Category: Central Valley

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Rain!

Is it a freak “Dry Season” once-off rain or a very early starting of the “Rainy Season” this year? We will see! The Jigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush (CR National Bird) has been singing his heart out recently and indigenous tradition is that they are the ones who “sing in the rain!”

It is generally said for the Central Valley (where I live) that Rainy Season is May-November and Dry Season December-April. My first few years here we did not see our first rain until mid to late April and not a lot until May. Last year the first rain was March 24 and this year now March 22, so is it starting early? Almost certainly not daily afternoon showers now (usually by May) but at least I do not need to water the garden for a few more days! 🙂

Always Trying to Capture Rain in a Photo!

And never very good at it! 🙂 The featured photo at top shows the dark cloud this afternoon shower came from and some of us hope it will be regular now (though very early)!

  • First Darkness – Then Rain!
  • The first drops on an Elephant Ear plant.
  • Vertical white lines are blurred rain drops.
  • Vertical white lines are blurred rain drops.
  • Raindrops bouncing off driveway.

I’ve always preferred the rainy season because it is greener with fresher air and the wind quits blowing! And most of the time we get rain only for an hour or two in the afternoon. Lowland rainforests along both coasts get more rain than we do here and it can be year-around, especially South Pacific and South Caribbean. For more weather information, check out your favorite weather channel or these websites:

And to let you know that this first rain is a real rain, since it started I have loaded and processed the photos to web-size, prepared and written this blog post, all in an hour or a little more AND IT IS STILL RAINING – HARD! 🙂 Love it! The tropics! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

~Dolly Parton

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Base Jump Highest Bridge?

You must be crazy, very young (or both?) or maybe a professional base jumper? It just so happens that the highest railroad bridge in Costa Rica is over the Rio Grande River right here in my adopted hometown of Atenas, Alajuela Province. But no trains have gone over it for many years and it is not considered safe and so difficult to get to, I don’t even have a photo of it. It would require me to illegally walk down a busy freeway and onto the freeway bridge over the river to get this old picture, which is from Tico Times online newspaper and very old since it shows a train going over the bridge! 🙂 Some people now walk over the RR Bridge but not me! 🙂

Read all about the crazy American who jumped off this bridge with a parachute and then got lost trying to find his way out of the canyon. Hmmmm. 🙂 In this Tico Times Article in English which includes a video of the guy jumping off which I also include in my continued post:

Continue reading “Base Jump Highest Bridge?”
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My Photo Wins Contest

Expats living in Atenas, Costa Rica (mostly retirees) have a Facebook Group Page where expats ask one another “how to” or “where to” kinds of questions and share important information. Each year the group has a photo contest for what will be the group’s page header that year. My shot or our town from a hill in Roca Verde one foggy morning is the winner this year! 🙂

I almost used this photo for my digital Christmas Card this year. Glad I didn’t so it will now be solely the identity of the group.

And my prize? Something yummy from Pat’s kitchen! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

The full photo below lends itself well to the narrow crop for a page header:

Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica — Photo by Charlie Doggett
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Sunrise Obliquely

Yeah . . . that’s sort of how I get it – every morning at breakfast – from a slanted, sideways view (obliquely) with the distant hills lit first, then part of the town and then it reaches my tiny patch of wildness. Kind of fun – makes me smile – and it’s a great way to start a day! 🙂

The feature photo is of sunrise over Atenas as seen from 105 Roca Verde yesterday morning. The sun is rising from behind a hill to my far right, thus not hitting me yet, but it soon will! 🙂 Our world can be magical!

My Vistas Gallery has lots of different kinds of sunrises & sunsets – all of which are fun! 🙂

“There’s a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.”

― Jo Walton

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Country Road

Gravel & dirt roads with chickens, cows, and other animals – its universal in all countries and is romanticized, sung about, or just remembered from childhood maybe. But in a developing country like Costa Rica it’s very common everywhere and yesterday morning I walked again on this one that is so near, yet not a regular part of my walks yet. When you leave our paved-road gated community, most people turn left on paved Avenida 8 which takes you to Calle 3 or Calle 1 for a direct shot downtown, to supermarkets, pharmacies, the bank, etc. and it’s the way I walk most often (and share photos from) when not walking around in the housing development, and we have our own “country road here,” Calle Nueva, that I’ve shared about several times and that link is to a gallery.

So . . . if you leave our gate and turn right, the pavement ends in the equivalent of 3 blocks and becomes a gravel road (my “country road” yesterday) and it curves up and over a hill and back down to “The Radial 27,” the connector between downtown Atenas and our nearest controlled access highway, Highway 27 that runs between San Jose and the Jaco Beach & Puntarenas Port area of our Pacific Coast, and is always congested. But I digress! 🙂

Avenida 8 in front of Roca Verde development turns into a dirt and gravel road with chickens, cows, an orchard, barbed wire fences, and over the little hill it runs right into Radial 27 directly in front of the entrance to our Farmers’ Market Pavilion, serving the area with fresh produce every Friday morning. It is a nice walk to the Farmers’ Market and for me yesterday I walked on into town on the highway making a big circle for a longer day’s walk with a nice image of “country roads” on my mind, thinking I was John Denver. Just one more joy of living “Retired in Costa Rica.” CLICK an image to enlarge it:

  • Chicken in the Road
  • Farmers’ Market from the Road
  • Down the Hill – Yep! One lane!
  • Entrance to Farmers’ Market
  • Neighborhood Orchard
  • Rooster from Calle Nueva

Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. 

~John Denver

¡Pura Vida!

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Progress?

I’ve shared this kind of photo from Atenas before and it continues as one by one a traditional house with front porch, front and back yards (called gardens or terraces here), and all the signs of having raised one or more families over the year – boom! The house is torn down and occasionally modern apartments or more often now a business is built in its place. Since Diacsa is a construction company here, I assume that this will be their offices with what looks like a drive-through and place to park construction equipment behind it?

On either side of this attractive modern office building still stand traditional, spanish-influenced single-family houses that will of course never be the same now. The price of progress? Maybe. Or just the modern world we live in wherever it may be world-wide. I can’t help but remember similar progress during those years in Serekunda, The Gambia and yes, even in Nashville, Tennessee where I for a while lived in a modern row house where old traditional houses used to stand. World-wide!

This new building here is on Calle 3, just two blocks from Central Park and already this old residential street has many businesses and offices of all kinds, so it is likely to continue to become more commercial while our little farming town of what was not long ago around 5,000 people now has more than 8,000 and is becoming a distant suburb of the big cities of Alajuela & San Jose (where some residents work) + a magnet for foreign retirees (like me) with its claim of “The best weather in the world!” (¡El Mejor clima del mundo!).

Even little, natural Costa Rica succumbs to progress and with mixed emotions for some of us. But yes, I’m glad I live in a modern house with all the modern conveniences in a very nice development on the edge of downtown Atenas (because I can still walk to town!). 🙂 But I also cherish being close to nature and away from the big city of San Jose (an hour+ away). And best of all for my retirement lifestyle, living in the center of the country means I can easily travel to nature reserves and national parks all over Costa Rica. Plus my garden and neighborhood still have a lot of nature, birds, butterflies, etc. And it is close enough to town that I walk and do not own a car! Doing my little part in fighting climate change! The best of both worlds for me! 🙂 I love it here, progress or not! 🙂

POSTSCRIPT: See the conversation with the building owner below in the COMMENTS. And how I now see that this “house replacement” building truly is progress as told by one who grew up as a child in that house! I jumped to conclusions on thinking about progress as negative and truly such changes can be very good.

My Atenas Galleries

¡Pura Vida!

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Walking Among Miracles!

“To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” – Mary Davis

Just a few shots of walking around El Silencio Lodge & Reserve, Bajos del Toro Amarillo, Costa Rica.

  • Lodge Road
  • Trout Pond
  • Many Streams
  • Rio Corrión
  • One of Many Streams
  • One of Many Streams
  • One of Many Vistas
  • Walking Through a Farm
  • Below my Villa
  • A Mirador Vista
  • Gardener’s Art
  • Gardener’s Art
  • One of Many Streams
  • My Trout Dinner One Night 🙂

By discovering nature, you discover yourself. ~Maxime Lagacé

¡Pura Vida!

See my other Costa Rica Vistas and/or my 2020 El Silencio Trip Gallery.

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Central Valley Vista

Xandari is on a hill overlooking the great central valley of Costa Rica between the mountain in all four directions. My last morning here had maybe the clearest sky of the weekend and thus this expansive view of our Central Valley. Atenas is located somewhere in the right side of the photo or west of Xandari which is pretty much in the center of the valley.

Central Valley of Costa Rica from Room #4 at Xandari Resort, Alajuela. Atenas is somewhere on the right side of photo.

¡Pura Vida!

For more Costa Rica vistas see my gallery with a long name:

Vistas, Beaches, Sunrises, Sunsets Costa Rica

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Desperate Times = Desperate Measures

On a walk to town I regularly pass by this grouping of low-income apartments and the other day someone there was trying to sell what I think is today called “Junk Art” or his creations from pieces of scrap metal. Interesting but not especially good art in my opinion, except that the motorcycles are the most realistic. He was asking 25 mil colones (a little less than $50 U.S.) each and with so many without work now, he will have trouble finding eccentric rich people to pay that much for any of these creations. I wish him good luck!

Yes, desperate times call for desperate actions and this is just one example here in semi-rural Costa Rica where some small shops and restaurants have closed permanently. And we hear that it is worse in the big cities (San Jose, Alajuela, etc.) which most of us here try to avoid. Coronavirus is marking the year 2020 for an infamous history! But I’m still glad I’m here and not in the states where it is worse, at least for the number of cases and deaths. You guys up there should put your Republican governors, senators and president in jail for murder considering the way they’ve handled this pandemic! Sad oligarchy.

20200812_161038_002-WEB
Motorcycles and people?

20200812_161051_001-WEB
A truck and a person? Or just modern art?

 

“That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I’m free to act as desperately as I wish.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

 

¡Pura Vida!

In spite of hard times, we still have nature!

🙂