Naranjo Coffee Festival

Today we drove to the town of Naranjo, because they were having a two day coffee fiesta. Naranjo is about 20 km away from our town of Grecia. We thought it would be fun to attend and it was. We lucked out and found a parking spot on the road close by the park attended by a guachiman. 

The fiesta was held in the park in front of the church. The smell of fresh roasted coffee in the air was wonderful. There were all sorts of booths selling coffee, art, purses, desserts.

We wandered around, sat for a while to listen to the band, then headed home. Here are some photos I took.

The Naranjo Church:

What you cannot do in the vicinity of the church: kiss, skateboard, ride your bike, smoke a ciggie and I don’t know what the E means.

Coffee booths:

Band:

Art Show:

These are the traditional art works offered for sale. They are 3-D - all those little people are made from rocks.

There are festivals like this one all over Costa Rica and they are fun to attend.

Botanical Orchid Garden Visit

On Friday morning, we drove to the Botanical Orchid Garden in La Garita  This is a really nice garden complex to visit, especially if one is interested in orchids as I am. But it offers more then just orchids - there are aviaries for rescued birds, beautiful grounds, a gift shop, a large pond with ducks, a playground for kids, easy walking trails, well marked trees, bushes and plants so you can learn about the different species and a very nice restaurant.

This is the off season in Costa Rica and a great time to visit beaches, resorts and attractions. Prices can be low and crowds are minimal. We usually go out and about in the mornings because there is always the possibility of rain in the afternoons. Also we usually go during the week as weekend traffic can be quite heavy. We had the orchid garden to ourselves.

Everything is well marked so you can just wander around at will. There are several large orchid greenhouses and one has explanatory signs so you can learn how orchids are cultivated - from dust mote size seed to adult plant. Seeing how all the different species are planted and being grown is useful to me so I can compare how my own collection is doing. The small greenhouse behind the gift shop sells orchids - I resisted because I have enough of them.

After doing our tour, we went to the restaurant for a cold drink and a dessert. We each had mora bebidos - mora being a type of blackberry grown here and bebido (or refresco or natural), meaning a cold fruit drink made with milk or water. There were several postres (desserts) on offer and we both chose the lemon pie which was a tangy lemon filling on top of a type of graham cracker crust.

The Botanical Orchid Garden would be a good place to take your visitors. We enjoyed it and it’s an easy and close drive from our house in Grecia.

Scarlet macaws. Two types of macaws reside in Costa Rica - the scarlet on the Pacific Coast and the great green on the Caribbean Coast. Sadly, both species are considered endangered. I have seen the scarlet macaws flying wild and it is a beautiful sight. These aviaries were large enough that these birds could have a short fly around.

This sweet lady cockatoo has been in the gardens since the 1980’s. She seemed to like attention.

Orchids, orchids everywhere. This is just one of several greenhouses.

I think (but correct me if I am wrong) that this is the national flower of Costa Rica - the Guarianthe skinneri orchid, or Guaria morada.

Vanda orchid collection. I have three vandas that have yet to flower. They were very young and small when I bought them so hopefully they will flower one day.

One color of vanda flower:

Friendly ducks at the pond. They followed us around for a bit. There is also another smaller pond with koi fish and turtles.

Etlingera elatior or torch ginger.

The enormous Samanea saman tree. I believe the name has now been changed to Albizia saman. The wood makes attractive cabinets and furniture.

Large bamboo stand.

Looking out from inside the restaurant.

Lemon pie and mora batido. Mine was made with water and Lance’s with milk.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - May, 2019

During May, visits to this blog were received from the following countries:

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The following is a summary of weather for the month in the area where we live:

During May, the rainy season (aka "green" season) arrived with a vengeance. There were 21 days with measurable rain totaling over 14 inches (37 centimetres). In contrast, there was only one day with measurable rain in the preceding four months - and a very small amount at that - about 0.01 inches (0.025 centimeters).

A few days were marked by socked in clouds and daylong drizzle. Although significantly milder than up North, this was reminiscent of the weather during winters in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada and the Pacific Northwest in the USA. Other rainy days were more typical of the green season. They began with clear or broken cloudy skies in the mornings followed by thunder, lightning and rain in the afternoons.

Also typical of the green season and its accompanying cloudiness, daytime high temperatures in May tended to be a bit lower than previous months and overnight low temperatures tended to be a bit higher. 

2011 - The Year We Moved to Costa Rica - A Retrospective in Photos

Yesterday - May 31, 2019 - marks the 8th year we have lived in Costa Rica. On May 31, 2011, we flew from San Francisco, to Dallas, to Juan Santamaria Airport in Costa Rica. I can still remember how I felt as we landed - we’re really here! And we’ve never looked back. It’s been a great adventure - so many new things to learn, experiences, new friends, the great beauty of this country - I could go on and on.

So our journey actually began in Cloverdale, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada - a client of Lance’s had visited here and told us we had to visit also because it was such an incredible country. Lance started investigating on line and one thing led to another - we decided to move to Costa Rica. I have documented our journey on this blog since the beginning so I won’t go into all of it again.

But I decided to put together a montage of photos from 2011, and you can see them at here at the bottom of this post. It starts with some final visits with family and friends in British Columbia, getting rid of/selling most of our stuff (Lance’s huge oak desk is shown heading out the door), then moves on to our early morning loading of luggage into our friend Jon Churchill’s car en route to the train station in Vancouver. Jon thought we were crazy but was a great help. We boarded the Amtrak’s Cascade train to Seattle, overnighted there, then caught the fabled Amtrak Starlight Express to San Francisco and then Los Angeles. We got off in San Francisco and spent two nights there ... it’s one of my favourite cities. 

Then on to Dallas, and Costa Rica. We spent a week in San José, the capital city of Costa Rica, to meet with our immigration lawyer. We had previously sent our cat Genny ahead of us using World Pet Travel. Then we moved to Atenas and the rest is history.

Click on this link Costa Rica to view the photos.