. I love the rainy season, my favorite time of year here! And most days it rains only 2 or 3 hours in the late afternoon or early evening.
I mentioned earlier about being very busy with several projects like changing doctors, renewing residency, and helping start the new “Artenas Galleria” that all have seemingly taken the leisure from my life – but not for much longer! 🙂 This morning I had my leisurely 30 minute walk to El Fogon restaurant for an Avocado Toast breakfast before grocery shopping at La Coope across the street. and the two shots in this post are from my morning walks in the garden over the last week+, with more photos coming! 🙂
And the feature photo (at top online) is of one of the recently budded “Maracas” or “Shampoo Ginger” flowers that I will have even more of this year. They are coming just as the other Maraca plant (orange) in my front yard has its flowers dying out, so I have one of the Maraca plants blooming almost all of the time on one side of the house or the other! 🙂 I will share more flower shots later along with very few birds and butterflies the last week. We finally got a reasonably good rain yesterday afternoon, but this is starting out to be the driest “Rainy Season” in my 8.5 years here! And somewhere I read that much of the entire globe will be dryer this year, including Central America.
Continue reading “My Blogging Pause & 2 Flowers”
Though that sounds like me over the last few days and in the coming days, it is actually the name of a butterfly, Whirlabout, Polites vibex, and here are two photos of one recently in my garden.
And what have I been so busy about? Well, several things . . .
Or the same discount on all 79 of my available photo books at Charlie Doggett Blurb Bookstore. Then at checkout for any book – USE THIS DISCOUNT CODE:
BOOKSALE15
Good only for 3 days: May 3-5, 2023!
¡Pura Vida!
Finally I have all my photos for the 5 nights in April 2023 at Maquenque Eco Lodge and Reserve including the sub-galleries I’ve already shared. This was another great photo trip to one of my favorite places in Costa Rica with photos of 62 bird species (6 lifers!), 10 butterflies and more than 30 species of other animals! Plus my usual “Nature as Art” photos of everything from flowers to weird leaves and beautiful landscapes. Just this one trip gallery will show you why I am so excited about being “Retired in Costa Rica!” the name of my blog and website. Enjoy the photos! Just click this image:
Or use this address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2023-April-9-14-Maquenque-Ecolodge
¡Pura Vida!
One of my many breaks from sorting and processing photos from my Maquenque visit last week was to make a doctor visit in San Jose yesterday, then have my driver to take me to a hotel to greet friends who were in the Nashville Photography Club with me “way back when.” Charlie and Ellen, who now live in Cookeville, TN and their traveling friend Cynthia. They came early for an extra day in San Jose before their two-week nature tour of Costa Rica begins. We had lunch at our famous 19th Century National Theater and walked through the Central Mercado, a city park and the Metropolitan Cathedral. Here’s 3 cell phone shots of their stop in San Jose.
It is always nice to have visitors from the states to stop by either my home in Atenas or to let me greet them at the airport or at a stop on their tour. Now I get back to sorting and processing so many photos from the Maquenque Lodge & Reserve where it is looking like a new record on the number of bird species I photographed there, possibly 68! 🙂 More from Maquenque tomorrow!
¡Pura Vida!
Another fun and silly holiday from an article in the Washington Post — April 12 – National Grilled Cheese Day! And maybe I will make my favorite combination of Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwich (just like Mom used to make)! 🙂
Half the fun of eating a grilled cheese is slowly pulling apart the halves to watch strings of the gooey cheese stretch and finally break. You may appreciate that cheesy reveal even more if you make it yourself. Ask an adult to help you master this lunchtime classic.
¡Pura Vida!
He has risen!
He has risen indeed!
¡Pura Vida!
For a few shots of old Traditional Easter Pageantry, see the trip gallery of my 2016 Visit to Granada, Nicaragua Easter Week, called “Semana Santa” en español.
PERSONAL NOTE: Tonight I will be at one of my favorite nature lodges, Maquenque Ecolodge in Boca Tapada on the Nicaragua border from which you can expect weeks of nature photos and maybe one tonight! 🙂
I just completed my latest photo book, the second one on Blurb’s “Lay Flat Pages” (no gutter) with 100# Premium Lustre Photo Paper containing 16 sunrise photos in my favorite sunrise place, 14 are two-page spreads! I made it for both the fun of creating and as a gift to the Hotel Banana Azul where all photos were made! There are now several hotels like this across Costa Rica that feature my photo books about them in their lobbies. 🙂 And by the way, this is one I think is worth taking advantage of my bookstore’s “Free Preview” electronically by clicking the cover image below or going to this address and just click the pages to turn them! 🙂
https://www.blurb.com/b/11529264-sunrise-banana-azul
¡Pura Vida!
And by the way, that other “Lay Flat Book” was done way back in 2018 and titled Costa Rica Sunrises and Sunsets. It too is worth taking time for the “Free Preview” with mostly sunsets in that book! Just click that title to go there!
Brief bits of this last week’s news including 2 totally different rich and famous from the United States now living in Costa Rica! 🙂
Or maybe just read these written articles:
Preserve Planet Fights Against Costa Rica’s Plans to Build New Airport
Illegal Logging: The Critical Situation Threatening Costa Rica’s Environment
Costa Rica Expat Living: My Story of Being a Dependent (With an Unexpected Twist) Story of a “dependent” (wife) of a legally working husband and how new law opened up legal work for her (which wasn’t allowed before). CR welcomes us retirees who bring our retirement income with us, but younger working adults who might compete with locals for jobs have many more hoops to jump through! 🙂 But from this story it seems to be getting easier! And I am seeing a lot more working young adult expats, even in little Atenas now, though still most of them work on the internet which is non-competitive to local workers.
Everyone wants to live in Costa Rica now! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Delicate flower buds, a dead leaf and a huge tree on the hill above my house – just using my imagination and playing with nature in the camera . . .
