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And yes, there were red flags out today, meaning dangerous riptides or undercurrents, stay out of the water! Surfers are young invincibles who ignore such warnings. And the rasta guy falling above had nothing to do with riptides! Oh well, makes good photos for me and good fun for the kids! 🙂 And fortunately no one was swept away while I was there.
“The best surfer out there is the one having the most fun.”
– Phil Edwards
¡Pura Vida!
The above photo is of the sign on the City Hall building (municipalidad). I was recovering from surgery and did not participate in the 5-day long weekend (Friday-Tuesday) celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Canton (County) Atenas with the Pueblo (town) of Atenas the same age. Central Park was full of tents with food, crafts and venders plus a stage to present music groups several times each day with even the American retiree’s oldies band “Flashback” performing one afternoon. And for awhile there was a sign with pictures of the plans for a remodeled Central Park. I didn’t get a pix.
On the final day a government program made the birthday official and on this auspicious birthday they presented their plans for a Remodeled Central Park that I have already presented in an earlier post where I referred you to the official Facebook presentation with 18 drawings and photos. They say it will be done this year, the anniversary year, but it is August and no work has started yet. Of course it rains every day now, so if they wait until dry season, it will be started in December! 🙂 And thus may be completed in 2019. Maybe! It is being done by government officials remember! ¡Pura Vida! 🙂
More of Atenas in my Photo Galleries:
Atenas and People and Fiestas.
I’m guessing that only 6th & 7th Graders are in the band and maybe 5th Graders. And it must count as PE or Physical Education because those green & blue uniforms are their PE uniforms, while the two boys in white shirts and black pants are in their school or classroom uniform.
It is almost all drums in all the bands here, this one with cymbals and some kind of scrappy rhythm instrument on the back row. I’m guessing again that is because of lack of money for instruments and music teachers or a priorities thing. The high school bands usually have a few girls playing xylophone with some bigger cities adding brass and reed instruments, but not many.
The group above is practicing in the city sports park across the street from the Primary School, Escuela Central. And I suspect they are getting ready for the September 15 Independence Day Parade and subsequently the December Christmas Parade. I admire the few girls who play drums which the boys tend to dominate here (and maybe everywhere).
Life in a small farming town in Costa Rica! ¡Pura Vida!
See also my PEOPLE & FIESTAS Photo Gallery for the bands marching in the parades.
Your have heard me brag about the tranquility and great weather of my little farming town of Atenas – and the “muy amable” or very kind people here. But one thing that many hyper and efficient Americans don’t always realize when they move to such an easy-going society, is that to be that way means everything and everybody moves slower here! No rush! ¡Pura vida! To not adapt to this slower way means you will not be happy here. Always frustrated at the inefficiencies!
My example of this today is my efforts since Monday to pay my surgeon for the work he did. (No pressure from him.) I made arrangements in advance with my Credit Union in Nashville to move the needed money from Savings to Checking so I could easily pay with my debit card. Hospital payment was quick and easy as I had planned, but the doc requested to be paid separately. Okay.
The doctor comes in my room with his little portable credit card machine, saying he doesn’t like to wait for the hospital to reimburse him if I pay through them (the most efficient way), saying they sometimes take a full month to forward the money to him. Okay. He tries repeatedly and his machine doesn’t work or at least he blames it on the machine and not my card which had just worked for the hospital. He leaves and returns in a little while with a bigger machine he plugged into the wall (still dependent on hospital WiFi). And it did not work. He then says we will take care of it when I see him at his office later this week (Wednesday). It still did not work there. He then gives me his account number at Banco Nacional and asks that I just transfer the money to his account from my account – but that account (my SS check auto-deposit) is just for housing costs, so I still have to get the money from Nashville.
Thus Wednesday afternoon I go to the bank with my CU debit card and ask them to get the needed money from it and put into my local account so I can transfer it to the doctor’s account. Sure! The teller aims to please, and tries repeatedly (7 times – service is important!) and he continues to get “denied” or “acceso denegado.” I call Nashville and they raise the cash advance limit (I thought they had already done) and say everything else is cleared – it should work! It did not! I told the patient teller (not the long line of people behind me) that I would return tomorrow and try again. Lo siento señor, mañana es un día festivo, no estamos abiertos. And I reply, Hasta el viernes. Tomorrow is a holiday and we are closed. See you Friday. 🙂
Well, Thursday was Virgen de los Angeles day, (patron saint of Costa Rica) with only Christmas and Easter being bigger for Catholics here, when thousands make the pilgrimage to Cartago Cathedral to touch the black stone Maria. So nada yesterday! (Click above link to learn about the holiday.)
This morning I call the Credit Union again and make sure the card is good for a large amount of cash on this day and I’m assured it is. I go to the bank with teller lines going outside onto the sidewalk and street, more than an hour wait for a teller, so I tell the guard I need the “special services desk” and go wait nearly an hour for it, but those persons are more accustomed to “different” transactions like mine and I figured they could handle it better, maybe quicker, and once I finally got to a desk, it worked very smoothly, though taking another 25 minutes to do it! Remember – everything is slower here! Why rush? But she did go ahead and let me pay my monthly CAJA (public healthcare) with her and not have to go wait for a regular teller to do that.
Sooooo . . . an hour and a half at the bank, another chapter read in my latest book (which is so, so), my doctor bill is paid AND my monthly CAJA (public healthcare) bill paid! I breathed a sigh of relief and headed home for a more relaxed weekend! Pura Vida!
And, if you are wondering, the reason I didn’t use CAJA for the surgery, is that I would still be waiting to see a surgeon and I chose not to have patience for that! Choices and Patience! Retired in Costa Rica! 🙂 ¡Pura Vida!
Above Canario Supermercado is a new little coffee shop overlooking the entrance to Atenas Mercado Central, bus station, and a busy street for people watching. See photo above. Just this one visit today and it is now in my top three coffee shops (called cafeterias here). (1) Crema y Nada, (2) Cafeteria by the church, and now (3) Cafeteria above Canario. (If the last two have names, they are not prominently displayed, but most things here are described by location as I just did.)
One of my retirement joys these days is slowly sipping 2 or 3 mugs of coffee every morning after breakfast, with breakfast or like today, after my cereal breakfast I walk to town and have a pastry and cup of coffee downtown while people watching or finishing today’s Washington Post on the Kindle. This is what retirement is like for me when not traveling! And of course my favorite and most common place to enjoy morning coffee is from my own terrace as seen on this cloudy morning in the photo below.
Living the Dream
¡Pura Vida!
And for those who think I never have anything negative to say about Costa Rica (and I seldom do) I will admit that one thing here that scares me is the Terciopelo, the Costa Rica name for what Americans call Fer de Lance snake (Bothrops asper). (Click Terciopelo link for English article in Tico Times) It is one of the most deadly snake bites in the world and unfortunately we have them living in my Roca Verde neighborhood. I know of two neighbors who have been bitten, both going outside in early morning barefoot (note that I will never do that). Both stepped on the snake (a sure way to get bitten!) and were rushed to the public clinic here for anti-venom shot and from there in ambulance to the public hospital in Alajuela for further treatment. They are both fine now, but it was a big scare for both with swollen leg and a lot of pain. One guy had an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and got extra allergy treatment for the hives it gave him. See Wikipedia article on the snake.
By using my new 600mm telephoto lens instead of my usual Samsung Phone Camera for a vista from the hilltop resort Xandari, I zoomed in on the Alajuela Cathedral with Central Park to the right and the bigger surprise, at top edge of photo is an American Airlines plane landing or taking off at the San Jose International Airport in Alajuela! Luck of the timing on the plane and sorry that the blog template crops off part of the plane, not so in my original photo (see in gallery).
Below is another shot in same direction from the same restaurant with my phone camera to help you see how much I was able to zoom in and crop a little! 🙂 The cathedral is on the left side of the city that you see between the restaurant and the mountains. My last day at Xandari, Wednesday, Walter picked me up and we got my internet order package 5 blocks east of the Cathedral, ate lunch 2 blocks north of the Cathedral, then drove 24 km (15 miles) west to Atenas where I live. My small world! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
Xandari is different and that challenges me to be different. One example is that more than in most places I am speaking Spanish with all the staff and they love it! They help me when I don’t know a word and they encourage me! When I walk into the dining room now they all come up and speak to me in español. I smile and we chat. It is a great feeling!
As the linked video below suggests, change is not easy. Change can be overwhelming like these 5 waterfalls here at Xandari. But wow! It’s wonderful as the college student show in the video. Thanks to Retire for Less in Costa Rica for sharing this video first!
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
My room at Xandari Resort Costa Rica is like an art gallery sitting in a garden or surrounded by nature. Here’ two slideshows to explain; first is views of each part of my room or rooms – more like an efficiency apartment. Second is a slide of each piece of art placed somewhere in my room or rooms, including three outdoors.
The original owners or developers of Xandari were an architect and his artist wife. They included an art studio here where students came and created the art that is all over the property including each villa or room. Later I will show some of the art that is outside in the gardens around the buildings. It is one of the most unique places I have ever been and a lot of birds too! 🙂
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
~Henry David Thoreau
-o-
¡Pura Vida!
See my Trip Photo Gallery: 2018 Xandari Resort
Xandari costa rica (their website)
My friend Jason Quesada now works in Jaco and is only in Atenas on weekends. Well, he was back this weekend and showed up at my house this afternoon with a friend and a birthday cake. We had a great time visiting and I enjoyed meeting a new local friend, Christopher, who is about as far along with his English as I am with my Spanish. Language learning! Wow!
It has been a nice week. Friday I had my teeth cleaned by a local Spanish-only dentist and Monday I go to a Spanish-speaking dermatologist. Then next Saturday I’m checking out a new exotic lodge called Xandri. Never a dull moment! ¡Pura Vida!
That is how we say it in Costa Rica español, Tengo 78 años hoy, translated “I have 78 years today” on July 4, 2018. No particular celebration today, I will wait until the big 80! 🙂 Then a big party!
This morning I bought a pecan pie (possibly my favorite dessert) at my favorite bakery, Crema y Nada, and vanilla ice cream at my favorite supermercado. That will serve as my birthday cake after eating my favorite hamburger to go from Donde Bocha this afternoon. Then I will post this with photos of both treats.
And yes, it has been a great birthday! Thanks for the kind messages of feliz cumpleaños! (happy birthday!) from people here and in the states! It was a wonderful, relaxed day! I have a friend visiting this weekend and otherwise I keep slowly building the new website as I find time. So much information to add!