Tag: walking

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Passion flower & Advantages of Walking

Passion Flower, common name in English
Granadilla del monte, common name in Spanish
Passiflora vitifolia (official Latin name)

I’m passing these a lot in my walks around town now. The flower is the reddest of any we have here I think, or at least it seems so to me. It grows on a vine that climbs walls, but only blooms near the ground for some reason. Just one of the little perks of not having a car or bike, I see pretty things on and near the ground!  🙂

“Thoreau is careful to point out that the walking he extols has nothing to do with transportational utility or physical exercise — rather it is a spiritual endeavor undertaken for its own sake.”~Maria Popova

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Sidewalk Flowers in Atenas

This Bougainvillea is in Roca Verde where I begin my walks. Most other photos are in Atenas Central.
Except for church yard, all flowers are in front yards of local homes, small and large. All homes have flowers!
And this is just a small sample of what I see every day!

Atenas, Costa Rica

Atenas, Costa Rica

Atenas, Costa Rica
Atenas, Costa Rica

Atenas, Costa Rica
Atenas, Costa Rica
Atenas, Costa Rica
Atenas, Costa Rica

Atenas, Costa Rica
Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My Health Improves in Costa Rica!

At my target weight now!
First time in 30+ years!

After 6 months in Costa Rica I decided to buy bathroom scales for fear I was gaining weight instead of losing or staying at a healthy level. After all, I have been eating a lot here and learned that Ticos have a sweet tooth like me. Who can resist Tres Leches or Coconut Flan? So at the Alajuela Walmart I got a nice looking glass scales similar to what I had in Nashville. I bring it home and weigh for a pleasant surprise! I am averaging between 173-175 which is what the charts say I should weigh for my height, etc. 173-175. In the morning I am closer to 173 and by night closer to 175. I tried to reach that in the states all of 2014 but usually stayed between 180-185, which was better than the 200 pounds the year before!

One of my favorite dinners is a green salad with Avocado
slices (a whole one this time but sometimes a half), a big 
glass of water and a fruit fresca made from pulp concentrate
this time, but sometimes fresh fruit in blender – yummy! 
And sometime I add a dash of bottled Sangria or 7up. Salad is
seasoned with fresh-squeezed limon and herbal seasoning in 
that little shaker bottle at top. 1 slice of whole grain toast and 
a little guava marmalade for the last bits of toast not finished
with the salad. Reasonable dessert! Some days I have saltine
crackers with either salad or soup. I do cook chicken, fish, and 
some pork with vegetables and/or salad. Eating out less now.
I’m doing okay with homemade veggie soup and gallo pinto, 
a special Costa Rican seasoned beans and rice, and I’ve always
done great scrambled eggs as a messed up omelet!  🙂 And 
unless after dark, I eat all meals outside on my balcony. 
Which I think is also a healthy addition to my life! And that
black book is my Kindle Fire, my companion for most
meals! I’ve read more than 20 books in 6 months!  

To what do I contribute this? The same two things most people do, eating and exercise. I eat more fresh fruits an vegetables here than I did in Nashville, even living for 10 years across the street from Nashville Farmers’ Market. We have no American fast food restaurants in Atenas! Nada! Now, I can get a burger, pizza, or fried chicken from some Tico restaurants, but rarely do; only pizza or a good hamburguesa. I haven’t had fried chicken in many years! Don’t like it anymore, though popular here, especially with the young. I’m also learning to eat more sensible sized portions most of the time though some restaurants don’t help there, but now I’m eating at home more and that helps.

The best thing to happen to me exercise-wise was to decide not to buy a car, though the temptation pops up every once-in-a-while. I walk almost everywhere in town and when I take a bus to San Jose or Alajuela I walk most places when I get there. I’m averaging 3 to 6 miles every day. Part of the key there is “every day.” If I get a large order of groceries, then I take it back by taxi for about $2, but I’m learning to grocery shop little at a time every-other day which gives me more exercise as I can carry smaller loads and I have fresher stuff!

Walking 3 to 6 miles every day is maybe the healthiest thing
I do or at least equal with eating better. And yes I mostly walk
in sandals, but sometimes tennis shoes. My dress shoes may 
never get worn here! Tennis shoes are hot and sweaty! That
leads to athlete’s foot, so sandals better in the tropics for me, 
except for some hiking and even some yard work.   

I am still debating a bicycle which would be quicker than walking and still be good exercise. The two negatives are the one big “killer hill” between Roca Verde and downtown AND the narrow streets with sometimes sloppy drivers of cars. It could be dangerous! Peligroso! So I keep walking!   And probably will not get a bike.

OTHER HEALTH FACTORS:

  1. I have Costa Rican Private Health Insurance and got to cancel that expensive U.S. Medigap insurance. A big savings!
  2. I have a private practice doctor who speaks good English. (Sorry! Meant to get a photo of her office with an ambulance out front. Her assistant is an EMT, so they can come get me if they need too!)  🙂 I have heard that most of the government doctors speak English too when I eventually go on that program next year. But hope I’m speaking Spanish by then!
  3. Hospitals are all highly rated throughout Costa Rica at half the U.S. prices! Everything from heart surgery to cancer treatment is done here with great competence. I feel secure.
  4. Few weather extremes in our Atenas “perfect climate” which contributes to good health.
  5. Less stress than in the States and not having a car helps with that even more!  🙂 Actually, driving here is the most stressful activity I have done and it can be as stressful as in the states, though maybe people get used to it. Well, opening a bank account was a little stressful, but I’m getting used to bureaucratic paperwork now and to just “go with the flow!”
  6. Surrounded by nature. My cure for everything!  🙂
  7. A relaxed, laid-back culture helps one to slow down and “go with the flow.”
  8. I have slowly tapered myself off the drugs U.S. doctors gave me, first to sleep at night, I’m now using simple, healthy herbs to help with sleep. I get that from one of the local Macrobioticas or health-food (supplements) stores here. Feeling better and sleeping as good! Also stopped all the allergy meds and doing fine without them! (Sorry! Meant to get a photo of my favorite Macrobiotica at the Central Market.)
  9. But eating healthier and walking a lot are still the main reasons for my better health here. I turn 75 Saturday and expect to live a whole lot longer here!  🙂

SOMETHING NEW: I’m finding it harder to write without using some Spanish (or Costa Rican) words. So you will know, I am going to try and put all Spanish (Costa Rican) words in red. Tell me if that is distracting or helpful. 

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Walking Snaps Today

Walking by Alajuela Cathedral this morning
I was struck by this beautiful flowering shrub.
Cell phone snap

Walking through Atenas later today, I caught this Blue-crowned Motmot
with my cellphone in someone’s yard. I did have to crop in a bit on this one.

It was a very busy day today and I did not get everything accomplished that I intended, but did get a lot done. Tomorrow Cristian and his crew come to finish my garden and add some trees and shrubs to my yard. You will probably hear about them tomorrow! And eventually I will get around to making and showing some photos of my new house. A busy two weeks!

By the way, Trip Advisor, for which I write reviews, has just published its “Top 10 Beaches in Central America” list and 8 of them are in Costa Rica! Or see the actual Trip Advisor site listing where you have to hit the arrow to scroll through the photos of each beach.  Makes me want to reconsider living at a beach, but probably not! 🙂  Beaches are hotter, more humid, and more expensive for living. I can get to a beach in 2 hours or less any time I want to.

Interested in the Nicaragua Canal? Click to read the latest news and how construction has begun. 

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Sugarcane

Farmer bringing sugarcane to market while
I am walking up the hill to my Spanish class.

Note: I just added another fallen fruit photo to my March 7 Trodden Under Foot post, if interested. It is the Star Apple or Cainito, a purple fruit the size of an apple or orange and it fell right here in our apartments.

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Trodden Under Foot

I walk everywhere in Atenas and mostly in shorts and sandals on rough or no sidewalk.
And recently upon fallen fruit.

I have been recently intrigued by how many tropical fruits fall from the trees on the local sidewalks and streets to be “trodden under foot of men” and cars or eaten by animals. Some of these are expensive to buy, especially in the states. Here are a few shots with my phone camera recently. Some fruit is not in season yet and other not planted along the roads/streets or there would be more.

Star Fruit or Carambola

Guava

Guanabana

Mango

Baby green mango in Central Park Atenas

Star Apple or Cainito

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Matthew 5:13 KJV

Maybe I’m not suppose to use scripture like this, but this verse came to my mind when I kept seeing all the fruit being walked upon.  🙂   But then maybe there is a lesson about letting our fruits of the Spirit go to waste? Or has our saltiness lost its savor and being trod upon like this fruit? Or maybe it is our fruits of the spirit that is the salt of the earth and we will share our fruit rather than let it drop out of sight? A “Do it yourself” devotional thought in this!

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Day of the Iguana! And Eating Report . . .

Spiny-tailed Iguana in Downtown Atenas

I’ve seen one on the apartment grounds, a female with a nest we think, but very skittish and never close enough to photograph. Today I saw this Spiny-tailed Iguana on the back side of ICE, the electric and cell phone company, on the base of their tower. It’s a cell phone image. There are three kinds of iguanas in Costa Rica, Green, Spiny-tailed, and Helmeted. On earlier trips I always saw mostly the Green Iguana and maybe a few spiny-tailed, but never a helmeted yet.

Eating Report . . .
And unrelated to the iguana, except it was on the same walk, I photographed my lunch plate at La Trocha del Boyero. My first time to eat there and I got a typical Tico lunch plate called a “Casado.” It is another one of the better restaurants that I will return to. They also have the reputation of “the best steak in town.” Maybe someday when I’m really hungry! You can get a casado like this for $4 in the little corner “Sodas” (Mom & Pop cafes) or about $5 at El Mejor Clima Restaurant. This nicer placed charged $8. But I got real china and a linen tablecloth! And a nice patio with many plants on a quiet street with just me and one other party at the time. And I read another chapter in the latest book.
Typical Costa Rican Lunch
Fried sea bass, onions, peppers, beans, rice, fried plantains, plantain fritters, and salad. 
La Trocha del Boyero, Atenas, Costa Rica
Covered Outdoor Patios are the most common style restaurant here.

And for Supper . . .

Since I’m on food, let me tell you about my “light” supper. When I buy fresh fruit now, it is usually too much to eat all fresh, so I cut up some and put in sandwich baggies in the freezer. Then; like tonight, I sometimes make a fresh fruit smoothie with some frozen fruits rather than ice cubes. Tonight’s was frozen pineapple, papaya, and strawberries with a not-frozen banana, a small container of yogurt, and some chilled guanabana drink for the liquid (I make this from the pulp of guanabanas and keep in frig as another drink choice along with a similar one from mango pulp). My supper smoothie all blended together to the texture of an icy milkshake and was really yummy! With that I ate a slice of watermelon and a little peanut butter sandwich on whole grain “fruit bread.” That’s like raisin bread with more than raisins and in the whole grain bread! Eating is fun here! And I am not losing weight! But I walk enough to not be gaining weight! 3.5 miles today, 5.5 yesterday! My phone measures mileage, along with being my camera, portable Kindle, calendar, and other neat tools. Life is good! Pura Vida!

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, 
it would be a merrier world.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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Two New Birds & Balcony Shots

This afternoon I photographed birds from my front balcony for the first time. Got two repeats, Great Kiskadee and Scarlet Tanager but also two new ones, Blue-gray Tanager (you can see in aviary at Nashville Zoo Unseen New World) and tried again to photograph one of the several flocks of parakeets that fly over very fast every afternoon. Nearly impossible to photograph, but here’s a fuzzy image!

Blue-gray Tanager at Hacienda La Jacaranda, Atenas, Costa Rica

Someday maybe a good photo of these regular flyovers.
Today I was given an old and worn (like me) leather & wood rocker for my balcony like some of the other residents have. Now I don’t have to take one of my other chairs out for morning coffee and some evening sits. It is on the front balcony which is larger. The back balcony is the second photo and is longer but narrow with bamboo next to it and lots of other trees closer, making it the better bird photo spot. Also have a clothes line there, but usually use the rack on front balcony for the afternoon sun. In Costa Rica an electric clothes dryer is a rarity. We have sunshine every day, even in the rainy season! 

Rocking Chair for the retired old man! My front balcony.

Back Balcony where most birds are photographed.

Today after Spanish Class I tried a different super market, Maxi-Pali, which is a longer walk but has some things The Coopeatenas doesn’t and has cheaper prices on a few items. They also stock some Walmart house brand products, so guess who probably owns them? It is kind of like it was in the states, I’ll now probably use both some, but the closest is the easiest, so we will see. Also ate at another new restaurant for me that does not have a web presence and I just wrote the first review on Trip Advisor, so nothing to link to now, but that link is to my list of reviews and Olivera will be up in a day or so. It is Pizza Olivera, on the square or Central Park and they deliver, so I will probably use the delivery when Kevin is here. It was very good pizza I thought. I got a personal size Supreme and a liter tropical juice drink for $5. I will return! Like most restaurants here, the dining area is covered open air with views of whatever, this time Central Park with old men on benches, children running and playing, and a teen rolling slowly by on a skate board. Just an ordinary little farming town with lots of happy people! 🙂  It is still fun to be here and to be walking everywhere!

And oh yes, this morning after class I said “yes” to my first volunteer opportunity. I will be helping at the gringo-sponsored Annual Chili Cookoff and fiesta as a fund-raiser for the local children’s home. Some 3,000 people are expected. Don’t know yet what I will do.
Tomorrow is bus to San Jose and my appointment at the U.S. Embassy – hopefully getting the last document needed for my residential application. Never a dull moment yet! But I’m resting tonight!
Blessings to all who take the time to read all my ramblings! I’ll work on making this shorter! Promise!

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Waterfalls, Great Kiskadee, and Sickness

This morning’s veranda tea included watching two Great Kiskadees land in the tree next to my neighbor’s apartment along with hearing a flock of parakeets and many other birds, most small and hard to see, plus speed will make it difficult at times as with the speeding toucans yesterday.

I’m staying in bed 9 to 11 hours each night and trying to rest. There was surely a public clinic open over the holidays, but the English-speaking doctor my neighbor knows about is not open until tomorrow morning  (Monday), when I will take a cab to see him.

The first three days I walked up the steep hill to town for groceries and to eat. I did not yesterday nor today, though the fresh air and sunshine might have helped. I did walk across the big yard in front of the apartments to the Rio Cajon, our southern boundary, and photographed some of the waterfalls in our yard.

The first two photos are inside the property and the third just outside the gate on the landmark Rio Cajon Bridge in Barrio Fatima, our neighborhood name, which helps taxi drivers find us. There are not house numbers here, no street addresses, no home delivery of mail. And oh yes, I know better than to photograph in midday sun, but did anyway.  🙂

This is upper part of the one below,
seen from a different angle.

Plunge pool view of above double falls.

The double falls at our entrance gate by the public bridge over Rio Cajon
Last night the Quebec couple invited me to go to dinner with them and then invited to local girls who of course had a big SUV, one being a doctor’s wife, the other her twin sister. The place they wanted to take us was not open (they take holidays seriously here!) so we ended up at Antano just off the main plaza downtown which is where I had eaten lunch the previous day, but well worth a repeat! 
A fun evening even if I don’t feel well. I did not try to go to church this morning because I was feeling worse at the time and pretty lousy right now. It is sore throat, some coughing, some sneezing, runny nose, and achy body all over. It started before I left Nashville. I’m taking Tylenol and two kinds of throat lozenges Millie Goodson got for me the night before leaving. Thanks Millie! They help!
Today I met another resident from Switzerland who is married to the girl from Spain. We are a pretty international group in these apartments! And oh yes, last night in the restaurant an American looking woman came over to our table and said, “I just must find out where this southern drawl is from!” I smiled and said “Nashville” and then learned her and her husband are from North Carolina and have lived here for 9 years. She still works as a photographer, doing weddings and children portraits. Got their phone numbers to call if I ever need help. So it is starting to happen like I expected even without going to church yet. 
Well, this first long post just wore me out. Pray for a quick resolution of my cold, allergies, flu or whatever!

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I’m Here!

View out my front window.

I arrived sick which is unusual for me. Cleaning out my cottage at McKendree stirred up a lot of dust which is one of my worst allergies. Sore throat and coughing on the plane trip which was otherwise uneventful! Once here yesterday I starting opening bags, took the 8 minute walk to the Super Mercado for some basics like cereal for breakfast. Came back and went to bed at 6:30 PM and slept until about 6:00 the next morning, gently waking to the songs of tropical birds and the view above from my front window/door. I sipped hot tea watching the hills opposite ours.

Today I went back to the nearest Super Mercado which is a Farmer’s Cooperative that includes a little cafe. For lunch I had a ham & cheese sandwich because that was the only thing I knew how to order in Spanish. 🙂 This afternoon I did a load of laundry and had to use my Spanish English Dictionary to read all the dials on the washing machine.

The coughing and sore throat is mainly gone now, but my nose won’t quit running. So maybe another long night’s rest will help that too! At least all my bags are unpacked! But nothing exciting to report. Unless you call finding a millipede in my shower exciting! And everybody is celebrating Christmas until January 5 which may be when I start taking care of business. It is rest time for a week or so.

Millipede looking for water in the bathroom.