Amphitheater de Villa/Anfiteatro de Villa

Last week, we went to Amphitheater de Villa in Ciudad Colón. This is a fun and interesting place to visit - about a 45 minute drive from where we live - Hacienda el Paseo, Puente de Piedra, Grecia.

It’s an old stone quarry with a natural amphitheater and underground tunnels showcasing replicas of famous sculptures. You can read all about it here, here and here.

It is open at noon on Wednesday through Sunday and the last tour is at 8:00pm. Cost for entry into the tunnels is 5,500 colones for adults. If you just want to walk around outside, there is no charge. Large parking area. There is also a restaurant but we didn’t try it so can’t comment. The views are stunning. Our guide was bilingual and very knowledgeable.

It was cool and humid in the catacombs. A strange feeling knowing you are walking underneath lava that formed eons ago. We didn’t complete the entire tour because we had an appointment elsewhere so left about halfway through. I didn’t do enough research beforehand and thought we could just wander around at will. It would be very easy to get lost in all the tunnels, hence the guide.

The natural amphitheater:

You can see how deep the rock is:

Sorry, blurry. This is the chapel, which can be used for different functions, including weddings:



You can see erosion here on the chest, which is caused by the constantly dripping ceilings:





That circle on the floor near the volcano mural is a vertical tunnel that goes down, down, down .... it is lighted so you can see how deep it is. I couldn’t look at it for very long - vertigo:

Our Backyard at Sunset

I took these photos yesterday at 5:55 pm. The sun sets so fast here it’s like a ball dropping into the ocean. These photos were taken in our backyard.

Vegetation between our property and the lot next door:

Our coconut tree and my hammock:

San Luis de Grecia

Today we decided to explore another of the five ridges running up to Poas volcano. This was San Luis de Grecia, which apparently is the highest ridge of the five.

San Luis is about 13 kms from our house on the usual twisty and climbing, but paved, road - until it ended at a rough looking dirt road. We turned around here and proceeded back down.

At an elevation of 4,800 ft to 5,000 ft (1,463 m/1524 m), the air is quite cool. The views are stunning, with coffee fincas everywhere. The volcanic ash enriched soils are perfect for growing coffee and other crops. When you look down into the valleys, everything is laid out in perfect order - hedgerows, fields, coffee. 

Here are a few photos.

Clouds hang over some areas:


I don’t do selfies but Lance took this photo of me:

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - December 2018

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

Next is a summary of the weather for the month:

As can be seen, the dry season is now fully upon us. Although there was at least some rain in some parts of the country, there was absolutely no measurable rain where we live.

The 58°F overnight low temperature was the coldest overnight low that we have experienced in the seven plus years we have lived in Costa Rica. There were actually 4 days in December where the temperature dropped below 60°F. In Vista Atenas where we previously lived for most of our time in Costa Rica, the lowest was 59°F and that was on a single occasion in one year only. But, that is probably because the location in Vista Atenas was at a slightly lower elevation and a bit closer to the Pacific Coast than our current location.

A New Year - 2019

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope your Christmas, Hanukkah, Three Kings Day, Winter Solstice, St. Lucia Day and Kwanzaa holidays are enjoyed with family and friends and lots of good food (have I missed any holidays here?).

May 31, 2019, will mark our 8th year living in Costa Rica. The time has flown by and we still love living here. We are now in the dry or “summer” season (verano) and experiencing the strong trade winds known at this time of year as the Christmas winds or vientos Navideños. We did not experience them so much at our little house in Atenas because we were surrounded by trees and down low on the mountain. Here at our house in Hacienda el Paseo, we are much more exposed. I have to watch that my orchids are getting enough water as they dry out so fast. It’s all sunshine and blue, blue skies. This is also the time of year for tourists and the children are out of school until early February. They have another mid-year holiday from July 1 to 13.

Here is a video I made of the enormous Guanacaste tree on a property near us blowing in the strong winds. This tree loses all its leaves during the dry season and you can see that it is on its way to becoming bare.

If you get a message that “full screen is unavailable - learn more” - don’t “learn more”. Just click HERE and carry on.

I have never cooked a holiday dinner and this year was no exception. We joined friends at the San José Marriott Hotel for Christmas brunch - excellent. Lots of Costa Rican dishes.

There are four gate guards that work at our complex, on different shifts during 24 hours, plus a pet rooster. The guards are always friendly and helpful. As a thank you gift for them, I made cookies and they each got a 5 mil note (roughly $10 USD). The rooster received a bag of deluxe chicken feed. Lance saw him chowing down on it, so it was a hit.

There are five ridges around our town of Grecia leading up to Poas volcano. I don’t know all their names but last week we drove up El Cajón ridge. The views are stunning. These photos show the amazing vistas and all the coffee fincas.

From our house to yours, best wishes for the new year.

Current Latin American Music

Here is a music video from Mexico. It is currently hugely popular in Costa Rica and other Latin American countries. Note the presence of a conductor, a symphony orchestra and a choir - not to mention the headliner (Jay de la Cueva).

This is part of the reason why we love Latin America and Costa Rica in particular. Only a few of those living in the last century cannot appreciate the popularity of this kind of music.

https://youtu.be/kcKOd_wy0XI

A New Friend and Prawns

Today we met up with a friend new to Costa Rica - and she wins the Diana Miskell Special Award for reading my entire blog in one sitting. She read my entire blog dating from well before 2011 until now, 2018, in one go! In one night!

This marathon reader contacted us to say she was visiting Costa Rica for six months and would like to meet up with us. She was staying in Grecia, not far from us. So we picked her up this morning and had breakfast in Grecia. Then we went to the central market, which is huge. I had heard of a good place to buy seafood here ... the recommendation called it the Swordfish Guy, because he does sell swordfish and also speaks English.

We accidently found this place ... just by walking around. And when we were asked what we wanted in English, I figured that we were at the right place and we were. I bought a kilo of large prawns, really fresh.

I’m cooking them tonight with rice on the side. Here is the recipe I am following.

https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/spicy-new-orleans-shrimp/