Category: Atenas

Posted on

Simple Pleasure 4: “Mi Patio”

Mi Patio is simply Spanish for “My Yard.” It is more than just my flower garden. Only 4 shots:

I do selective pruning to keep my garden art bird visible.
It is so full now that a major pruning will be needed by Dec. or Jan.

Coming in from the driveway.

Front yard from my terrace.

Terrace view of the Guarumo (Cecropia) Tree which has really grown! 

My yard is truly a constant “simple pleasure” that I enjoy all the time I’m at home. Living in the country or in a forest, next to a national park was always a temptation to be in true wildness all the time, but it would require a 4WD vehicle in most cases, be further from healthcare when needed, and shopping which I could handle the easiest, and further from people, especially those who speak English which I also would like in some ways when my Spanish is better, BUT . . . I think this is the best of both worlds and I am in a small country town. I just need this particular simple pleasure of a garden yard to have nature around me. And a very comfortable house!  🙂

And there is always cut flowers for inside!
🙂

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.~Luther Burbank

Posted on

Simple Pleasure 3: Sidewalk Cafe at Coopeatenas

At the entrance to my favorite Supermercado is this little sidewalk cafe
for excellent coffee & pastries (Banana Nut Bread my favorite) and
the best deal on ice cream in town! Half the price of POPS Ice Cream Shop.
That’s my coffee and carrot cake at the first table with my shopping bags.
I walk to here and mostly walk home, unless big load/rain, then a taxi
Coopeatenas is the farmers’ cooperative super market & farm store out back

And fun, friendly Ticas behind the counter with Santa on the Cash Register!
Helados is ice cream. They have sandwiches too! And Gourmet Coffee!
Many of their bakery items are from Crema y Nata, my favorite bakery.

And that cash register sign says in literal English translation: 

order, cancel, and remove your order here

Of course you know that “cancel” means “pay” and “remove” is like “pick up”
This same sign is in most “fast food” restaurants, called “cafetería” here.

“I wish I could show you the little village where I was born. It’s so lovely there…I used to think it too small to spend a life in, but now I’m not so sure.” ― Mary Kelly

Yep! That’s me! I was born in Warren, Arkansas, a small farming town like Atenas, Costa Rica and never thought I would ever live there again! Now I do sorta – well, here it’s coffee instead of tomato farms and Alajuela Province is a lot different from Arkansas and Costa Rica is another world from the states. But I do live in a small town again!  🙂

Posted on

Simple Pleasures 2: Walking Around Atenas

Walking in Atenas means new flowers almost daily – all kinds!
A type of morning glory that just started blooming on one route.

The temptation to get a car, motorcycle or bicycle comes and goes and hit me hard when we discovered a bone spur on my heel, but walking is still safer, more pleasant, and I see so much more!

Posted on

Simple Pleasures 1: Thursday Night Dinner

I’ve been eating on the front porch lately, watching the world go by!
My old favorite was the side garden porch & inside you smell fresh bread!
So wherever you sit you will find enjoyable food! Buen Provecho!

Thursday night from 5-7 is my second Spanish class at Iglesia Biblica, just a half block from one of my favorite restaurants, El Balcon del Cafe, so . . . I started going an hour early for a very early dinner or late lunch at 4:00 with usually the day’s special. The couple who run this place are German but only a few items on the menu are German, and it is all very good! They are also a bakery with some of the best fresh bread and cakes in town, maybe tied with my other favorite bakery, Crema y Nata.

One of my two favorite fish plates in town is here a wonderful whole Corvina (Sea Bass) smothered in a white wine sauce that makes the fish melt in your mouth. And my favorite dessert here or maybe anywhere in town is her Queque Manzana con Helado (Apple Pie Alamode).

Her daily specials are usually gourmet recipes and always healthy, with or without a fruit bebida (drink). Tonight’s was an absolutely delicious steak or special cut of beef (beef not served much here) with her special German pan-fried potatoes and one of her scrumptious salads! No need for dessert tonight! I look forward to Thursday evenings and the surprise gourmet dinner before Spanish Class. One of the many simple pleasures I enjoy in Costa Rica.

Buen Provecho! The equivalent to the English “enjoy your meal!” or the French “bon appétit!” And believe me! I enjoy most of my meals here! For a light lunch snack I had some of my homemade guacamole with plantain chips to carry me over to dinner. My guacamole is from local fresh avocados and other veggies (I add fresh squeezed lime juice, onions, peppers, herbs, and tomatoes) and it is actually another one of my “Simple Pleasures.”  As is my usual breakfast of a bowl of 4-5 fruits with whole-grain cereal and nuts.   🙂 Charlie

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.~George Bernard Shaw (1856 –1950) 

Posted on

Disgustingly Like the States (Christmas before Halloween!)

Walmart (photo) and other stores started Christmas promotion in October!

Like in so many developing nations, it is the commercial world that is most “up to date” or more “developed” or shows more “progress.” That has mixed advantages and disadvantages. Like Alajuela’s infrastructure (especially streets) is simply not ready for the biggest mall in the country! And the majority of the people cannot afford the expensive stores. It still amazes me how much the rest of the world hates the USA and yet copies it! Or should I say allows U.S. businesses to come in and change the local culture. Interesting to note that all 15 or 20 Burger Kings in Costa Rica have closed. Nada! Some investor was probably losing money. Yet all the McDonald’s and KFC’s seem to do well even with multiple Latin American fried chicken competitors opposite KFC. Likewise Coke & Pepsi do well, while some big or expensive stores depend greatly on expats along with the growing rich among Ticos. I think that will be the case of the new City Mall. Catch the quote below by a North American:

We’re not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can’t even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.~Alex Steffen

Posted on

A New Black Witch Moth

Black Witch Moth, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
Inside my house on screen. I opened screen, shooed him out.

And this one is darker, though still not quite black!  🙂  And he was INSIDE my house.

Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what’s in a name?

~Helen Hunt Jackson

And my photo galleries on:
Costa Rica Butterflies & Moths
Costa Rica Insects

Or all my Costa Rica Galleries together

Posted on

Monstrous Mall Opens Today!

See Living in Costa Rica’s new Blog Article on the Mall

In addition to theater, gym, and 1,600 seat food court, it will have an amusement park with snow-sledding!
The man-made snow will be the first snow some Tico kids will ever see!
350+ stores, 2,000 parking spaces and all just 45 minutes from me on a bus.
Unfortunately it will be expensive and focused on rich people. But us poor like to go see these places!

This afternoon (Tuesday) I went to Walmart in Alajuela and on my way back to the bus station my taxi drove by the above mall that opens tomorrow (Wednesday, 11/11). Traffic was terrible and it isn’t even open yet! The road in front is being widened but of course they are not finished with the road yet (sounds like the states). My driver said there is a big fiesta planned for the grand opening tomorrow. I enjoyed his characterization of the mall as “Gringo Landia” or Gringo Land. You can be sure the gringos here will certainly support the place! At least the rich ones, which is a bunch! And just in time for Christmas!


Shopping at any level is a bit of therapy for my medulla oblongata.~Theophilus London


INTERESTING COSTA RICA NEWS TIDBIT: 


Posted on

Groove-billed Ani

Groove-billed Ani, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

Though fairly common and widespread all over Costa Rica, I haven’t seen many here. This was one of four in my yellow-bell tree just off my terrace. From a distance he can be confused with the Melodious Blackbird, but a closer look at the bill is the difference in these two all black birds with black eyes, the only two totally black. I made an out-of-focus photo of one at La Jacaranda last January, but this is a much better image. Also back then I called that one a Smooth-billed Ani which is almost the same, without the grooves on top bill which is also a little higher pitched. But they only appear in the South Pacific area of Costa Rica, so I renamed it there and in my online photo gallery of Costa Rica Birds. 

Cornell Lab Site on the Groove-billed Ani, an unusual bird

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?”   ~Rose Kennedy

Posted on

Could You LIKE a Facebook Page for me? :-)

Su Espacio Community Center, where I take Spanish classes, had a Facebook page like a person. FB told them they couldn’t do that, closed their site and made them start a new organizational Facebook Page, starting all over and losing over a thousand LIKES! So friends, do me a favor and go to their page and LIKE IT!  https://www.facebook.com/suespacioatenascostarica
THANKS! -Charlie

It will make David & Corinna feel a lot better even though you are not clients or even potential clients. Muchas Gracias!   🙂




Posted on

Black Witch Moth (Late for Halloween!)

Black Witch Moth, Atenas, Costa Rica
Outside of my bathroom window screen & photographed with flash at night

I know! It is not black! Though some can be black, gray, brown or other colors, this fits the description and matches photo in Butterflies, Moths, and Other Invertebrates of Costa Rica by Carol L. Henderson. I’ve seen one other of these earlier. They appear from Florida to Brazil and in every part of Costa Rica.

I am not seeing many new creatures this month but enjoying a good rain every afternoon or evening like I had been expecting since May! Hope the rain continues into Dry Season/Summer, which often begins in November or December. We need rain greatly! It has been a drought winter in Costa Rica this year with our summer beginning in December it will mean no rain for 6 months, our dry season. I’m expecting to water my garden a lot.

Yeah, this is “just a moth,” but click image to enlarge, then look at that intricate pattern, those fake eyes near top to scare away birds, and the subtle colors. It reminds me of a favorite Scripture verse:

Take a good look at God’s wonders—
    they’ll take your breath away.
Psalm 66:5 THE MESSAGE