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.
Charles, Ellen and Cynthia in front of the National Theater of Costa Rica.“The Flutist” Statue in front of the National Theater in San Jose, Costa Rica.Pope John Paul II statue at Metropolitan Cathedral in San Jose, Costa Rica by celebrated Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jiménez Deredia who has a piece at the Vatican.
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!
The only way we are going to save the earth for future generation is by “rewilding” or creating “new” old growth forests of about 50% of the globe by planting more trees. Yesterday I did one tiny part of that by planting an Almond Tree here at Maquenque, where they hope to reintroduce the endangered Green Macaws that eat mostly almonds! And soon they will add nesting boxes to replace the big old trees with nesting holes, one of several reasons they are endangered. It will be a few years before my little baby Almond Tree will feed Macaws, but we have to plan for the future! And that is symbolized by Vicky’s (lodge manager’s) children standing with me in the second photo.
Plus Maquenque does have a few grown Almond Trees here already, “los almendros.” But very few macaws on the ground now, mostly flying overhead as in the third photo below. Plus, since they are located north-central, close to the continental divide, they can have both Green Macaws (Caribbean Slope which they are on) and some Scarlet Macaws (from the Pacific Slope). The Scarlets evidently fly over the Continental Divide which is not high mountains here in the lowlands. Scarlet Macaws are not as endangered as the green but are near-endangered because of habitat loss.
Charlie Doggett with the baby Almond Tree he helped plant at Maquenque Ecolodge & Reserve, Boca Tapada, Costa Rica, April 13, 2023.
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.
A view of our tranquil little farm town from a hill in my neighborhood.Plants up the driveway from my house that said “resurrection” to me.One of the most joyful flowers in my garden, to me, the Flame Vine or Triquitraque here,
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! 🙂
The most frequently heard song in my garden in April is always the melodic song of the Clay-colored Thrush, called Yigüirro in Costa Rican Spanish. Local tradition is that he is singing in the rainy season, begging God for rain and thus he usually goes near the top of trees to sing and why my photos seldom show him singing. It sounds like he is trying really hard to do a good job and loud! As locals say, “singing his heart out!” You can hear one recording on eBird, click the “Listen” Button.
But they do come down to the lower limbs occasionally for my photos, 🙂 with these two shots from two different days. Usually we have a light start of rain the middle of April scattered over several days with the “real” rain beginning in earnest in May when we can have a shower or more every afternoon through November.
This year we had the unusual experience of 4 days of showers in March! Climate change! I live in the “Central Valley” which would not be considered a “rainforest” like both coasts and their corresponding “slopes” where it rains year around and occasionally all day. I like visiting the rainforests but the Central Valley is better for daily living. 🙂
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! 🙂
CLICK cover image to go to a free electronic preview!
¡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!
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.
Amazon Kindle had a special on the electronic Tarzan books, all 10 of the original stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for only 99¢ (1.08 with tax) and I grabbed them! 🙂 The early Tarzan movies had
CLICK cover image to see on Amazon.com.
a big effect on me as a child, while most of the later ones I did not consider as good and since books are almost always better than their movie counterparts, I decided for the first time in my life to read the original stories by the author. Glad I did!
I have finished the first three books and boy is it true that, in this case, the books are so much better than the old or new movies. It is hard to believe how cheesy some of those old movies were that I remember liking so much as a child! 🙂 You can watch most of the old Tarzan movies free online now. And the newer movies made up their own stories, ignoring the books!
Then last week I read a climate change article in The Washington Post that really “clicked” with me and merged with my book readings caused me to decide there was a definite “Tarzan Effect” on me in my childhood of Saturday matinee Tarzan movies and that motivated me to start writing again. I now have a new set of web pages under ABOUT on my website simply titled The Tarzan Effect. They share some of the ways I think Tarzan affected me for the better and at one point I even link to stories and essays on how he affected several other people including Jane Goodall who is reported to have said “I fell passionately in love with Tarzan — this glorious creature living out in the jungle doing all the things I wanted to do, and what did he do? He married the wrong Jane.”
Walking through the garden on two mornings (March 11 & 12) and I chose these shots to share in a little slide show. Rainy Season usually sorta starts the middle of April and really starts in May, but by March 12 we have already had 3 little but nice rains! So I’m glad as is my garden! 🙂
Each and every bloom is unique and beautiful to me. Enjoy walking through my garden with the slide show below and here is the only one I can’t identify, from across the driveway in neighbor’s yard . . .
And as a nature lover, I do not always embrace “progress” that henders nature, but as always, I learn to live with it! 🙂 This old dirt country road called “Calle Nueva” winds over three or four hills through the woods and farms on the western edge of Pueblo Atenas running from the western side of town to the nearby village of Rio Grande at the entrance to Ruta 27, our controlled access highway between San Jose and Jaco Beach. This narrow country dirt road has been considered an emergency exit road in case of a disaster requiring evacuation. Now it is about to become a major street or road to enter or exit Atenas. They first graded and widened it to 9 meters taking a few trees and lots of wild flower with their backhoes, graders and chainsaws. Now they have started at the Rio Grande end widening it to 14 meters and paving it! Working this way! And more than half finished! Already traffic has increased and when all is paved it will stay busy!
Where I enter Calle Nueva, just past Colegio Técnico on Avenida 10, with new black gravel up to the little one lane bridge where it is back to the plain red dirt again.
Of course I am disappointed that I am about to lose my little “shady lane” country road for birding and butterflies along with other nature photography, but even with pavement and more cars it will for a while have more birds and other nature than city streets, just gradually the farms along this road will be turned into housing developments as more foreigners move here in both retirement like me AND now so many younger adults who work on the internet and can live anywhere are choosing to live here! 🙂 It’s all part of our big changing world! At least I’m already living in one of those more desirable places in the world to live! 🙂
Recently graded and widened to 9 meters and soon to 14 meters and paved!
I will continue to walk this road for its nature until there is no more nature. The additional people, traffic and greater speed of vehicles will discourage the birds and other animals in time, but for now it is still a nature path, even when the pavement goes down. And I will continue to document here the birds and butterflies I find through these woods and farms, but for you who live here, be aware than “progress” is coming! 🙂
More photos of the road below from my March 10 sunrise walk . . .
