Granada Archives - Retired in Costa Rica

March 28, 2024March 26, 2024

My Most Memorable Semana Santa

Semana Santa is Spanish for “Holy Week” or “Easter Week” if you prefer and my most memorable and colorful one since moving to Costa Rica was 8 years ago (2016, my 2nd year here) while on a birding tour of Nicaragua and during Semana Santa I was for 3 days in the historical colonial town of Grenada where from my old hotel across from the oldest church I could watch the nightly processionals that along with architecture and the later 87 species of birds photographed made it my most colorful and memorable Easter Week here! (Linked to my photo gallery of that week.)

Easter Week Pageantry, 2016, Granada, Nicaragua

He is Risen!

¡Pura Vida!

October 20, 2021October 18, 2021

STREET ART: Granada, Nicaragua

The fear of the Police probably stops most graffiti and street art in Nicaragua, especially in Manaus, but in the little tourist town of Colonial Granada on Lake Nicaragua I found these two works of street art on the sides of buildings. See my Gallery of other shots in Granada, a beautiful, photogenic, colonial town or at bottom of post, links to all of my two trips photos.

DISCLAIMER: “Street Art” for this series is paintings and tile work along streets, usually on buildings, that may or may not have been commissioned or done “illegally” without permission. I have no way of knowing. I purposefully did not include public statues, fountains, etc. obviously sanctioned by the government.

“Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.”
— Banksy

If interested in Nicaragua, see all of my photos from two trips there in 2016, mostly for birding, but other local photography included:

2016 June 28-30
2016 March 22-30

¡Pura Vida!

April 20, 2016

The “Other World-ness” of a Colonial Town

A Corridor Invites You to
Step into the 15th Century.

Am I in Europe? Spain?
View of Cathedral de Granada from Bell Tower of La Merced Church

A Magical Sunset
without extreme light pollution.

An “Old Fashion” Funeral

Crowded Market Street
as in all third world countries even today and inside the mercado
can only be experienced in person with the smells, sounds, jostling, goods.
The majority of the world!

This is a tinge of what I experience in Nicaragua which would still be considered by most as “3rd World,” whatever that means. While Costa Rica would probably be called “2nd World” which is also not an official description. We have our poverty and crowded streets and old-fashion markets with some of the same smells and sounds, but without the colonial color much of Central America has. There is a long, complicated historical explanation of why Spain did not build a lot of colonial buildings in Costa Rica, other than churches. And today’s Ticos love to consider their country progressive with a NASA astronaut, big businesses and shiny new shopping malls. I have to go to small rural villages to experience even some of what I did in Nicaragua. And I do!

I’ll try to stop talking about Nicaragua now, so maybe these are the last photos I will share. There is the oxcart parade in Atenas this weekend, so a refocus back here! 🙂

Oxcart
Sharing the road with all kinds of vehicles in Nicaragua!

These and other photos are now in my online gallery: Nicaragua Birding Trip 2016.

March 31, 2016

2 Motmots & 1 Kingfisher in Nicaragua

Tourquoise-browed Motmot was common at Montibelli Reserve, Nicaragua

Blue-crowned Motmot at Montibelli Reserve, Nicaragua

Blue-crowned Momot taking a dust bath at El Jaguar Reserve, Nicaragua

Read About Motmots on Wikipedia

Belted Kingfisher on Lake Nicaragua at Granada, Nicaragua

Belted Kingfisher Flying, Lake Nicaragua

Read About Kingfishers on Wikipedia

March 23, 2016

Too Much Seen to Report it All!

Today’s Volcano Mombucho has many more photos but I’m settling for the orchid growing near the top! Yesterday’s boating trip had about 20 different species of birds photographed and I’m settling on just the Limpkin, my first to see or photograph in the wild! Plus one of the monkeys we saw on an island. And at dinner tonight more Holy Week pageantry. Tomorrow after breakfast I leave on my birding tour, so in the rainforests the next 6 days. And MAY NOT HAVE INTERNET MUCH OF THE NEXT WEEK.

Orchid growing wild on Volcan Mombucho

Limpkin camouflaged in tree on Lake Nicaragua

Monkey eating apple on an island in Lake Nicaragua

Tonight’s Semana Santa pageantry in addition to a carnival at the church.
Again with the large volunteer brass band playing and parading with the above through streets.

It’s an awesome place!