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A Typical Day?

Ate lunch around the corner from these trees at the Catholic Church Atenas

There probably is no such thing as a “typical” day in anyone’s life, never-the-less mine! But this relaxed Monday in Atenas, Costa Rica seems worth reporting as almost one for me.

As always, I was awakened early by the birds singing, but stayed in bed until about 6:30 when I got up for a shower, breakfast of fresh fruit, nuts, cereal, and some Costa Rica Coffee, while overlooking a vista of the Atenas Valley and mountains, and watching birds in my trees. I put all the trash in one big bag making it easier to take to the gate and put in our big metal basket where we place only bagged trash for pickup.

With a backpack of Spanish learning materials, sunglasses, and my Panama Hat today (David calls it my “bonita sombrero.”) I walk the 1.1 mile under a sunny blue sky at around 80 degrees to my Spanish class in town. It is always a fun 2+ hours with two new students today and the temporary loss of others who are traveling for awhile. After class I walk back to my old apartments, Hacienda La Jacaranda, to return two cups I accidentally packed with my stuff and pick up my last electric bill there.

Then I walk to the center of town to the Post Office to see if a letter has arrived that was sent 4 weeks ago from the states. It has not. Make a note to tell people to use the Miami PO Box to get mail to me quicker! Then two blocks away (or here we would say 200 meters) to the Vargas & Sons Hardware for a couple of items I need for the house. Then I decide to eat lunch out today since I have not in awhile, preparing most of my meals at home. I was going to try a new place but it is closed on Monday, so I go to my old standby Tico restaurant, La Carreta.

For a little over $5 I get a casado (plate lunch) of fish, beans, rice, mixed veggies, and instead of my usual green salad, I choose the Picadillo de vainica y zanahoria, (right click on site for English Translation) always liking to try something new and it was great! Its a green beans and carrots relish or salad with delicious seasoning, my favorite item on the plate today. As always here, the meal was served on a banana leaf in a tray. But of course that was not all for this sweet tooth guy! For just the second time for me I ordered a Lechemulla which is their version of the Horchata rice & milk drink, but they use vanilla ice cream instead of milk which adds to the cinnamon flavoring and wow is it good! During all this delicious eating, I’m both watching people walk down the street and reading more in the lengthy Lord of the Rings book. I finished both the Happier than a Billionaire books which were fun, but I’ve had enough of Nadine & Rob for awhile! And yes, the Rings books are heavy and lengthy, but also some great writing and story-telling! My Kindle Fire says the typical reading time for it is 27 hours and I’m about half-way through.

Then I walk all the way back past Su Espacio, where my Spanish class took place, to CoopeAtenas supermarket for my little shopping list and pay the electric bill. While finishing there it begins to rain really hard. So I call a cab for the trip home with enough groceries that walking would have been tough anyway. It was about $2 for the taxi.

It was a good long rain, more than usual, that I’m sure made my new flower garden happy. Sun is shining now. After writing this, I have some bookkeeping to do, then  may read or try to photograph birds from the balcony or walk with camera through the neighborhood. By then a sunset snack and more reading or time on the computer before bed. I haven’t watched a single TV show here and no Netflix movies since moving to new house. Real life is more fun! Plus I’m working on three different books and about to have my shipped boxes delivered, so never a dull moment! And I have done very little of the traveling around Costa Rica I expected to be doing by now. Maybe soon!

I’m looking at the Strangler Fig Tree outside my office window and continue to be amazed that I really am living in Costa Rica! It is not paradise or perfect by any means, but it brings me more joy and relaxation than any place I have ever lived. The rain just cooled it off, the birds are singing happily while I smile and think to myself what a wonderful decision it was to move to Costa Rica! Pura Vida!

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Rainforest Beauty

View from my bedroom window (between the power lines) during the afternoon rain today.

The fact that there are power lines, houses, and a street below this scene doesn’t diminish its beauty for me, even though an uncluttered view like this would be nice! This is looking west at end of today’s rain. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” said Oliver Pratt, and that is why I like this kind of selective photography. And yes, it’s a compilation of 4 shots merged into a panorama. Fun!

“People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.”

-Salma Hayek (emphasis mine)

“Your beauty . . .  should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”  

1 Peter 3:3-4 NIV

God help me to have a gentle and quiet spirit that people might see your beauty in me!  -Charlie

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More Balcony Birds

The balcony of my new house is providing a lot of birds, I just haven’t had time to sit still and wait on them for photos. Here’s 5 made in about a week, plus the hummingbird and toucan shown earlier. 7!

White-winged Dove
He ties with Yigüirro as the most heard birds. His is a coo-coo coo cooooooo
Yigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush
Day and night I hear him with his Tch, Tch, Tch, Tch or Toc, Toc, Toc, Toc
The National Bird of Costa Rica
Melodious Blackbird
My bird sounds app doesn’t have this one, but “melodious” must be happy!
The only all-black bird in Costa Rica with dark eye, shaking rainwater off here.
Gray-capped Flycatcher
He kind of squeaks in the morning among all the other bird sounds
then more of a chirp during the day
White-tipped Dove
His sound is not as noticed, a low-pitched uuuuuuu
His tail tip is white while above dove’s wing’s white

And if you’re wondering about the sounds, I got a new app for my phone, “The Bird Sounds of Costa Rica.”  Cool! Maybe I will begin to recognize more of them now. For more information, check your app source (I got it from GooglePlays) or direct from the birdsounds website in the Netherlands:  http://www.birdsounds.nl/   They have a bunch for all around the world.

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Garden Almost Finished

Seen from driveway

Seen from house door

Looking from garden back to driveway and Don & Linda’s house
The back sidewalk with red palm at end
Pot plant in Living Room

One pot on patio/balcony

The other patio pot to help screen neighbors
It will get much larger

Sorry, I took most of these photos before sweeping and mopping the tile walkways because I was in a hurry to go shopping in Alajuela. And note that the vines are planted at top of walls but will take a few months to trail down, maybe looking good in August. Still to come next Saturday:

  1. I have been debating whether to use mulch or ground cover and think I have decided on ground cover. He said he would give me two choices, so we will see what happens with that. 
  2. Plus the Maraca or Shampoo Ginger plant is still coming next week. A prize plant!
  3. I’m adding a Guarumo Tree in the front yard, a member of the Cecropia family that has a fruit toucans love, so you know why I am planting it. Sloths like to eat the leaves too, so who knows, it might even attract a sloth. 
  4. Also we are adding another red palm to hide the balcony post and give more balcony foilage. 
  5. In front of my bedroom window he will put some fish-tail palms to add to my privacy from the street and also . . . 
  6. A banana plant for my breakfast fruit as well as a screen! 

This is fun! And the landlord is paying for some of the above additions as I improve his property. I plan to stay here a long time! 🙂 I love the house and yard, my neighbors, and a great landlord who also a good neighbor! (And reads my blog some!) Pura Vida! This is more what I envisioned in Costa Rica than the apartments, though there were some good things about them and I enjoyed my time there as a good place to start.

I highly recommend J&C Gardens if you live anywhere near Atenas or La Garita. You can email Cristian (who speaks English) at jycgardens@gmail.com or call him at 8873-7483 cellular. Tell him Charlie sent you!
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Happy, Hard-working Garden Crew

Fun for me to watch it quickly take shape

A large Heliconia will be the centerpiece of this garden
Planting the Triquitraque vines at top which will take time to grow and
hang down, covering the walls, maybe by August or certainly by December

We got along fine and I really like Cristian, the crew leader and owner, and each of the 4 workers just as well. All were so friendly, and trying hard to please me. I’m not used to that! Of course I tipped them! And I provided agua frio, iced water, before their morning break when they shared a loaf of bread together. Just a neat group of guys! They came at 7:20 or so and finished at about 10:30. They did in 3 hours what would have taken me months to complete

I’ve also talked to Cristian about coming back with another Red Palm at the other street-side corner at end of patio-balcony, plus a Guarumo Tree to attract toucans, and a banana tree to attract me!  🙂 And mulch for the flowerbed which I’m choosing over rocks used a lot here or ground cover. Also my landlord stopped by and he asked them to return and plant something to shield my bedroom window from street and replace three street-side palms at his expense. So the outside of this place is really taking shape! Now this afternoon I have some shopping to do at Price Smart and will also get a water hose. Soon I won’t need it with the heavier rains coming, but now we are just getting light showers in afternoon and I must keep these plants alive!
I highly recommend J&C Gardens if you live anywhere near Atenas or La Garita. You can email Cristian (who speaks English) at jycgardens@gmail.com or call him at 8873-7483 cellular. Tell him Charlie recommended him!

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Flowers Arrived at 7 AM!

Plumbago and Tutti Frutti in front,
then tall green palmy plant goes in living room,
more garden plants in back, palm around corner
and the butterflies have already come!

Below is a list of what Cristian says he is planting tomorrow. Click the linked name to see photos of what it looks like and the ones delivered today are in these photos here, though not all delivered yet. This will be a hummingbird and butterfly garden. Lots of photo ops!


Triquitraque (“Firecracker” in English)– an orange flowering vine planted at top and trailing down the walls. Opportunity of a house built into the side of a hill!  (not delivered yet)

Blue Plumbago – a flowering hedge along bottom of concrete wall under the orange vines (photo at right)

Tutti Frutti (a variety of Lantana) – a row of mixed colors of flowers along the sidewalk (in photo at right, on the left side, shorter – yellow, pink, orange, red)

Palma Roja (Red Palm) – a brightly colored bamboo-like palm with red, yellow & green trunks, going at the end of back sidewalk as an anchor to the far end of my garden and to block view of street (see palm photo below).

Maraca (Shampoo Ginger) – a really cool tropical flower (rare and it may take a while for him to find one but he will even if he has to take it from his uncle’s yard he says). He is really working hard to please me and have a perfect garden for butterflies and hummingbirds.

Red Ginger – a red flowering tropical plant (photo below) – There are other varieties of Ginger
but not sure if I’m getting one of the others. I’m hoping for a Torch Ginger, my favorite. 

Heliconia – truly tropical and comes in many varieties (1 delivered today, see photo below – a different variety is coming tomorrow he says) This is often associated with Hawaii, but native here.

Foxglove – 2 or 3 plants between the Palmetto and Red Palm along back (not here yet). This is for the hummingbirds.

Petunia – well, I guess every garden needs a “filler”  🙂    (not delivered yet)

Palmetto – already here in the ground, see bottom photo
Aloe Vera – already here, something the landlord plants on all of his properties – I have 2 and may end up putting them in pots if Cristian can’t work them into the garden plan.

Red Palm at end of sidewalk in back
not shown in above photo. It will block
the street from my garden and anchor it.
One variety of Red Ginger. I may get another.

One variety of Heliconia and I will get at
least one other variety he says. 
Palmetto, the only plant here now. Don’t think it was watered during dry season.
I’ll take better care of it.

You can probably tell that I’m very excited about getting my dream tropical garden this quickly, just a week after moving in. Of course tomorrow I will be showing you the completed masterpiece, I think I will call it my “Humming Garden” or in Spanish “Jardín del Tarareo ” You can walk through and either hum a tune or watch for butterflies and hummingbirds!   🙂   Pura Vida!


Some might ask why I didn’t save money and plant it all myself and get even more joy from totally creating it myself? Several reasons: 
1) I don’t have a car or truck, so we are talking many trips to and from La Garita where the nurseries are located at $50-$60+ per taxi round trip. It could possibly cost me more doing it myself!
2) It is the beginning of the rainy season and it needs to be done right now along with a lot of other things I need to do like get the stuff I shipped out of storage and make photos!  🙂   
3) The professionals do a better job in this case and at what I consider a very good price compared to the states. This kind of labor is cheap here. And I would not have known about some of these flowers or where to get them for a while.
4) I don’t have the garden tools, which would be another expense and the side of this hill is rocky, another challenge I’m letting the professionals handle.  
5) I’m retired and enjoying life and consider using the cheap labor a wiser choice at this time. 
So I won’t go on a guilt trip for not doing it myself! (Even though I enjoy gardening.) Of course I will probably add another plant or two occasionally, and look what a great start I’m getting in a new house! I’ll be showing more of the house in coming posts including the already landscaped yards, but today and tomorrow it’s the new butterfly & hummingbird garden or Humming Garden!



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Sunsets

The sun sets behind trees and power lines but still colorful and varied!

Seen from end of balcony and all three windows on the west side. 

Looking northwest toward downtown Atenas

And back to the west with trees included in this image

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Toucans and a Garden!

Three houses over after flying over mine  –  in lower right. Sorry it is small.

A Pair or a Mother-Child 
One big flap of his wings and he glides like a bullet!

KEEL-BILLED TOUCANS

This was the second of two big excitements today. I sat down on the love seat to catch my breath this afternoon after spending two hours with some gardeners which I’ll tell you about in a second. But I looked out my living room window at the big Strangler Fig tree in my yard and saw a Keel-billed Toucan in it, just his big beak showing. I quietly go get the camera and of course he was gone when I returned, evidently to a tree across the road. Then he flew (above photo) to some distant neighbors where I tried to photograph him and others in some trees there. Some day I’ll get one up closer. But this is the kind of things I see from my deck. And I’m not on vacation! I live here!
GARDEN DESIGNED TODAY
I have watched the neighbor couple my age from Oregon work so hard on planting a garden and knew there had to be an easier way. Well an advertisement went up in our development last week for a landscape company saying they will design and install gardens as well as maintain them and ask for Cristian if you need an English-speaker. I emailed him this morning with photos (below) of the empty corner at the end of my driveway by the entry patio. And scanned my drawing showing the dimensions in meters of course. 
I figured I would hear back in a week or so. In less than an hour, as I was preparing lunch, he called and said he was in Roca Verde now working on another house and could come over and look at 2:30. He did with two workers. I explained what I wanted in general and he took notes and explained that I couldn’t have the palm I wanted in this space because of the septic tank and the palm’s long roots, but he promised to provide something against the stark concrete wall and make a garden that I would love with flowers year-around, as well as many butterflies and hummingbirds. I’m so excited! I’d much rather spend a little money like this than a lot on a car!
I ended up getting a Palma Roja at the end of my back sidewalk at the other back corner of the house, expanding my garden visually. I can’t remember all the flower names now that they will install including vines to hang down on the stark concrete wall. Then we went around front and I ordered two pot plants for my deck and one for the living room. The total cost is less than what I would pay for just the plants in the states, AND it includes top soil brought in, three big pots planted, and all the installation labor. And they come install it this Friday! Here’s what the space looks like now, my “before photos”: 

Seen from the driveway looking toward the entry plaza.
I mostly use the sliding glass door on deck for my entry mostly.

The entry patio leading to an entry hall with bath & bedroom to left and
kitchen, office, living/dining room and deck to right. 

Of course Friday will be the new, young plants with not as much to showoff yet. But rainy season is starting and by August I think it will be looking good and in another year great! I’m planning to stay here long term! The beach is too hot and too expensive to live at and I’m less than two hours from it anyway! Plus I really like Atenas! My new home!

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First Vistas

First view is toward downtown Atenas and mountain range.
Trees on right are neighbor yards.

The vista from La Jacaranda was of the close hills of Atenas where this is more expansive, looking over Atenas to the mountain ranges that include Poas and Arenal Volcanoes. So it is quite different. If I walk up to the top of my hill in my landlord’s yard I can see downtown Atenas and the church steeple at Central Park and the mountains to the west (same if I walk up the road in front of my house – photo below).

View from about one block up the road from my house with sunshine.
The Central Park church steeple is on the left.
Amazing difference 50 to 100 feet makes! But they pay for these views!
Yet I can walk up there anytime to look or photograph!  🙂

My view to the west for sunsets is from the end of the balcony on the left in top photo. You look through trees and power lines, thus no wide view of the sunset. Same from both bedrooms. I’ll show some shots of that tomorrow. 
That road you see bottom center in front of my house (1st & 3rd photos) is heading straight toward downtown Atenas, where I walk daily. It is just one mile from my house to Central Park and 1.2 to the supermarket I use most often, the Cooperative. Maxi Pali, the other supermarket, is about 1.6 miles I’m guessing, 2 miles at most. I haven’t measured it yet.

I just made a new shot from my balcony right after the afternoon shower which is not as expansive as the 2-pix panorama at top but what I see in one direction:

As the afternoon shower stops, looking northwest from my balcony.
I live in the foothills of the mountains, a dream life!

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Oxcart Parade!

One of 200 or so colorful carts pulled by oxen in the annual Atenas parade.

As I had planned, I got a seat on the outside window bar at Gelly’s Restaurant for a front-row seat for the entire two hour parade including purchased food and drink! Best seat for parade and beats standing that long! It was packed! This is one of the big events in Atenas each year.

It began with horses . . .

As each oxen team got to us they paused in line waiting for their introduction
over a PA system and I assume some judging happened at that spot.

Runaway oxen! This team decided they wanted to leave this parade,
but the Boyero (team driver) managed to keep them in the parade,
after literally going in circles for a few minutes.

Some oxen teams were “in training” and had no cart to pull this time.

Several carts were filled with children having a ball!
Cart Drivers happily allowed for kid photos by doting parents.

Meanwhile the artisans never stopped trying to sell their wares. A big fiesta!
This Latin Crooner began some
beautiful singing as the parade ended.
And more until 10:30 each night!
And I doubt the clown every stopped! 

Tomorrow I leave early for Spanish class as I will stop by Crema y Nata Bakery to pick up a birthday cake I order for David Castillo, our Spanish teacher. Others are bringing drinks, plates, cups, etc. We might surprise him! Then it is back to getting my new house fixed the way I want it. A busy weekend and the new week could be too, though mostly slowing down.