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I read three things today that helped me realize again how fortunate I am to be living in such an amazing little country as Costa Rica! AND how much I have slowed down, calmed down, and embraced nature since I’ve been living here, eight years this coming December! Here’s links to the three inspirational articles I read today . . .
Continue reading “Pura Vida Inspiration”
I’ve recently learned that much of the park renovation is being paid for by volunteer donations as the city budget was greatly hurt by the pandemic. And all the work is being done by park employees rather than an expensive contractor, so I guess the slowness is to be expected and maybe praised for a job well done without much means.
After the celebration of the park entrance sign and flagpoles, they finally started again by blocking off another wedge of the park with the ugly tin construction fence. It is the area where we’ve had a children’s playground. They’ve removed all the old playground equipment and dug up the brick sidewalk in preparation for another modern cement sidewalk with I assume the trademark low walls for sitting as a replacement for park benches. There will likely be an additional sitting area for parents watching their children play. This sidewalk radiates from the central circular kiosk to the SE corner of the park. Once the concrete work is done I assume they will then install the new playground equipment and another section of remodeling will be completed. I doubt that even they know how long it will take. Here’s 3 photos to show what they’ve started . . .
This Skipper showed up on my kitchen counter here in Atenas, Costa Rica last week and I have searched diligently both in books and the internet and cannot identify him specifically, but I am pretty sure he is in the subfamily of Skippers called “Grass Skippers” (Hesperiinae) and that’s the best I can do! There are over 1,500 species of butterflies here in Costa Rica, not to mention the over 12,000 moths! So ID is a challenge and I’m taking on that challenge the best I can. 🙂
And one more photo in slightly different light . . .
Continue reading “One of the Grass Skippers”
On one of my walks to town the other day these high school aged kids did not see me snap a photo of them with my phone. They were evidently doing a service project, possibly through the school, painting this public picnic table at the City Sports Park next to the covered Basketball Court. Hopefully they are painting all of the several at this park which are always full at lunch time with a very popular empanada shop across the street in one direction and fried chicken (el pollo frito) a block the other direction. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
It’s finally completed! And now I can focus on more photos here in Atenas and my garden, though I might still blog some more from Cativo that I haven’t shared yet 🙂 since probably few of you will actually go to this trip gallery linked below. 🙂
This was a better than usual trip and rainforest lodge, though maybe not in my #1 choice yet 🙂 — it’s so hard to compare nature lodges when all of them are so good and each have their own unique things that the others do not! 🙂 If you want to learn more about this lodge, check out their website with this link: Playa Cativo Lodge, Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica. And note that the night-shot of a cabin at the top of their first page is of the cabin I stayed in for a week. 🙂 One of my best cabins ever, anywhere!
This was the third of the 3 “new” lodges I tried this year and was definitely the best cabin of the three and possibly the best overall experience than those at Chachagua or Guayabo, my other two “first time” lodges this year, both of which I loved and enjoyed very much! And I would consider returning to all three! The Cativo food was gourmet like Chachagua’s and the girl guide I had, Alejandra, was one of the best I’ve had anywhere plus the dining room staff gave me one of my best birthday celebrations yet in Costa Rica when I turned 82 there! So, overall a very good experience! 🙂 But I recommend both of the other new lodges also plus my only new lodge of 2021, Bosque del Cabo near Puerto Jimenez, which rivaled this lodge in many ways though I was still to weak from cancer treatment to fully enjoy it.
To see my Playa Cativo Trip Gallery, click that linked title or the image of the first page below. Photos tell a lot about a place if you are considering a visit there! 🙂 And remember that you must travel to either Golfito or Puerto Jimenez and then the hotel arranges a taxi from airport to dock for a boat ride to the lodge. Or if you drive a car, like my Tico doctor friend did, they will suggest where to park it safely before your boat ride to the lodge.
¡Pura Vida!
Trips like this are one thing that make my simple retirement a constant adventure along with the wonderful people and tranquility of the little coffee farming town I live in between these trips. I own no car or house, living happily in a rental house and walking or using public transportation, including for these trips.
You can virtually experience all my trips and tranquil home life through this blog “Retired in Costa Rica” and/or the past trips in my Costa Rica TRIPS Gallery which of course has a sub-gallery for each of the 96 trips I’ve made to every corner of Costa Rica plus 2 to Nicaragua and 1 to Panama since moving here in 2014. This number of trips does include several day-trips but mostly multi-nights lodge trips which are the best of course! And for me, 6 nights somewhere is needed to both relax and experience everything! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Another new butterfly for me! And in my home garden no less! 🙂 The Royal Firetip or Mysoria barcastus is found from Mexico through most of South America, and just one more of our myriad of butterflies here! Though I’m finding new butterflies on most of my trips to different forest locations, the vast majority of my Costa Rica Butterfly Collection (150+) has been photographed in my Gardens here in Atenas! And I have now become as interested in butterflies as in birds, with both being somewhat of a challenge to photograph. 🙂 Here’s 3 photos of this new species for me:
Another “First Time Seen” butterfly for me, so I’m doing a second post today! 🙂 One of the “Hairstreak” butterflies, the Dusky-blue Groundstreak, Calycopis isobeon (link to butterflies & moths.org), is all over Costa Rica and another fingernail-sized butterfly! 🙂
I’m posting more butterflies than birds now partly because I haven’t had many birds in my garden and this is the time of year for more butterflies in Atenas is one reason. Another is that my interest in butterflies is going up and I have just become the “Costa Rica Coordinator” for the website butterfliesandmoths.org and since they haven’t had a CR Coordinator for 7 or more years here, I inherited a backlog of 450 submissions which will take months to go through, identify and approve while I’m anxious to submit my own 150 species photographed here. 🙂 I seem to always have plenty to keep me busy! 🙂 Enjoy this cool and different tiny butterfly and go outside and look for some where you live!
Here are more views of the new Central Park Sign including a selfie and what it looks like at night and from behind! 🙂 My earlier reports on the sign did not include the finished product at night or from behind! 🙂
I went early at 8:30 for what I understood would be an “unveiling” of the new ATENAS park sign and what they were calling a “dedication ceremony.” Nada! After nearly 2 hours downtown I picked up my photos I had left earlier to be printed across from the park and Sr. Chacón there told me that they would not unveil the ATENAS letters until 7 pm tonight (probably in the rain) and I will not go back! I was there mainly to get a photo of the Atenas sign, so I was disappointed! I walked home with my new photos and will maybe go tomorrow to photograph the sign.
!Then the only programming on the stage for the first two hours was the main Evangelical church here in town performing charismatic music like in a charismatic worship service and a hand full of vendors (more like a flea market) – both also disappointing to me. The stage will have more and different kinds of music throughout the day, which is what the city does with all of these all-day fiestas they sponsor, but after I learned the sign would not be un-covered, I got my photos and walked home. 🙂 I will photograph it tomorrow and post just that photo. 🙂
At 9 am tomorrow (Saturday 30 May 2022) the city is unveiling and “dedicating” the new entrance to Central Park Atenas, even though the renovations are not nearly complete nor will be for some time. They will remove the black plastic from the ATENAS sign and the park workers have been busy trying to get ready! They’ve laid some new grass in that area and have flower there to plant before tomorrow, plus they are taking down that ugly tin construction fence and are re-painting the white skirts around all the trees in the whole park. Plus tents are going up for the typical fiesta day vendors and when I asked at city hall the time of the ceremony (9am) they made sure I knew that there would be live music Saturday night! 🙂 Maybe we really are getting over Covid! Though masks are still required in all public places – even tomorrow! 🙂 And we still have to wash our hands upon entry to all businesses.
Here’s 5 shots made yesterday (Thursday) that indicate they are preparing for tomorrow!