Category: People

Posted on

Walkabout Apparel

Cap & Sunglasses 
 I wear every day when I walk to town.
 Here on a table in Soda while I drink coffee.
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

And you might be interested that I have caps and sunglasses of many colors to go with my many colors of T-shirts!  🙂  I’m a fashionista gringo! ¡Soy un gringo consciente de la moda!

Posted on

Walking Home is a Visual Adventure

A view of Roca Verde just before I begin the descent down a hill to our main entrance.
Above is some of my neighbors in Atenas, Costa Rica
DESCRIBING A DAILY WALK HOME FROM CENTRAL ATENAS

(Sort of like Ernest Hemingway would describe it)

 

I leave the modern Banco Nacional (the only place I visit with air conditioning), crossing the street between two red taxis as they wait out front for customers, one of two red taxi stands in central Atenas. The other colors of taxis are not legally registered with the government and don’t have taxi stands, you just have to call them. As I step into the shade of mango trees in Central Park, I’m careful not to step on a rotting mango on the sidewalk and try to avoid staring at the teenage couple kissing on a park bench. The next park bench has a couple with small child and though less romantic, seem happy and peaceful in their little rural piece of tranquility. The second sidewalk to the right is where the old men sit and talk all morning and parrots gather in the treetops chattering away, while straight ahead the diagonal sidewalk takes me to the opposite corner of the park from the bank where a little corner “cafeteria,” or “sidewalk cafe” (for westerners), sits on the only corner not occupied by the stately courthouse, the imposing Catholic Church or the park. A great spot to be!

 

It is fun to stop here for a cup of their organic coffee (made one cup at a time) and a pastry, the best being a Chilean crumb cake or sometimes a couple of little cinnamon rolls. I sit on the sidewalk at a tiny round table, watching the people go by or others doing various things in the park. Today as a serious-faced, well-dressed woman brushes by me on the sidewalk I’m amused at the high-school boys in their school uniforms playing on the kiddie playground equipment in the park, almost as if they wish they were little children again, struggling across the monkey bars and swinging as high as they can in the swings. Yes, even teens sometimes feel like they are getting old. But not a problem for me! I really enjoy being older now and watching this fascinating world unfold around me! To be a teen again would not be nearly as much fun! Pura vida!
The sun seems to be staying behind clouds today, so I leave my sunglasses off as I walk down tree-shaded Calle 3 past a fried chicken restaurant with high school kids filling it, a farmacia and lawyer office I have used and the compound where my young adult friend Jason lives with his mom and uncle. The uncle rents out a small space out front for a tiny Soda or little food stand that used to sell pizza, now Tico food. There are other small businesses along this street, mostly in homes and a little stream follows part of the way to the left where some work indicates the town may continue a cross-street over the stream, meaning a simple bridge. But the big construction in progress now is on up near Colegio Liceo (the college-prep public high school) where they are digging ditches and burying giant concrete pipes for storm sewer drainage to the stream. And the best thing is they are planning to place sidewalks over the buried pipes which will make this little two-block stretch of my way home a lot safer walking. Progress is slow in a small town, but it happens, Poco a poco!
Around the next corner onto Avenida 8 I continue to walk in the street until they add the new sidewalks, while enjoying the activity of many people in their yards and walkers along the road. The back side of the high school is covered with graffiti art that breaks up monotonous concrete block walls and along here I sometimes wave at my seamstress behind her “Clinica Ropa” sign. Opposite the back of the school a large, covered commercial swimming pool is being built where it appears you will need to join the club or whatever to swim there. I question whether a lot of Ticos will spend money for that, but I am sometimes surprised at priorities and this could be one. And some permanent resident expats may also spend money for something like that. There is a public pool with cheap admission but no organized swim teams, lessons, contests, etc. In the meantime it has been fun to watch a handful of workers slowly put the edifice together in what was a cow pasture.
I continue on to the point where I made the above photo this morning and briefly gaze over one of the several hills of Roca Verde as I walk down the steep hill (easier down than up!) to our entrance gate on a volunteer-built sidewalk traversing a low-income neighborhood that used to be known for drug sales but I think has moved beyond that now. It is the smell of gray water coming out into the street gutters that I object to now and sometimes the barking of dogs or late night music at the community center. But that’s life!  🙂
I walk through the Roca Verde gate and wave at the quiet young man maintaining the gate for car traffic security. Roosters crow and chase chickens around the entrance yard and occasionally there is the mooing of cows as I walk past the pasture in front of my house, checking the big trees for birds. After clicking my compound gate open, I walk up the very steep drive to my house on the right. A simple but comfortable little two-bedroom, one-bath house surrounded by trees and flowers, birds and butterflies and lizards; my little tropical paradise I call home as a hummingbird circles the feeder to remind me it needs to be filled again. I thank God for daily reviving me with such visual walking experiences as I settle into a quiet rest-of-the day at home. My idea of retirement!  🙂
WHAT’S THIS DESCRIPTIVE WRITING ABOUT?

And if you are wondering about this descriptive writing I am attempting, it is motivated by one of the books I am currently reading, the first novel written by Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises. I will never be able to write descriptions of my surroundings like Hemingway, but it was fun to try.  🙂   I will probably stick to mostly photo captions in the future on this blog, but I am enjoying reading Hemingway again and will probably read some more of him in between my Agatha Christie mysteries and an occasional serious book and my effort to go back to reading more classics.  Books give you a lot more choices than TV or movies! And more quality!

 

Posted on

Why did I move to Costa Rica?

Nearly three years ago I started this blog to publicly discuss and seek guidance in what I then called my “Costa Rica Decision Process.” I just went back and read one of those early posts that really sums up my 16 reasons for leaving the U.S. and choosing Costa Rica for retirement written on June 28, 2014:

Click the above title and read the reasons I listed three years ago and you have my answer for today! Oh sure, I could add some things I’ve learned since that make it even better and some things that are more negative than in that list, but overall it sums up pretty well why I came and why I stay. And the list is totally mine, not from some website on retiring in Costa Rica. And yes, I’m really glad I did it! No regrets and I expect to stay here the rest of my life.

A few readers of this blog have written with specific questions and contact me when they come here to check it out. I am happy to help! Nothing in it for me. I’m retired and not selling services. 🙂

Now, I have wondered at what point we get too many Americans, Canadians and Europeans here!? There are a few “Ugly Americans” (Remember the 1960’s book?) already here and they are the ones constantly complaining about something that is not right here in their eyes. When an earlier neighbor was complaining about the relaxed atmosphere and infrastructure and said, “You know how these people are!” I thought to myself, “You need to go back to the states.” In three months he did. This culture and atmosphere is not for everyone! So check it out thoroughly for a good while before you decide to move here! But be sure that many of us love it here!

And for more reasons, just go back and read all the entries in this blog or see my Costa Rica Photo Gallery that I call:  Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA  and you will visually see why I love it here!

Posted on

Farewell Aguila & Links to Articles About Me :-)

About noon I take boat from here to “wet landing” (barefoot through surf)
in the little village of Drake Bay. Then a taxi with a Canadian family who
were in another hotel, going to the Drake Bay Airport (photos below).
Then less than an hour flight to San Jose Airport in Alajuela and my personal
 taxi prescheduled to take me home where I ordered pizza delivered, started
laundry and a few other chores before collapsing! 
Drake Bay Airport Terminal, Ticket Office & Gift Shop
Drake Bay, Costa Rica

Bording Gate, complete with attendant & fire extinguisher!
Drake Bay, Costa Rica

Drake Bay Airport
Drake Bay, Costa Rica

The Thrill of the Cockpit
Drake Bay, Costa Rica

Goodbye Drake Bay, a bay off the Pacific Ocean at Corcovado Park
Drake Bay, Costa Rica

Crossing the Mountains to San Jose in 45 minutes! (All day on bus)
Talamanca Mountains, Costa Rica

Main Terminal, San Jose Airport – But Sansa has its own little terminal.
Alajuela, Costa Rica

My TRIPS Photo Gallery on this Drake Bay Trip

-o-


TWO WEB ARTICLES ABOUT MY PHOTOGRAPHY HOBBY & LATEST BOOK: 


Enchanting Costa Rica, a tourism promotion website
And a reprint of the same article on a real estate website:
Atenas Real Estate for Pure Life Development

Posted on

Orange Yellow Haiku & Next Week Plans

Still playing around with Haiku!  And my garden!   🙂  
-o-
Tomorrow is the annual oxcart parade in Atenas. I plan to be there again and post a few photos from it tomorrow night.

-o-

http://www.greentiquehotels.com/

NEXT WEEK:
Then Monday morning I plan to take off for Corcovado National Park (largest rainforest preserve in Central America) & Drake Bay for 6 days of nature adventure & photography. I will have three trips into the park and one to an island out in this bay of the Pacific. I’m ready!

And I’m staying in what looks like a really nice lodge, Aguila de Osa Rainforest Lodge with all meals included and all trips/guides pre-scheduled. This is going to be one of my better trips!  🙂  Boat & hiking in the rainforest, explore a little tropical island, snorkle in the Pacific, and hopefully photograph a lot of birds!   🙂  I fly down.

http://www.aguiladeosa.com/
¡Pura Vida!
Charlie Doggett
Retired in Costa Rica!
Posted on

A Quiet Introvert

One of the books I’m reading now is turning out to be a bit biographical at times. It is  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As a child all the way through high school and into college, I was definitely an introvert, just check my old Myers-Briggs personality test scores! And it was considered something like a disease by some people who wanted to help me come out of my shell. 

But in college I was remade by Southern Baptists into an outgoing, extroverted personality. After all, that was the only way to be a dynamic or witnessing Christian and unfortunately is still the expectation of most evangelical Christians, their churches, and of course their leaders. So, I really wanted to become a good Christian and serve, and that meant being an extrovert. And I was for most of my adult life. It was necessary to keep my jobs working for Baptists! (Some who knew me as a youth minister or leadership consultant will have trouble believing this!) But as I neared and entered retirement I began to move back to how I was born, an introvert, and moving to Costa Rica has given me the opportunity to be myself maybe more than ever before. I’m very happy here as an introvert!

Now, don’t worry. I have friends and socialize, just not as much as some here who can’t stand spending a half a day alone, while in contrast I have to schedule such! And prefer to travel alone! I’m only a fourth of the way through this book, but enjoying it! Then I will be ready for another adventure or mystery story! I’m reading more here than in many years before. Guess why?


Posted on

Chromatic Ginger Haiku

Red Ginger flower
My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Count it a coincidence that my ex-wife’s nickname was “Ginger.” She died last summer of cancer in Gatesville, Texas. And that she too was chromatically colorful in her own way.  🙂

Photo Gallery of My Home Garden
Link to post About Ginger & Jason just before she died.  
And the announcement of her death: Ginger Is Gone
Some may call it poetic justice that my garden has many of two kinds of flowers called “Ginger,” this Red Ginger and a yellow Shampoo Ginger flower. Only fellow divorcees can understand all the many mixed feelings when something reminds you of your ex, especially after her death. Then life goes on!