Category: People

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Flying to the Caribe Today!

Today begins what has become almost an annual tradition of spending a week in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, during September when this rainy rainforest has the least amount of rain. After trying a few other hotels, I’ve settled on Banana Azul as my favorite and it is right on the beach (one of the few!) in a favorite room with balcony overlooking the beach and hotel gardens. It is one of my most relaxing weeks of the year! This Puerto Viejo area is south, near the Panama Border and quite different from my other Caribe fave which is north of the port of Limón and in a great wetlands wildlife national park called Tortuguero.

I have just two morning bird hikes scheduled, one in the Cahuita National Park and the other in Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise I just “hangout” at the hotel and beach, walking both the beach and a forested beach road where last year I found a bonanza of butterflies! 🙂

Sunrise at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón.

Read on for some of my past creative endeavors from the South Caribbean of Costa Rica . . .

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2023 Independence Day Parade, Atenas

This past Friday was the 15th of September, Independence Day for Costa Rica, when in 1821 it shed the colonial rule of Spain. In this small but very significant little developing country, patriotism is big and almost everyone wears red, white & blue and many decorate their houses with banners and flags. I wore my national futbol (soccer) shirt, red, white & blue! 🙂

And almost every town of any size has a parade, usually featuring their local schools, and Atenas is no exception! 🙂 I have for several years now been photographing it most years (when not traveling) with galleries for those years included in my super-gallery: PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica. Which of course now includes a gallery for this year’s 2023 Desfile del Día de la Independencia, Atenas. And here is a sample photo from each of the 7 sub-galleries in this year’s parade gallery . . .

Flags

Flags are a big part of this parade. Click image to see more flags.
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Local Art Gallery is About to Happen!

The registered name & logo.

Lots of meetings, government regulations, fees, expenses, rental space, requirements and limitations, plus how a cooperative will work together as one, all seem to make it complicated, but it is slowly coming together! 🙂 Thanks especially to Elisa & Margaret, the leaders of the group! We communicate with each other on a private WhatsApp page and now have a gallery FaceBook page (public) with not a whole lot for the public yet. 🙂 And we will be the location for this year’s JIT – Just in Time for Christmas Art Fair which uses the same FaceBook page as last year and is now set for December 8, 9 & 10, 2023. In Calle 2 Plaza Atenas!

TENTATIVE OPENINGS are a “soft” opening on October 4 and a “Grand Opening” on November 9 with the Christmas Art Show a month later, December 8-10. BUT, note that there are many things that could delay the first two dates, though Christmas Show is pretty solid! 🙂

The registered name & logo.
The registered name and logo.
7 of the 10 to 12 participants we can never get all together! 🙂 By one of the flower murals outside our gallery space in the new Calle 2 Plaza, next to Linea Vital Clinic.
A shelf set up by some of the ladies as an example of how pottery may be displayed in the gallery.

Please Remember that Everything is Flexible now . . .

Meaning that the opening dates and the participants could change in the next month or two as we struggle to put everything together. But a very fine art gallery is coming to Atenas soon! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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A Call from My Friends at Maquenque

Today I received a phone call from the wonderful family that runs Maquenque Eco Lodge just checking on me and how my health is doing. They are so nice to me in every way and I count them among my best friends in Costa Rica. Then they sent me this photo of the table in their lodge lobby covered with my photo books that they continually thank me for and tell me how much their other guests enjoy them! 🙂 Just one more reason that I enjoy my retirement life photographing nature! 🙂

Charlie Doggett Nature Photo Books in lobby of Maquenque Eco Lodge, Boca Tapada, San Carlos, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Art Gallery Coming Behind Calle 2 Boat!

Calle 2 Plaza is under construction and could open within the next month or so! One of the 5 shops will now be a new Atenas Art Gallery, the name of which can’t be published until it is registered. So keep reading this blog for more information and see photos of the under construction Calle 2 Plaza and its flower murals below these first two shots . . .

Old land-locked boat on Calle 2, Atenas between Linea Vital & Calle 2.
7 of the 10 local artists opening a new art gallery in Calle 2 Plaza. Meeting here at the gallery location.
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Thank you! – ¡Muchas gracias!

My WordPress host, DreamHost, and a service company, Jetpack, just released the July stats for my blog “Retired in Costa Rica” and its related website, charliedoggett.net. And I say “THANK YOU” to the 501 subscribers of the blog, 650 FaceBook Friends who receive a link and hopefully follow it, 🙂 the 2 thousand views of my website/blog in July, the 95 comments on blog posts and the 158 “Likes” in July, which can only be made by other WP Bloggers, making those likes special! 🙂 I am fulfilling my dream of retirement with nature in Costa Rica that began with the adventurous move here in 2014 and the start of this blog. Thanks for coming along! 🙂

My site header pix of the valley town where I live, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
The feature photo at top is of Arenal Volcano.

I’m an old man of 83 years, retired from a publishing business in the U.S. who left the states in 2014 to live out retirement with the beautiful natural worlds of Costa Rica and its loving people, reporting in this blog. Even after a year-long battle with cancer, I’m having the best times of my life, my final years immersed in nature! I hope you will continue following my stories and photos! Your presence delights me! 🙂

That’s me planting an Almond Tree for the Great Green Macaws in the Maquenque Reserve, Boca Tapada, San Carlos in 2023.

¡Pura Vida!

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New Children’s Playground

The new Central Park Playground has been finished and open for maybe two months and I’m just slow reporting on it. At first I reacted negatively to all the bright colors and what looks like cheap Chinese Plastic, but I think I mis interpreted! It is designed for younger Elementary School and Preschool kids and now I think it is perfect for them! And the artificial turf too! The other day I stopped by one afternoon after many kids would be out of school and it wasn’t raining and there was a lot of activity! It was fun for me to see the creativity of some kids using the space under the tree house or slide and climbing wall to gather as in their “clubhouse.” The hyper little boys had plenty to keep them busy and I noticed for older elementary kids maybe, there was a tic-tac-toe wall with changeable X’s and O’s. Clever! And as expected, the swings were the busiest. I tried not to get any closeup photos of children and their faces for their privacy, staying on the periphery for all photos. Here’s four . . .

New Children’s Playground, Central Park Atenas
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A Different Kind of Photo Book

I’ve been in one of those creative moods and just churned out a 28 page photo book that is both biographical and a nature photo book! In brief paragraphs I share how nature provided healing at each of several traumas or losses in my life. Not a book for the larger public maybe, but a good cathartic expression of the ups and downs of a life full of both adventure and tragedies, plus the healing of nature at every turn. I use quotations throughout to highlight the healing. You can preview the book electronically at Life Tranquility by Charlie Doggett | Blurb Books or just click this image of the front cover:

¡Pura Vida!

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Today is National Cousins Day

Today, July 24 is National Cousins Day in the United States and for those interested in family history or just family memories, it could be very important, for almost everyone has at least one cousin who keeps up with family memories and history or genealogy and then there are the many times we played together as children, almost always outdoors as most of my old photos show. And there’s a brief article on the National Days Archives site.  And the feature photo at top is at a 1948 Hardgrave family reunion with me in the very center.

That’s me on the left with HL “Bubba,” Barbara Ann, and Don Hardgrave in 1944 wartime.

You may not see cousins much, but you have a lot in common. Spending Thanksgiving at “the kids table.” Avoiding the great aunt who wears too much perfume. Helping Grandpa learn to text. Because cousins don’t live with you, they probably also know a family story you haven’t heard. It’s a good day to find out. HAPPY COUSINS DAY!  See my “Cousins Gallery” below, mostly from the 1940″s!  🙂

And though I have no specific cousins pages or stories, they are generally included in my Family History Pages on this website and photos in the Family History Photos Gallery. So “Hello!” out there to all my Hardgrave and Doggett cousins who actually read my blog!  🙂  I have lots of memories of us as children together and should have already written those down! Maybe I will before it is too late! 🙂

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