Tranquilo Banana Azul

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Banana Azul is maybe my most relaxing hotel in Costa Rica or certainly the Caribbean, thus I focused on the tranquility of nature there with several sunrise photos along with birds and other nature!   🙂   Click this link or the cover image below to see a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages of the book. As always, full screen mode is better for photos!   🙂

https://www.blurb.com/b/9637630-tranquilo-banana-azul

Tranquilo Banana Azul

 

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”   ~ Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

Sunrise

Sunday, 1 September, 2019

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.” 
― Roman Payne

¡Pura Vida!

Banana Azul

See my Trip Gallery for this trip:  2019 Banana Azul or more sunrises in my Vistas Gallery – Today is my last full day here. Back to Atenas tomorrow.

Sunrise Costa Rica

Good morning Costa Rica!  It’s another beautiful day! Here’s today’s sunrise from the beach at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Caribe Sur. And if you like photos of sunrises and sunsets, check out my gallery:  Vistas  and while I post I’m watching a Gray-cowled Woodrail build a nest just below my terrace. Cool!

Saturday Sunrise

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“Good morning . . .  It will smile at you if you smile at it”

¡Pura Vida!

Good Morning!

I finally got up early enough for sunrise on the beach – wow! I won’t miss anymore!   🙂

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Before the sun actually rises may be my favorite time.

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With more red and yellow, it is about to rise!
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The first peek of the sun and the sky’s ablaze!
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Soon it becomes too much, too bright to photograph – sunrise on Atlantic coast of Costa Rica.

 

“I opened two gifts this morning. They were my eyes.”

 

¡Pura Vida!

@ Banana Azul

Beach Afternoon

I know – it is not like “Hyper Charlie” to just sit or lay on a beach for any length of time when there are things to chase with my camera – but I did after deciding to postpone my trip to the Sloth Rescue Center until tomorrow. The hotel is not full (low season) and the big group here went white water rafting today, so only me and one young couple on the beach and one bored young hotel waiter from whom I ordered a Strawberry-Pineapple-Mango Smoothie and talked for an hour or more about birds, sloths, and his old beat up Hyundai. He was glad to have someone to talk with.  🙂

I also read about three chapters in my latest Agatha Christie mystery, so a nice afternoon chilling out, watching the ocean and I even got these photos!    🙂

Beach Afternoon

Now it is raining again and so refreshing . . .   as I sit on my big deck with my computer! Next is a great dinner tonight!   🙂

My “Howler Suite” deck which partly overlooks the beach at far right. Best room here!
  • An ocean breeze puts a mind at ease. …

Banana Azul

¡Pura Vida!

Breakfast Color

These 4 species of birds were finding their breakfast as I ate mine on the patio of Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica this morning. How fortunate I am to live and travel in such a beautiful, peaceful little country!  ¡Pura Vida!

Breakfast at Banana Azul

“The sky’s gone blue: azure, the ocean bluer: cerulean, the trees are swirls of every hella freaking green on earth and bright thick eggy yellow is spilling over everything.” 
― Jandy Nelson, I’ll Give You the Sun

🙂

 ¡Pura Vida!

First Day Photos

I guess this is becoming typical of me, too many photos the first day of a trip. There just seems to be so many photo possibilities that I can’t stop. To not look overwhelming, I’ve grouped them into slideshows. Pick the one that interests you!   🙂

Hotel Banana Azul

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Flowers – Hotel & Puerto Viejo

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Puerto Viejo

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Airplane Shots

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Hotel Banana Azul Website

¡Pura Vida!

Senior Adults Dancing, Alajuela

That’s Costa Rican Senior Adults! And most love to dance, but to “their kind of music” and not what the young people have today.

So . . . on my way to pick up a package at Aeropost in Alajuela today I walk by a happy and lively Central Park Alajuela with a Marimba Band playing “their kind of music!” A few cell phone snapshots and I move on for my package and a Tex Mex lunch at Jalopeños Central. As I rushed by the park at 2:20 for my 2:30 bus the music and dancing was still going on! Pura Vida!

It is at the same place I photographed some young people break dancing a month or two ago.    🙂

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Marimba Music is common and popular here among older people.
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You don’t have to have a partner to dance!

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We have this in Atenas too, I just haven’t been looking for it lately.
For more culture photos see my photo gallery PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS CR.

 

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”
~Martha Graham

 

¡Pura vida!

An Adventure of Beauty

“When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.”

-John O’Donohue

One week from today I return to the Costa Rica South Caribbean (Atlantic Coast South of Limón) for my 5th trip there, not counting 3 other visits to the North Caribbean (North of Limón or Tortuguero NP).

I’ve been “mulling over” (That’s a late 1800’s English idiom meaning “to think about” or “to ponder.”) what my photography focus would be this time (see previous focuses below–mainly birds!). I originally thought I was going during Carnival week, but got the dates confused (It’s the last week of October not August) so Carnival is no longer the theme for my photos and ultimately a photo book.  🙂   Here’s my previous South Caribe galleries & books:

Browsing Blurb’s Bookstore travel and art photography books (for ideas) I came across the above quotation by John O’Donohue in a book and decided next week’s destination is such a “gracious” place (both the Hotel Banana Azul and the Caribe) that the friendly, loving, kind graciousness of the place will make it truly an “adventure of beauty!” So now my mind is running in a thousand directions of how I can photograph that gracious beauty!

Of course there’s the beauty of nature as my sunrise photo above from another year depicts. The graciousness of the people there presents opportunities for grand portraits or activity shots. While the graciousness of the sea, or the forest, or the wildlife, or the plants . . . oh my, oh my – the destination becomes so gracious!

Soon I start my next adventure of beauty!  ¡Pura Vida!   🙂

 

I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.”

~John O’Donohue

¡Pura Vida! 

Rusty-tipped Page

The Rusty-tipped Page (Siproeta epaphus)  was a new butterfly for me last Christmas in Manuel Antonio and today was my second time to see one, right here in my own garden! (These photos made after breakfast on my terrace this morning.)

See my other photos of him in my gallery or if you want more information about this species, see the excellent Wikipedia article or an article on Butterflies and Moths of North America, though rarely seen even in the southern portions of North America above Mexico.

It is basically a year-around Central American butterfly with a few getting into northern South America and southern North America, though they are readily  in Mexico which I think is technically North America.   🙂   A very beautiful and interesting butterfly that the websites say is common here, though I’ve seen it only twice now.

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Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.

~Hans Christian Andersen

 

See also my photo gallery Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!