Monthly Archives: August 2011

Yesterday I got the opportunity to meet two dog lovers who are as passionate as I am about those four legged heart stealers   A few months ago I was contacted through my blog by a young man asking if I could recommend a veterinarian here in Puerto Viejo.  His twelve year old black lab named Maggie was not doing well and he wanted to find a trustworthy vet.  I recommended my vet and he brought Maggie down.  A few weeks later Maggie passed away.  Early last week, he contacted me to let me know he was now looking for a new dogfriend and asked me to let him know if I heard of a dog needing a good home.  I decided to post his inquiry on a buy/sell facebook page we have here in Puerto Viejo and that same day was contacted by a wonderful woman named Iris.  Three months ago she rescued a dog that she thought was about six months old who was starving on the beach.  The dog was unable to stand because he was so badly starved.  She quickly took her two dogs home and ran back to the beach to get the dog.  She got it to the vet and nurtured it into a most beautiful and loving animal.  She may have to leave Costa Rica and felt that the best thing for him would be to find him a good home.  I gave them each other’s contact information and the rest is history.  The young man came to Puerto Viejo yesterday on the bus and I took the two of them back to his farm north of Cahuita.  It was very hard for Iris to give the dog up but she could tell that Clay was a dog lover through and through and so that may have made it a bit easier.  At any rate, Snickers (now Stegner) will be living the life of a very pampered friend.  He deserves it!!

It has been an interesting couple of weeks here in Puerto Viejo.  Two weeks ago the government decided that it was time to go forward with enforcing an order that was initiated in 1993 to demolish two hotels in our area.  It had been determined many years ago that both of the hotel had been defying the environmental laws and had contaminated both the ocean and the rain forest around their areas.  Due diligence allowed them to remain open for years.  However, all appeals ran out early this month and the bulldozers arrived to raze the hotels – accompanied by 200 or so policemen from around the country.  Before the police arrived, blockades were set up (by cutting down trees to fall across the road) so that the bulldozers could not reach their destination.  It was an exciting few days here in our laid back little town and the controversy will go on for some time as to who is right or wrong.  Tom and I will continue to take everything with a grain of salt on both sides………….

A friend of Tom’s from the University of Idaho came to visit last week.  He is a law professor from UI who came to Heredia in the central valley to teach a course on how the laws in different countries complement (or don’t) each other.  He finished his classwork last week so came over to our side of the country of a few days of R&R.  It was such fun to meet him and hear of his experiences.  He is not a novice visitor – he has been here many times – but this was his first visit to Puerto Viejo.  He definitely was enjoying himself and we are hoping that he and his wife will decide to come back for respite in the next couple of years  

Other than than that we have been tending to our amazing garden, snorkeling whenever the ocean is calm, and trying to catalog new birds that come into our yard.  Oh – and watching Sofi grow up.  She is almost six months old!!!

The first bananas from our very own yard!

Our newest batch of Heliconias

Ditto

Iguana hanging out in our tree

  Looking at the house from the backyard

Hummingbird on a Heliconia