Villa Caletas is an older hotel and old-style upscale, old-style architecture, and old-style service with big staff, lots of young people anxious to wait on you. So far I like it even though the trail down the mountain is closed because of rainy season damage. It was raining when I got here and has rained most of the time, which I thought meant no sunset, but boy was I surprised! It’s late & I’m tired, so I will post the sunset photos tomorrow. Here’s my first impressions of the hotel in photos without photos of the toucans and macaws flying around when I didn’t have my big camera out. All of these are cell phone photos:
One of the things the government is doing with the increased taxes is providing free WiFi all over Costa Rica in most public places: national and city parks, libraries, all government and public buildings and for university students access anywhere for free. The online world is expanding everywhere and more countries like Costa Rica are providing it for everyone. Read this article in Living in Costa Rica Blog:
Because it was a special week, I’m doing a second book on Xandari where I celebrated my birthday last week. It was such a colorful week, I titled it “Brilliant!”Follow the link to a free online preview of the book showing 82 of my photos. Or click this smaller image of the book cover below:
I completed my “Trip Gallery” of the 6 nights at Macaw Lodge, Carara National Park, Costa Rica. It is another fabulous nature retreat in Costa Rica and I hope you check out some of the photos I have posted. You can click the print screen image below or this web address: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/TRIPS/2019-06-18-24-Macaw-Lodge
Click gallery page above to visit it.
“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels.”
— Ansel Adams
For those who love birds and realize their importance in the future of planet earth, I hope you have already discovered The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
It is from this institution or website that I have my best bird identifier, the free app available from your phone app store called: Merlin
The basic app is for North American birds, but includes for many countries, like Costa Rica, a download for free of your country-specific birds. The quickest, easiest and cheapest way of identifying birds you see or photograph.
And participate in the research and learning about birds plus create your own checklist of birds seen through their online base program eBird (also with a phone app):
I have also starting taking online classes on their website, the first of which is free and introduces you to eBird, your personal online record of birds seen.
One of their latest award-winning documentary videos is is worth seeing just the free 2 minute preview: Bird of Prey about the rarest eagle in the world in the Philippines.
If you love and appreciate birds, I hope you will learn about and connect with
I have always been a map person and my first two years here I rented cars for most of my trips, but found that my old habit of using maps did not work well here because the actual highways, roads, streets and houses/businesses are mostly not numbered or labeled, therefore not relatable to a paper map. Thus I always got a rent car with a GPS included that works great here and many locals prefer the free WAZE on their cell phone. But it removes your brain from the challenge of getting somewhere as the article above suggests.
Now that I walk everywhere in town, I use my brain instead of GPS to get around using landmarks like a true local. (Yeah, with cell phones you can walk with GPS too! I don’t!), Here are some typical Atenas directions using landmarks:
MY HOUSE: Take the street that dead ends into La Coope Gasolinera south until it ends at Avenida 8 (locals still call it Calle Boqueron), then left about 300 meters to the Roca Verde main gate on the right. Inside the gate go straight about 150 meters to the 3rd gate on the left, 105 Roca Verde (which is labeled).
SPANISH LESSONS ATENAS: From Central Park Atenas take the street behind the main church west about 250 meters or 150 meters beyond Pali Supermercado to a house on the left before the Lions Club and Police Station, in front of Veterinario Occidental. There is a “Spanish Lessons” sign on the gate.
OR MY LOCAL LAWYER: 100 meters south and 75 meters east of Justice Court. (Most know the courthouse, but I can add that it is at corner of Central Park near church.)
And of course all of these directions exercise my brain even more when I try to give them in Spanish! 🙂 Yep, I’m very slow at learning Spanish but learning another language is another good deterrent to Alzheimer’s! And as a walker in town it is amazing how many cars stop and ask me directions to something, usually in español. Mental exercise! 🙂
Another simple health advantage to retiring in Costa Rica! 🙂
-o-
“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
– JRR Tolkien
Electric Cars in Costa Rica?
Those considering retirement here who are also ecology-conscious will be interested to know that Electric Cars are in Costa Rica and available for those who can afford the sometimes higher cost (though one Chinese Electric Car sells for just $15,000!). For details on prices and availability see this Live in Costa Rica Blog article: EXPAT RETIREES AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES.
AND THESE RECENT TICO TIMES ARTICLES ON ELECTRIC CARS IN COSTA RICA:
For anyone considering retirement or otherwise living in Costa Rica, be forewarned that you must learn to live with the 300,000+ species of insects here on this land bridge between North and South America (with insects from both continents!). The featured image at top is of two “Jewel Bugs” or “Metallic Shield Bugs” I photographed in Corcovado National Park. Below photo I made this morning of a “Leafcutter Ant” on my terrace carrying a flower petal (bougainvillea) instead of a piece of leaf, which is common.
Leafcutter Ant on my Terrace this morning.
Many of the insects that pester me seem to come in waves; like just before rainy season the little long-winged fliers that dropped or left their long beige wings all over my bathroom, or the first two weeks of rain was the invasion of houseflies (which Deep Woods OFF doesn’t seem to affect!), and right now there are hundreds of tiny little black & green beetles on the walls, around the lights and all over me! I even got one going down my ear the other night – ugh! They don’t bite, but a bother! Too small to photograph.
My biggest deterrent to the many kinds of bugs are the Geckos that live in literally every room of my house and I think eat most types of insects. From my first day here I have tried to photograph the larger insects (some are just too tiny) and you can see my collection in the gallery named INSECTS CRunder OTHER WILDLIFE in the main gallery. There are more than 100 species of insects in my gallery and especially interesting or unusual are those in the sub-gallery Other Insects, like the above Jewel Bugs, many of which I have not been able to identify. And all of which serve a purpose in the cycles of life. Of course the most popular sub-gallery is Butterfly & Moth (81+ Species).
A Break From Blogging
For regular readers, I assume you have noticed several days without a post. Sometimes I just doesn’t feel like writing and/or in this case got focused on my old photos again as I am slowly adding them to my galleries, particularly the Pre-Costa Rica TRAVELgalleries. It is a slow and labor-intensive process that eventually I will complete. I uploaded all of my international trips first and now working on USA trips from the most recent going back. Then comes the most, Tennessee travels. And most of these are after my retirement began at the end of 2002. I have been blessed to have seen so much of the world and get to know so many cool people!
Sunday afternoon I was a part of the Board of Directors meeting for the local children’s home, Hogar de Vida. The rest of the board seemed surprised and appreciative that I am the first person to include the children’s home in my will. But I am not a very good board member because I am not fluent in Spanish, in which all business is carried on! 🙂
Living Slow
Otherwise I am “Living Slow” as my sloth T-shirt says!
A fast approach tends to be a superficial one, but when you slow down you begin to engage more deeply with whatever it is you’re doing. You’re also forced to confront what’s happening inside you – which is one of the reasons why I think we find it so hard to slow down. Speed becomes a form of denial. It’s a way of running away from those more deeper, tangled problems. Instead of focusing on questions like who am I, and what is my role here, it all becomes a superficial to-do list.
Some of you know that my favorite charity in Atenas is Hogar de Vida, a children’s home for abused and abandoned children. I contribute or participate in limited ways. In April 2018 a group of Senior Adults from First Baptist Nashville came for a week work project that I joined and helped facilitate. You can see some of the 2018 photos in my gallery.
Matt is the director of the children’s home and I just got a message from Matt which I think you can see at the link. In short:
A youth group with adult sponsors from Matt’s home church in Omaha came to do a week’s project just like we last year. And just like us, they had a “tourist day” where they went to Jaco for the beach and ziplining (just like us). But unlike us, the teens wanted to spend time in the ocean where Costa Rica has many warning signs about “riptides,” “undertow” or “rip currents” that can be quite dangerous. Well, 5 of the group got pulled into the riptide and underwater. One did not survive. One of the adult sponsors and mother of one of the teens drowned. Matt has of course handled everything lovingly and professionally. But it is horrible for a family, a church, a group of youth, and the children’s home here, especially difficult for Matt. Your prayers are requested and appreciated. And the photo above is of Jaco Beach where it happened.
Sometimes pura vida has its ugly side and riptide drownings is one of those.
This morning I received a WhatsApp Voice Message with the above photo from Rodiber, my guide at Monteverde last month. He was thanking me profusely for the autographed copy of my Monteverde photo book for himself, Costa Rica Expeditions (who service this hotel) and the hotel Monteverde Lodge & Gardens. The girl in photo is one of the several front desk persons who were all very helpful to me during my stay. I sent two copies of book, one for my guide and one for the hotel to use at front desk, in lobby or in their little loaner-library of books for guests.
Since I make a book for most of my trips or the first trip to a lodge, I usually send two books like this. I just concluded my second trip to Selva Verde Lodge and right now not planning a second book. Their two guides on my first visit plus the front desk got copies of my 2016 Selva Verde trip book.
I really enjoy surprising my hosts in thanks for a good experience with the little photo books – not something they expect nor receive from other guests. This is the first one to send me a photo with their thank-you note. A surprise for me now! My response was the typical Costa Rican response to a “Thank You!” which is ¡Con mucho gusto!“With much pleasure!” Ticos are such beautiful people! 🙂
I decided early in my visiting of Costa Rica to not live in the big capital city of San Jose because I wanted a more tranquil retirement life than most big cities can provide in their, busy, hectic, crowded, expensive and sometimes dangerous ways.
My first choice was always to live in the woods away from everything, but that would require an expensive 4WD car which I early decided I would do without plus in many cases it is actually more expensive, plus generally no where near the needed shopping and medical care a retiree needs.
Thus the “happy medium” or compromise location of the “Central Valley” of Costa Rica within easy bus or other transportation to the best shopping and medical facilities in the country (like most retirees to CR), yet still a somewhat easy trip to escape into the national parks and forests of Costa Rica which has worked well for me. And nature in the far corners of Costa Rica continues to be my focus. 🙂
BUT . . . sometimes there are fun reasons to visit the big city and especially an old, historic and artsy Latin-American city like San Jose (see my Trip Galleries below). Christopher Howard also explains it well in one of his latest blog posts:
And in that article you can see why I love the many parks in the city, plus the architecture, a tour I made of just the old colonial churches, the arts, the many museums, art in general and as shown here, as an example, some of the many public art sculptures in San Jose:
Pope John Paul II who visited San Jose in 1983
The Kiss, Parque Morazan by Olger Villegas-Cruz
Lots of public contemporary art
The Flutist at Teatro Nacional
Anne Frank
Lots of Indigenous Artwork
Short-term contemporary exhibit in front of the cathedral
I have always been a map person and my first two years here I rented cars for most of my trips, but found that my old habit of using maps did not work well here because the actual highways, roads, streets and houses/businesses are mostly not numbered or labeled, therefore not relatable to a paper map. Thus I always got a rent car with a GPS included that works great here and many locals prefer the free WAZE on their cell phone. But it removes your brain from the challenge of getting somewhere as the article above suggests.
![20190604_111253[1]-A-WEB](https://www.charliedoggett.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190604_1112531-A-WEB-290x300.jpg)
Sunday afternoon I was a part of the Board of Directors meeting for the local children’s home, 
