How to Subscribe to this Blog?

Someone just wrote with that question and I thought I would share my answer to him with everyone and hope you share it with anyone you think might be interested in my nature-centered blog!

It is a fairly simple process, though as with most technology, it requires multiple steps. . .

  1. Go to any blog post or the blog page (linked)of my site.
  2. First item at the top of the right-hand column of the page or post is “Blog Subscription by Email.” 
  3. Simply type in your email address where indicated. 
  4. CLICK the Subscribe Button.
  5. You will soon receive a computer-generated email to confirm that you are a real person and not a robot subscribing. YOU MUST RESPOND TO THAT EMAIL TO SUBSCRIBE. (That is WordPress’ security step.) You will then receive an email notice of each new post I publish. You can easily unsubscribe by clicking a button at the bottom of any post. 

And for those who prefer a language other than English, note that the next item in that right-hand column is a Google Translate option.

¡Pura Vida!

A Revised Book

Back in July I announced a cheap little paperback book about me being retired in Costa Rica to introduce my nature photography and blog. It was titled Experiencing Nature (link to blog post) and after I received copies of it I was very disappointed in how the photos looked on the cheap or “standard” paper! Never again! I have destroyed the copies that I ordered to give away and created a newer version on premium photo paper and since it costs $20 instead of $8, I will not be giving as many away, 🙂 -but it is a much better book now with a revised title: Retired in Costa Rica, Experiencing Nature for Life and improvements inside. Click that link or the cover image below for a free PREVIEW of all 20 pages!

The replacement book about my life in paradise! 🙂

These photo books are just another creative outlet for me, giving me a record of my experiences here and great gifts for the lodges I visit! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Describing My 2014 Journey Here

This week’s death of Nature Poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), and article about her in Washington Post, plus reviewing her poems led me to her “Journey” which in some ways describes what I was unable to describe in my 2014 “Decision Process” I called it then, of getting away from the depressing world of conservative Middle Tennessee, the clouds of a failed marriage and subsequent loss of family, branches and stones in my path of a vocational “calling”  manipulated by power-hungry “rulers” ending unceremoniously first in 1999 and finally by 2002 in unplanned early retirement. In a daze . . .

I’ve always tried to “make lemonade out of lemons” and I turned my retirement into an adventure of nature travel and photography as much as I could afford, including visits to all 54 state parks in Tennessee with a book about that, A Walk in the Woodsalong with many other nature/travel books and my growing nature photo gallery. But I was still looking for something else.

Moving from the vibrant life of rowhouse living in downtown Nashville to a suburban “Independent Living Retirement Home” was still not what I was looking for.

It was to commune closer with nature, to travel in natural exotic places that my limited income could not afford, then suddenly it hit me, why not move to one of the nature places in which I love to travel and just live there?

With only 2 family members left and no grandchildren, it was easier for me than some people to make such a life-changing move! And now I see it described in a new way in this poem by Mary Oliver:

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–

determined to save

the only life you could save.

~Mary Oliver

¡Retired in Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

A Hat Full of Sky

“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” 
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

And today’s story begins as I wake up with that big sky sunrise at the foot of my bed in beautiful Rancho Humo, eat a Tico breakfast of scrambled eggs with beans and rice (Gallo Pinto) and begin a 6 km hike in Palo Verde Park after a 30 minute boat ride to the park entrance.  Tired, invigorated, hot and smiling. Today’s story will continue once I’ve sorted the photos   🙂    –another episode of “Retired in Costa Rica.”  ¡Pura Vida!

Two More Trips Added for This Year

A follow-up to my earlier post:  Next 4 Months of Trips Planned – Retired in Costa Rica!
First to the Costa Rica South Caribe again:

“The Howler Suite” at Banana Azul Hotel
I wanted this room last September but not available – very popular!
So I now have it reserved for 5 nights this coming September!
Planning ahead sometimes pays off!  🙂
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Also on the Caribbean side, across the border in Panama is the popular tourist area of Bocas del Toro. I now have a full week or 7 nights in June at Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge:


In addition to BIRDING there are beautiful BEACHES & ISLANDS to visit by boat + SNORKELING
Tranquilo Bay, Bocas del Toro, Panama

KAYAKS available at all times for bay & rivers + miles of HIKING TRAILS for more birds!
It’s the kind of place with plenty for me to do just on the hotel grounds. Great anticipation!
Tranquilo Bay, Bocas del Toro, Panama

See this cool video about Tranquilo Bay

And keep reading this blog RETIRED IN COSTA RICA as the adventures just keep getting bigger and better. I will truly never be bored here and never run out of something to do or photograph! I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t retire here! I’m sure having fun! And seldom repeat a place!

And I will keep adding photos to my gallery:  Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA

Kind of funny: The other day some new students of Spanish at Su Espacio were in class and saw one of my photo books there. One student said “I know him. I read his blog about Costa Rica!” So David enjoyed telling me that I am now famous!  🙂  This blog has only 80 subscribers plus drop-in visitors vary from 50 to 300 a day, so really not that big, but I’m glad that some considering retirement here are reading it plus others and hope it is helpful in your “Costa Rica decision process.”

¡Pura Vida!

Next 4 Months of Trips Planned – Retired in Costa Rica!

One of the many reasons I moved to Costa Rica was so I could afford to travel, by traveling locally to innumerable nature places in Costa Rica, year around! And it is now even cheaper than if I owned a car! Because I travel by local bus or occasionally by local airplanes it is cheaper than buying and operating a car – and healthier! For the first half of 2018 I have now booked a different experience monthly for February-May.

Here’s some links to places I will visit the next few months (without specific dates for security):

February – OROSI VALLEY & TAPANTI NATIONAL PARK

Chalet Orosi  
Birding at chalet as well as in the nearby parks.

 

Tapanti National Park
One of many waterfalls supposedly.




February – San Jose for performance of CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

Read article about show designed just for Costa Rica

I am going with the expat club of Atenas on a bus like several other trips to San Jose. Fun! Though I just read the article and I believe it is actually in Alajuela and not San Jose, so even closer!



March – DANTA CORCOVADO BIRDING

Real jungle living for 5 nights in rainforest.

Danta Corcovado Lodge

Day trip into Corcovado

Bird Watching

My 3rd trip to Corcovado is this time on the eastern side of the large park/reserve compared to my previous trips to SW & NW corners at Carate  &  Drake Bay.


This will compete with my Arenal trip below as the best trip the first 6 months!  🙂



April – MISSION TRIP TO HOGAR DE VIDA, ATENAS

Old friends from First Baptist Church, Nashville, TN are coming to provide service in the local Atenas orphanage Hogar de Vida. I will work and stay with them in the cabins at Hogar and they get one day of tourism away from the home.


May – ARENAL VOLCANO RAINFOREST BIRDING 

My Room window and deck will look out at the famous volcano.
If erupting, I will see the red lava at night.
Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica

I am staying at best birding lodge in the area, Arenal Observatory Lodge with room view of the volcano.

Of course I will be visiting the Arenal Volcano National Park along with many trails around the lodge known for their abundance of birds. I definitely expect some new species here.
And I may take a trip or two to other places like the Arenal Hanging Bridges or other places for birds, while avoiding many “touristy” places in this area. The town of La Fortuna nearby has become a junky Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge kind of tourist town like those at Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain Park.

My only other time here was on the 2010 Caravan.com Tour of Costa Rica when we spent one night in a different hotel.

And then there is my photo gallery of all my TRIPS made thus far in Costa Rica. Lots to see!

 

¡Pura Vida!

 

I Have Lived in Costa Rica Three Years Now

And I was having so much fun on my anniversary day of December 24 that I forgot to mention it in the blog post that night or celebrate. You may remember that I had Christmas Eve Dinner Around the Pool with Friends.    It was that night three years ago that a taxi brought me and 5 suitcases from San Jose Airport to Atenas (late plane meant arriving after dark) to Hacienda La Jacaranda Apartments where I lived my first 4 months in Atenas Costa Rica. On this anniversary I was too busy to even think about it!  🙂  “The past is prologue!” Maybe I will have a celebration when I’ve been here 5.5 years on my 80th birthday.  🙂

And earlier that same happy day I saw my first King Vulture in the wild and got a photograph! Along with a juvenile King Vulture and other birds and wildlife on what my guides called “Raptor Ridge” on a hill above the Tambor Bay beach resort where I was staying. It was a great day! And the day before I got to release 12 baby Olive Ridley Turtles into the Pacific Ocean, so why would I think about it being my 3-year anniversary of living here?  🙂

Well, a lot has happened in three years and I’m quite at home here now, loving life in a little mountain coffee-farming town, learning to speak Spanish, though very slowly! Trying to have as many Tico friends as gringos and maybe more now!

My passion is finding and photographing some of the over 900 species of birds here along with other nature photography and the thrill of traveling Costa Rica. I have learned to travel as the locals do on buses to anywhere in Costa Rica, though I am a sissy old man who sometimes goes to the far away places on a little local plane, Sansa or Nature Air. Some of my Tico friends say I’ve seen more of their home country than they have and I probably have. I try to go somewhere new every month or two and of course report on these trips in progress on my blog (here) as well as in photo galleries in what I call Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA. And I even have a series of photo books on many of the birding lodges and national parks I have visited. I can’t get rid of the desire to create something! It is fun to me! And I do none of it for money (it actually costs me) but as my fun hobby.

I have Pensionado Residencia with the government health plan called CAJA (better than Medicare) and I am settling in for the rest of my life here with paperwork done for my body to be donated to the University of Costa Rica Medical School. I am not active in church but attend a little Bible Church here some, trying to avoid the right-wing Americans that also attend some, most only on the one Sunday a month with English translation. My goal this year is to attend mostly on the Español only Sundays.

I have volunteered service to the Angel Tree project, three schools, my language school, and most recently led an after school club at one high school which I talked about 2 blog posts ago. I am trying to integrate into the community without becoming a catholic or marrying a Tica! 🙂  That is quite feasible.

I am overall healthy for a 77 year old (though walking a lot slower now believe it or not). I get plenty of rest and exercise walking everywhere. One of my best decisions was to not buy a car! Good for my health and budget! I eat well, sleep a lot, and I am very happy in my new home. So with this little summary, I place a marker down at my three-years point of living in Costa Rica. None of us know how long we will live, but I’m expecting many more years of adventures in Costa Rica!  ¡Pura Vida!

“I like people that enjoy life, ’cause I do the same.”
~Lil Wayne

🙂

2017 Photo-A-Month & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow! It was hard picking only one from each month! So many favorites! Missed some greats! I tried for a balance of birds, flowers & people – 4 each. Review my year in photos & know it was even better than this! Just a sample of being retired in Charlie Doggett’s COSTA RICA!

January 2017
My garden was a constant joy!
 Blue Plumbago contrasted against a Heliconia

February 2017
Two nights in San Jose was a fun and different trip for me.

March 2017
The birds in my garden continue to amaze!
Lineated Woodpecker

April 2017
The bird sculpture by my former neighbor Anthony Jeroski will
always be a special garden memory of him. He died in July in states. 

May 2017
One of my guides at Drake Bay, Carlos, with baby boa.
Everywhere I go great guides make the trip memorable!

June 2017
My gardners on break at my house, a tradition we have.
 I love my gardners and my garden! 

July 2017
At Rancho Naturalista I finally get a photo of a Sunbittern!
This is a rare bird and rare photo that I’m proud of.

August 2017 
Butterflies are second only to birds for me and I saw a few this year.
Most, like this one, in my garden of course!
A Heliconius Hecale Zuleika.

September 2017
This Squirrel Cuckoo was on edge of my terrace for a favorite
photo at home or maybe my “Photo of the Year”
or at least tied with the Sunbittern.  🙂

October 2017
My high school “after school club” for Conversational English
was my most rewarding activity of the year! Fun & hard work!

November 2017
This Triquitraque is one of the smallest and favorite flowers in my garden.

December 2017
Everything about my Christmas trip to Tambor Bay
was super good, but this photo of a King Vulture
is the big prize! Another rare find & photo!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
FELIZ AÑO NUEVO 2018

Go climb a hill! 

Charlie