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A small group of young Gray-headed Chachalacas, Ortalis cinereiceps (linked to eBird) landed in my trees yesterday and did a lot of chattering before flying on elsewhere. The wind doesn’t seem to bother larger birds as much as the smaller ones. And this bird lives only between Guatemala and Columbia! Here’s 3 different views . . .
The sun rises in the east behind other mountains that are behind the one that my house is on the west side of. 🙂 Simply put, I cannot see much of a sunrise from my house or terrace that faces W/NW where the vista of little mountains I often share are located. But when I am not sleeping late, I can get out on my terrace and get what I call a “reflected sunrise” on those hills in the W/NW. This past week I’ve been sleeping as late as I could to help cure my sick stomach which is now finally well! (I think!) But these two early morning “reflected sunrise” shots were made earlier in March. The feature photo at top is a panorama of three shots on my Canon 750D and this shot below for email version was a quick snap on my cheap Samsung Cellphone! 🙂
I’ve shared here before that I’ve had some very good experiences in the public health system with multiple specialists that I see (free if a legal resident), but when something is too slow from their overload of patients, I can, and occasionally do, choose the private healthcare system with many doctor choices and all expensive (though not as expensive as in the states!).
Last Wednesday evening my next door neighbor climbed up on a folding chair on his front porch to knock down a wasp nest and fell off on his hard tile floor and was calling out in pain. I went over to check on him and he did not want me to call a Red Cross ambulance, because they charge you and he has no funds for that, so I call a taxi and took him to our Atenas Clinic Emergency Room. The service there was very good (better than sometimes in the crowded Emergency Room!) with all his vitals checked and seeing a doctor within an hour and a half, it was no slower than any of my ER trips in Nashville! 🙂 The doctor called for a social security van ambulance to take him to the closest public hospital for an X-ray as he was acting like his arm was broken, maybe in two places. Within another 30-45 minutes he was in an ambulance on his way to Alajuela. So far, pretty good for not a penny of cost for him!
Then at Hospital San Rafael de Alajuela, he was seen quickly and x-rayed within about an hour. He has a broken shoulder and elbow! They scheduled him for the first available orthopedic surgeon which was 10 days away and said “we want you to stay in the hospital until after the surgery. But sorry, we have no available beds and you will have to wait in a chair in the hallway for a few days until a bed in the orthopedic ward becomes available.” 🙁 Saturday he was told he would probably have a bed on Sunday, the day I’m writing this and I haven’t communicated to see if he does.
THAT IS WHY MANY PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY WITH CAJA (nickname for the Social Security Healthcare System): (1) A 10 day wait for surgery in an otherwise good system that is overloaded and under-staffed. (2) Like most public hospitals here, the government doesn’t provide enough money to expand and provide more beds and thus often there are no beds when needed. It was especially critical during Covid. He will survive but neither of the above two situations are good!
So, the next morning (Thursday), I took him some personal items from his house he will need in the hospital. Then I returned to my house a little after noon and started vomiting all over the place, followed by the expected diarrhea! No fun! And I did not want to deal with CAJA again, so I got an appointment with my private GP the next morning to be treated at my cost, which is always an option if you can afford to pay (my neighbor could not). So in some ways it is like the states, if you have money, you get quicker service (private room, etc.). But I am still not well, though no more vomiting or diarrhea. The private doc had me get all the lab work on blood and stool sample and I have 4 different medicine lasting 4 days to a week. (All costly!) Hoping I’m over it soon! 🙂
And how much different would my treatment have been at the public clinic? I don’t know, but was feeling so bad I did not want to find out! 🙂 And yes, I could get private healthcare insurance here, but at an unaffordable high price. And my local GP’s clinic has a “Membership” at $100 a month and I had it before I started using public, but I never needed that much service and it did not include the lab or pharmacy costs. So I dropped that. As you get older, medical services become more important and almost always depend on your income and available funds. If I every need another big cancer surgery & treatment, it will have to be with the public system, regardless how long I have to wait. I don’t have enough money to do it again. But at least Costa Rica has a basically very good public healthcare system, even if sometimes very slow. And 10 days is not near as long a wait as some people have for some surgeries.
Sorry! I got more long-winded than I intended! But maybe that partially explains why many people here don’t like the public health system, but remember that for the poorest person it is often a lifesaver! And though with a big overload of patients and work, they are extremely well-organized and with a computerized healthcare system that’s the envy of many countries!
So, I still like it! But will occasionally exercise my freedom to go private when I can afford it, as I did again this week.
¡Pura Vida!
Corteza Amarilla, Yellow Cortez Tree, Tabebuia ochracea, (Wikipedia link) is visible almost everywhere in Costa Rica this time of year, but only for a very few days or weeks, then the bright yellow, flowers-only trees become another beautiful green tree, blending in with the landscape they now contrast with. This week I’ve snapped a few shots of some around Atenas and you can see more of my past photos of them in the gallery labeled simply Yellow Trees! (which also includes Yellow-Bell Trees) 🙂 Below this one photo for the email version of this post are two galleries, one for my neighborhood and one for the central church at Central Park Atenas.
One of the common Skippers all over Costa Rica is the Teleus Longtail (my gallery link), and he is just one of about 20 different “Longtails!” Here’s a couple of shots of one in my garden recently on a less windy day:
¡Pura Vida!
The wind has been very heavy again for many days which discourages birds or butterflies on my hillside, but the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird is always here! And they chase off any other species of hummingbirds, but don’t seem to be bothered by the few butterflies I’ve had (maybe thinking they don’t eat much?). 🙂 I had to photograph those two flying pix from a greater distance +the movement and thus not good images, but I still like the action shots as well as the “sitting portraits” like this one . . .
On another very windy day I was unable to photograph bird or butterfly, but did get this Spiny-tailed Iguana (my gallery link) sunning on a limb of my slowly dying Cecropia Tree which doesn’t get as many birds as it used to. But all wildlife are a joy for me and this one doesn’t seem to be bothered by the wind. 🙂
I usually stick with the English language in the blog, but somehow I thought this Spanish title fit better – with “suave” having many meanings in Spanish from smooth & soft to tender and mild. I use “suave” to order tender meat (carne suave) or mild salsa (la salsa suave) and to tell the doctor where my skin is tender or sensitive (piel suave). So I thought of the Spanish word when I started photographing flowers in my garden that seemed smooth, soft or tender and below this one photo is a gallery of 6 such flowers . . .
Another one eating out of the Hummingbird Feeder! This is a better photo than the one I showed last month. 🙂 This Blomfild’s Beauty, Smyrna blomfilda (my gallery link) is a semi-regular butterfly in my garden that I’ve also seen it in two other places in Costa Rica, Xandari & Macaw Lodge.
¡Pura Vida!
This is the one bird that never was scared off by the winds (which are still blowing but decreasing). He kept feeding on the flowers and the feeders and allowed other Rufous-tailed to join him, but not other birds. “King of the Garden!” Here he is in one of the trees.
See more in my gallery: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Amazilia tzacatl.
¡Pura Vida!