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.
Museum of Cost Rican Artists, in the old 1940’s downtown airport terminal building.
Below is a gallery of 6 shots from that day & lunch at Jalapeños . . .
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!
Walter does a “Selfie” with our group between the Jade and National Museums of Costa Rica.
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. 🙂
It is tempting to call this a Green Iguana, but those do not live in my garden and these do! 🙂 The babies and juveniles of both species are very much alike, so location determines this ID. I see them in my garden a lot! And their parents & big brothers & sisters walk around on my roof and climb the trees! 🙂
Juvenile Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
See more of my many photos of this species in my GALLERY: Black Spiny-tailed Iguana. And oh yeah, the scientific name is: Ctenosaura similis.
I’ve seen this large daytime moth several times in my garden & house and the only other place was at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge near Golfito on the Pacific Coast. The other day I saw two, one on my Cecropia Tree and another injured one hiding among plants in my garden. When not wanting to be seen, they are this plain beigey brown color with off-white spots and bars. But when they fly or lift their forward wings, the hindwings are a bright orange and white. You can see this from earlier sightings in my GALLERY: Giant Butterfly Moth, Castniomera atymnius (linked to the gallery). Just two shots here from this November sighting.
Giant Butterfly Moth, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaGiant Butterfly Moth on Cecropia Tree trunk, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Regular noisy visitors all around my house that I haven’t been trying to photograph much recently. Interesting chicken-sized “chatterboxes.” 🙂 The Gray-headed Chachalaca, Ortalis cinereiceps (linked to my gallery). Here he is in my slowly dying Cecropia Tree that I will replace in another year or so.
Gray-headed Chachalaca, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Another new species for me in my gardens during October was the Large Orange Sulphur, Phoebis agarithe. My collection is growing with over 300 species now!
Large Orange Sulphur, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
¡Pura Vida!
A Day with Friends Starting the Caravan Tour of CR
Gary & Kenna Eatons, friends from my Nashville days, began their tour of Costa Rica with Caravan Tours yesterday coming a day early for a tour of two great museums Sunday in San Jose led my me and my driver/guide Walter, who took his selfie here with our group in front of the National Museum (the yellow building). The other couple, the Huskey’s, are friends of the Eaton’s, also from Nashville. And I took a few other cell phone photos in a gallery: Two Museums Tour.
When their tour ends next Sunday morning, Walter & I will take them on an art museum tour before taking the Huskey’s to the airport and bringing the Eaton’s to Atenas for an extended visit of Costa Rica with me and Walter. 🙂
I love the name of this butterfly, which is maybe descriptive of all butterflies! 🙂 The Whirlabout, Polites Vibex (my gallery link) is a plain light orange skipper when his wings are folded, but open like in this photo on a Zinnia, he is a colorful bright orange. He is seen in the SE U.S. south through the West Indies and Central America down to Argentina.
My landlord “K” has really brightened his other properties with Zinnia flower beds and thus hundreds of butterflies for his tenants, especially in his two AirBNB short-term rentals where tourists and short-term visitors will be thrilled with the butterflies. Then he recently had his gardener plant a little patch along our driveway next to my upper garden of Porterweeds. So now I have two different major attractions for butterflies. Here’s just one shot with a slide show online including some shots with butterflies on them! 🙂 And one with a ladybug! 🙂
I saw this simple little guy with his distinctive three squarish spots two or three times in October and here’s just two of the photos with more to be seen in my Brazilian Skipper Gallery. As the butterfly season slows down here (peak time for me is May-September) I am seeing less of the more colorful butterflies and many more of the skippers. I just roughly counted more than 20 species of skippers photographed in October this year! And around 4 or 5 were new species for me! This one was not new but is a nice little Skipper that is also seen in a good portion of the states.
. . . are almost no one’s favorite wildlife, even though they are an important part of ecology and eliminate other less desirable insects. I try to photograph many of them that I see at home and when traveling which can be seen in my Spider Gallery of photos. Here’s two of the lastest seen at my house, one inside and one outside . . .
Genus Kiekie Spider, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaGolden Orbweaver Spider, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
