¡Pura Vida!
“Music of the ground . . .”
Artisan Birds Christmas Tree
My collection of artisan bird ornaments got pulled out of storage this year and stuck on an ugly artificial tree or bush, but I think that the Latin American Artisan Birds are beautiful, so I created a slideshow of about 20 closeup photos of some of my collection. See them in the online version of this post . . .
See 20 (not all) of my artisan bird collection in the slideshow online . . .
Continue reading “Artisan Birds Christmas Tree”The Eaton’s In Atenas
I had surgery Tuesday morning to remove another skin cancer, this one from my nose! 🙂 So the Eaton’s hung out at their hotel until about 10 when I took them on a walk through Central Atenas but I was not motivated to make many photos for some reason, so I got only the spreading tree in the courtyard of Mercado Central and the vista from Casita del Café the next morning (where with a clear sky you see the Pacific, but not that morning), with all the other Atenas photos in gallery linked from earlier photos I’ve made. Sorry. We ate out for lunch in Crema y Nata Tuesday and other Atenas restaurants the next two nights.
Wednesday we had breakfast on the mountain top and I took a taxi home while Walter took them to a Punta Leona beach to photograph monkeys and other nature and I rested. Click the above link for an idea of what they saw in Atenas. Just the first two photos I made on those two days here. The feature photo at top of post is of the vista from Casita del Café during breakfast there Wednesday morning and the tree photo is from Mercado Central de Atenas on our Tuesday walk.
¡Pura Vida!
Gallery of Costa Rican Art
The inside exhibits this time were all paintings by Costa Ricans and somehow I lacked the motivation to photograph any. Sorry. Here’s just a few of my photos of both the Eaton’s & Huskey’s and of some outside art. To see more of my photos of that gallery see my gallery from an earlier visit: January 2024 Museum of Costa Rican Art with better photos of the museum. It was a tour from the Art House of Atenas I participated in and was feeling better then.
Below is a gallery of 6 shots from that day & lunch at Jalapeños . . .
Continue reading “Gallery of Costa Rican Art”Hosting Tennessee Friends
Old friends from Nashville, Gary & Kenna Eaton and their traveling companions, the Huskey’s, recently visited Costa Rica and I had the privilege of sharing some bits of my adopted country both before and after their 8-day CARAVAN “Costa Rica Natural Paradise” TOUR!
They arrived on November 9, a day early for the tour, and my driver, Walter, and I took them to two favorite museums in San Jose on the 10th, mentioned as a postscript in my post that day. We toured both the Jade Museum and the National Museum that gave them an overview of the country they were about to tour. See the very few photos I made that day in the gallery: Nov 10, Jade & National Museums. To be honest, I’m beginning to be too old and feeble to be a very good host! 🙂 But they were very patient with me and Walter was a wonderful host!
They concluded their tour on the 17th and we saw an art museum before taking the Huskey’s to the airport. Then 5 days with the Eaton’s, which the next few posts will summarize. And eventually I will complete the photo gallery of their visit. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Driftwood: Nature’s “Trash Art”
All natural beaches around the world have driftwood, which usually changes during every tropical storm or other reason for big surf! 🙂 The exception is a rare few beaches near big rich corporate hotels that have driftwood removed to maintain their “pristine” beaches. 🙂
This particular piece of driftwood was on Playa Negra (“Black Beach,” named for the dark volcanic sand there) directly behind Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo and is more like a simple log, partially buried, but it had a nice glow in the early morning sunrise last Saturday along with the color and texture. Of course there are more interesting shapes of driftwood, usually older and often sun-bleached to a light gray, nearly white.
In some coastal towns people display large, unusually shaped pieces of driftwood as works of art in their homes, restaurants and other businesses, both here and in every other coastal area I’ve visited around the world. See the driftwood links below these 2 photos . . .
Here’s some driftwood-related websites I found online:
- Bay Island Museum in India (sculptures & other driftwood art)
- Driftwood Sculptures on Pinterest
- Coastal Driftwood – items made out of driftwood on Etsy
- Driftwood Wall Art available on Amazon dot com
- Driftwood Girl, artist’s Facebook Page
- Coastal Driftwood Designs, artist’s Facebook Page
- DIY Driftwood Art YouTube Video (19 min) to make your own!
- Driftwood Upcycled, a silly DIY YouTube video by 2 girls (2 min)
¡Pura Vida!
This Morning’s Sunrise
No two are alike and none disappoint me! 🙂 And they may be the highlights of my time here this year as my aches and pains are keeping the beach road walks short and have caused me to cancel my planned hikes in the two national parks nearby. But the hotel manager said he would take me to the end of the beach road in his car tomorrow morning. 🙂 This morning’s short walk on the beach road gave me very few bird or butterfly photos, which I will share in another blog post tonight. Here’s a slide show of 8 sunrise shots from this morning (no 2 of them alike either!) and I will be sharing more from each morning plus non-blog photos will be in a gallery later.
SLIDE SHOW . . .
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón 
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón 
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón 
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón 
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón 
Sunrise Wed, 2 Oct 2024, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón
¡Pura Vida!
2 Charlie Photos in Auction Tomorrow!
for the Democrats Abroad Fundraiser & Voter Help . . .
Photos of 250 species of butterflies with index of common names in English and scientific names in Latin.
Both of these have a minimum bid well below the retail price, but of course the fundraisers hope you will bid much higher! 🙂 The silent auction is from 1-4 tomorrow, 30 September 2024, at Huaraches Atenas Mexican Restaurant, with auction winners announced promptly at 4 pm. If you are a U.S. citizen and don’t know how to vote from abroad, people will help you. And if you have prepared your overseas ballot for mailing but don’t trust the post office, then people can take your mail-ready ballot and deliver it to the U.S. Embassy for their mail pouch to the states. And while you are there, bid on some of the many wonderful things in the auction including one of my wall art photos and one of my photo books! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
– Lord George Gordon Byron, 1813
9 more photos below . . .
Continue reading “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods”2024 Oxcart Parade
I finally got all those photos sorted, culled, and processed to create a nice gallery for this year’s Oxcart Parade, my first since 2018! You can click the image below of the first page of that gallery or go to this address . . . https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/PEOPLE/2024-08-11-OXCART-PARADE
Or below is one sample photo from each category gallery . . .
Continue reading “2024 Oxcart Parade”