Country Road

Gravel & dirt roads with chickens, cows, and other animals – its universal in all countries and is romanticized, sung about, or just remembered from childhood maybe. But in a developing country like Costa Rica it’s very common everywhere and yesterday morning I walked again on this one that is so near, yet not a regular part of my walks yet. When you leave our paved-road gated community, most people turn left on paved Avenida 8 which takes you to Calle 3 or Calle 1 for a direct shot downtown, to supermarkets, pharmacies, the bank, etc. and it’s the way I walk most often (and share photos from) when not walking around in the housing development, and we have our own “country road here,” Calle Nueva, that I’ve shared about several times and that link is to a gallery.

So . . . if you leave our gate and turn right, the pavement ends in the equivalent of 3 blocks and becomes a gravel road (my “country road” yesterday) and it curves up and over a hill and back down to “The Radial 27,” the connector between downtown Atenas and our nearest controlled access highway, Highway 27 that runs between San Jose and the Jaco Beach & Puntarenas Port area of our Pacific Coast, and is always congested. But I digress! 🙂

Avenida 8 in front of Roca Verde development turns into a dirt and gravel road with chickens, cows, an orchard, barbed wire fences, and over the little hill it runs right into Radial 27 directly in front of the entrance to our Farmers’ Market Pavilion, serving the area with fresh produce every Friday morning. It is a nice walk to the Farmers’ Market and for me yesterday I walked on into town on the highway making a big circle for a longer day’s walk with a nice image of “country roads” on my mind, thinking I was John Denver. Just one more joy of living “Retired in Costa Rica.” CLICK an image to enlarge it:

Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. 

~John Denver

¡Pura Vida!

Finishing the country road walk today . . .

It bugged me that I did not finish walking Calle Nueva the other day, so today I did so with my friend Jason Quesada. Here are a few nature shots along the road for a total walk of 5.3 miles:

Soccer Fields are the most defining thing of a community in Costa Rica
even along a dirt road among farms out in the country! Necessary!
Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica
Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica
Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Mango Tree Grove
Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Lots of Purple and Yellow Flowers if you look close
Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

Calle Nueva
Atenas, Costa Rica

After the walk we had a late lunch in a little Soda in the village of Rio Grande on the river of same name and our expressway Ruta 27 where there is an Atenas exit just south of Atenas. In this same little village is a chicken processing plant (low-pay jobs) owned my Walmart and a small air conditioner plant, both on the expressway. We road the local bus back to Atenas Central which went by these two job sources locally. And back in town a political experience which I will share tomorrow.   See the Photo Gallery Walking Calle nueva   –   PS: WARNING! I learned later that two days before this walk an expat man from Canada was walking this same road solo (as I often go) and he was robbed at knifepoint by two young men on motorcycles, supposedly Nicaraguans, which is who most Ticos blame crime on. This is highly unusual in little Atenas, but of course can happen anywhere. It is more common in parts of the big city of San Jose.

-o-

International Living magazine again ranks Costa Rica the #1 Place to Retire!

The USA Today article on Costa Rica, the Country Without an Army & the Happiest Country

“Blessed is the Costa Rican mother who knows her son at birth will never be a soldier.”

¡Pura Vida!