Thirteen Years!

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As I have done every year on this day since we moved to Costa Rica, I post this photo that I took:

This crossword puzzle was completed on our plane travelling from Dallas, Texas, to Juan Santamaría Airport, Alajuela. We touched down around 8:30 pm I believe and taxied to Hotel Aranjuez in San José. There we stayed for a week seeing our lawyer regarding our residency applications and getting to know some of the city.

We came down with seven suitcases and our cat, Genny. Genny was sent ahead of us with World Pet Travel and boarded in a vet office until we picked her up a week later. We taxied to Finca Huetares in Atenas where we stayed for a month while looking for a house to rent in the Atenas area.

Instead of flying right to Costa Rica, we chose a leisurely trip via train from Vancouver, British Columbia on the Amtrak Cascades and then to San Francisco on the Amtrak Coast Starlight. There we stayed for a few days enjoying that city.

On our way - San Francisco to Dallas to Alajuela airport. And the rest is history. 

Some photos:

Champagne on the train in our roomette.

Goodbye!

First breakfast in Costa Rica at the Hotel Aranjuez.

Off Topic Item

Here is the latest issue of El Residente magazine, published by the Association of Residents of Costa Rica, of which we have been members for many years. They did our initial residency applications and renewals.

Coconuts

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Every Thursday, a nice fellow drives up to our gate with my weekly delivery of five cocos - all ready to have a hole poked in one end and a straw inserted.

Here is this week’s delivery:

To locate where to punch a hole (I use a screwdriver), select the end that has three whitish coloured marks:

One of them will allow your screwdriver to go through to the water. It would be better to punch two holes but I’ve never been able to get the screwdriver through the other two marks. There are gadgets that will do this - I should look for one.

Here is what Healthline has to say about the benefits of coco water. Sometimes I break the shell completely open and scrape out the coco meat and make coconut milk with it. 

We are starting to eat our own mangos now. Picked three today and they will ripen in time inside the house. We also have these fruit trees: avocado, lime and a type of sour orange.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - April 2024

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During April, visits to this blog were received from the following 15 countries:

Each country is followed in brackets by the total number of visits received since records first started to be kept in November 2012.

From the time I started to keep track, the total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 136. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions - e.g. Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States from which 13 visits have been received.

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

The temperatures are shade temperatures. The average daytime high in April this year was slightly higher than April last year. At the same time, total rainfall during April this year was about 1 inch (25 mm) higher than April last. There were 10 days with measurable rain in April this year. There were only 3 such days last year.

Information on current and recent weather conditions, climate change and more in various parts of Costa Rica can be obtained from the website of IMN: Instituto Meteorológico Nacional de Costa Rica (Spanish) or National Institute of Meteorology (English). IMN also has a Facebook page which may be of interest.

El Yigüirro and White Wing Wasps

(Click on images to enlarge).

The national bird of Costa Rica is the yigüirro (Turdus grayi), also known as the clay-colored robin. This bird is widespread and common up to 2,400 m. although uncommon in the northwest pacific.

We have them around our house and their singing heralds the start of the rainy season. You can read more about them here. Their song is very similar to the red-breasted robin (aka American robin) found in Canada and the USA.

Recently some small wasps with white wing tips decided to take up residence on one of our outdoor wall ornaments. They built a small structure (about 3” high) and are busy going in and out of the cells - laying eggs I guess.

The nest has not increased in size and they don’t bother us. They just go about their waspy business.

I’m guessing that they are white wing wasps. If anyone has an accurate ID, I would like to have it.

I made a video of the yigüirros singing one morning and also included some footage of the wasps.