Category: Culture

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A Weekly Blog Post?

A Change in the Blog . . .

I am thinking about a purpose and need for this blog, my goals, and what the 20 to 100 actual readers per day want to see here.  (Tell me!)

As I re-evaluate the blog I see it in danger of becoming a personal journal, more about me than my original purpose of “How to Retire in Costa Rica” or now about “Being Retired in Costa Rica.” My retirement hobbies of travel, birding and photography don’t speak to all, but that’s a given.

Beginning this coming weekend, my new “trial approach” is to post only one weekly, quality article on Friday, Saturday or Sunday (flexible day).  I will seek to:

  1. Use fewer/better photos with a gallery link for those wanting more.

  2. Try for shorter, easier to read posts. This is already too long!   🙂

  3. Try to include some “inspiration” though not always my purpose.

  4. Try to improve my photography so one photo says it all!

Please Give Your Input  —  Reader Survey

Use the Comments box below or email saying:

  • Keel-billed Toucan on my Terrace

    What subjects you would like me to include?

  • What you think of a weekly approach?
  • Do you read this for information or photos?
  • Are your interests (1) Retirement in CR?  (2) Costa Rica in general?  (3) Nature photography?  (4) Travel?  (5) Birding?   or  (6) Keeping up with me?

If your prefer a private message click Contact on top menu to email me.

 ¡Pura Vida!

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God’s Glory in the Skies

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Psalm 19 The Message (MSG)
A David Psalm
19 1-2 God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
3-4 Their words aren’t heard,
their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
4-5 God makes a huge dome
for the sun—a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband
leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
racing to the tape.
6 That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies
from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts,
warming hearts to faith.
7-9 The revelation of God is whole
and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of God are clear
and point out the right road.
The life-maps of God are right,
showing the way to joy.
The directions of God are plain
and easy on the eyes.
God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold,
with a lifetime guarantee.
The decisions of God are accurate
down to the nth degree.
10 God’s Word is better than a diamond,
better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,
better than red, ripe strawberries.
11-14 There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger
and directs us to hidden treasure.
Otherwise how will we find our way?
Or know when we play the fool?
Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-My-Altar.

(Emphasis is mine.)  Sharing what struck me in my devotional reading 3 mornings ago as I read this Psalm. And really, everything in nature has God speaking to me whether in a Bible passage or a famous quotation or not. I am in closer harmony with God in the natural places of Costa Rica than anywhere I’ve been before – like an anteroom to Heaven!   🙂    No predictions intended, but I’m ready!   🙂   Being close to nature is one of my ideas of heaven!

¡Pura Vida!

See also my GALLERY:    VISTAS, BEACHES, SUNRISES, SUNSETS 

One little slice of the joys of being “Retired in Costa Rica!”

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This Mountain

This mountain, the arched back of the earth risen before us, it made me feel humble, like a beggar, just lucky to be here at all, even briefly.          ~ Bridget Asher

Mountains surrounding Atenas seen from my terrace at breakfast.

Cellphone photo by Charlie Doggett –click panorama to see larger.

After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone. 

~ Matthew 14:23

¡Pura Vida!

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Weird Drums of Pipes & Pots

Just another one of the unusual things I see in Central Park Alajuela. Yesterday this guy was drumming away on his psychedelic apparatus in the park for tips. A quick snap of it  on my way to the bus station. He looks and acts more like a young American, but some young Ticos try to be that way.

¡Pura Vida!

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Welcome to the Anthropocene

Anthropocene – noun
An·​thro·​po·​cene | \ ˈan(t)-thrə-pə-ˌsēn , an-ˈthrä-\
Definition of Anthropocene
: the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age
Most scientists agree that humans have had a hand in warming Earth’s climate since the industrial revolution—some even argue that we are living in a new geological epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene.
— Nature, 12 Feb. 2004    (Copied from Webster’s Dictionary Online)

Alice Major (Canadian Poet Laureate) observes the comedy and the tragedy of this human-dominated moment on Earth. Major’s most persistent question—“Where do we fit in the universe?”—is made more urgent by the ecological calamity of human-driven climate change. Her poetry leads us to question human hierarchies, loyalties, and consciousness, and challenges us to find some humility in our overblown sense of our cosmic significance.

“Now, welcome to the Anthropocene

you battered, tilting globe. Still you gleam,

a blue pearl on the necklace of the planets.

This home. Clouds, oceans, life forms span it

from pole to pole, within a peel of air

as thin as lace lapped round an apple. Fair

and fragile bounded sphere, yet strangely tough—

this world that life could never love enough.

And yet its loving-care has been entrusted

to a feckless species, more invested

in the partial, while the total goes unnoticed.”

— from “Welcome to the Anthropocene” by Alice Major

Get the book on Amazon

Or from Book Publishers Association of Alberta

Read a review on Goodreads.com

Or join the action with  Population Matters

And if you don’t believe in Global Warming, maybe this book of poetry will help you see what is happening to planet Earth. Our grandchildren could enter the year 2100 in a desolate place if earth is even still here.

Retired in the “Ideal Climate” of Costa Rica

That also is in danger of Global Warming.

The climate is changing. Will we change? 

¡Pura Vida!

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Turtle Beach Lodge

After two visits to Tortuguero at the Laguna Lodge (2010 & 2016), I felt I needed a change or to at least see what one of the other lodges is like. After an internet search I chose Turtle Beach Lodge. Two out of a total of about 12 to 15 is not the total picture but I at least can compare these two and I like them both. Laguna is larger, housing about 300 people while Turtle Beach houses about 150, depending on how many persons to a room of course, but that is the dining room sizes. Larger is not always better.   🙂

Its been 3 years since at Laguna, but I vaguely remember their food being better or at least a lot more choices beyond the typical Tico food buffet at Turtle Beach where you get rice & beans at every meal plus “mixed vegetables” (boiled cabbage & a few other veggies) along with a change in meat from fish, chicken, pork and beef in rotation for both lunch and dinner and one little meatless pasta. Turtle’s salad bar is skimpier than Laguna’s and had more flies. So overall I remember Laguna having better food.

Housing is very similar in both with basic screened-in cabins, camp-like firm beds, and a ceiling fan plus basic bathroom. Both have a swimming pool and beach access, while Turtle also has a pool table in the bar and most of the buildings seemed newer or more modern. Both have WiFi only in the public areas (dining room, lobby, bar, etc.) They are about the same with the same tours, nature and wildlife offerings and jungle living experience. Though Turtle Beach excels on the canoe or kayak option with their private canal.

I would be hard pressed to recommend one over the other though I lean toward my most recent experience with Turtle Beach, being smaller where you get to know the staff better and I easily got a private birding tour that included the guide paddling me in a canoe while I photographed. I did not ask for that at Laguna but it is probable there too. I also like Turtle Beach’s private canal better than Laguna being on the main river. And I stayed 3 nights at Turtle Beach which really makes a difference over the one night or two night stays before! To get the most out of a place you need more time there and that is my approach everywhere now, with 6 nights more common at other lodges.

Bottom line is that Turtle Beach edges out Laguna Lodge in all but the food which was better at Laguna. Now here are a lot of shots from Turtle Beach Lodge in four slideshows by my categories:

My Room

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Lodge Facilities

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Private Canal & Boat Dock

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Art on the Grounds

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The wilderness is healing, a therapy for the soul.   

~Nicholas Kristof

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

EXTRA NEWS ON WILDLIFE OF COSTA RICA:

A Chat with Nat Geo’s “Untamed Costa Rica” Producer

“Costa Rica has one of the few places in the world where a wild ocean and a wild forest can converge simultaneously with one another.”          ~Filipe DeAndrade

¡Pura Vida!

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Little Theatre in Atenas

The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica, which Atenas Expats often travel to San Jose to see perform, came to Atenas today, performing for about 70 of the Atenas Men’s Club at the Barons Resort atop Vista Atenas after a fine lunch by Barons. Here’s just 4 shots to depict the experience:

“Fault Lines,” a comedy by George Sapio

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Performed atop Vista Atenas at Barons Resort
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After a delicious lunch by Barons in their hilltop restaurant.
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We adjourned to a Barons meeting room “Theater” for . . .
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FAULT LINES, a comedy by George Sapio, performed by The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica

You can see and download these 4 photos full-size in my Gallery.

 

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

~Thornton Wilder

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Flying From Tortuguero

Knowing from past experiences that the return trip by boat and bus to San Jose is more tiring and less of an adventure, I chose to try flying back this time and not that early 6am flight!  🙂   But rather I took the 12:40 afternoon flight – and here is

The Story in Pictures

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The Tortuguero Airport Parking Lot . . . A boat landing. My lodge “driver” dropped me off here and I walked over to the landing strip.

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The Tortuguero Airport Terminal. 🙂

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Just another bunch of tourists, European & Canadian.
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I love taking off alongside a beach! (Like in Limon)
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Up over the village of Tortuguero . . .
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. . . and over some of the rivers & canals I traveled this week.
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And the beautiful Costa Rican Farms.
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Our one stop before San Jose was at La Fortuna with Arenal Volcano towering above.

 

Sometimes I think I live a charmed life getting to see such beautiful sights! (Even though my suitcase did not make it on our overloaded flight and is suppose to be delivered by taxi sometime this evening.) I love being “Retired in Costa Rica” and I’m still processing the bird and other wildlife photos from this Tortuguero trip – but coming soon!

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

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River Roads

Getting to and from anywhere in Tortuguero is only by boat with outsiders able to use the Tortuguero Landing Strip to fly here by small plane. All week I have been traveling around this rainforest park by boat including my private birding trip in a canoe this afternoon with Ricardo doing the paddling and me making photos!  🙂   One photo below is from that canoe trip. It is a different world, a water world! Tomorrow the lodge takes me by boat to the Tortuguero Landing Strip for my flight out which is a relief since the gravel roads between Guapiles and the boat dock are in bad condition right now. It is only the second time I’ve gone to an airport by boat with the other being at Drake Bay.

River Scene Shots

 

Wilderness is a necessity there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.

~John Muir

 

See my 2019 Tortuguero Turtle Beach Lodge Visit Gallery for more on this exciting rainforest trip!

Or the Turtle Beach Lodge hotel website

Or my photo book on 3 visits to TORTUGUERO, The Amazon of Costa Rica

 

¡Pura Vida!