I have a whole gallery of flowers from the Cristal Ballena trip but here’s just five favorites to help brighten your day! 🙂
Flowers to Brighten the Day!
Bye to My Garden for a Few Days
The Yellow Bells have started blooming and maybe the Triquitraque will be when I return with two little blooms already. My stone indigenous guard will watch over all while I’m gone! 🙂 It is always a pleasure to return to my own garden, a different pleasure than the adventure of travel. I love both!
Supermarket Christmas & More!
They usually have a nativity, but for now just this tree and laurels around the entrance.
My 2021 Christmas Photos Gallery
¡Feliz Navidad!
How Costa Ricans Celebrate Christmas . . .
The family that does “Two Weeks in Costa Rica” blog/newsletter has an article about what Ticos do during the holidays which is also “Summer Vacation” from school for all ages with graduations the middle of December and the start of new school year in February. Thus lots of “family vacations” during this time, especially the week between Christmas and New Years when many businesses and factories, etc are closed. The beaches and mountain lodges are full of Ticos that week! Everything is already festive by December 1 with many decorations up and special meal preparations started. Read about it in the Two Weeks guy’s article:
Christmas And New Years In Costa Rica: A Festive Time (“2 Weeks in CR” Blog Page)
Some of My Earlier Posts on CR Christmas . . .
Attending a Tamale-Making Class en Español 2017
This Year’s Mall Christmas Trees 2021 Blog Post
2019 Christmas Trees here
2020 Monkeying Around on Christmas Eve at Arenal Observatory where I will be again next Christmas or 2022. Good lodges like this one are booked solid for Christmas a year ahead. I just made my ’22 reservations.
Birds & Tapir – A Perfect Christmas!
Christmas in Costa Rica 2018 (including a cute TV ad)
Madrigal Renaissance Christmas Banquet 2018 (all expats)
2017 Atenas Christmas Parade – one of the best!
Well . . . too many to list them all! You can do a blog search on “Christmas” for more! 🙂
My 2021 Year in Books Read (Goodreads page).
Merry Christmas! – ¡Feliz Navidad!
¡Pura Vida!
Cloud Cuckoo Land a Must-read for . . .
. . . lovers of stories, books and libraries – the 3 main characters in this multi-layered story of totally different people from the 1450’s all the way through 2020 and to the future in 2164, all impacted by this fictitious lost and found story by a very early Greek writer who called his story “Cloud Cuckoo Land” (in Classical Greek of course!). It touches on so many life issues and about our own future on earth that I won’t try to list them all. You move between the stories of totally different people (ages 12 to 86) affected by Cloud Cuckoo Land (the Greek novel) in Constantinople (1450’s), Bulgaria (1450’s), Idaho (1940’s to 2020), Korea (1950’s), and outer space (2164) so that like his “All the Light” book (just 2 overlapping stories) you can get confused at first (if not more so). Eventually the many complicated pieces of the puzzle start coming together and you too begin to get what all these others are getting from Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is more multi-layered than Anthony Doerr’s previous classic All the Light We Cannot See (Goodreads Reviews), but just as impactful (if not more so) and will certainly become another classic! I highly recommend both books! 🙂
Read some other Goodreads Reviews of this NY Times best seller, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Now I will simplify my reading escapes with another Agatha Christie mystery! 🙂 Rest my simple mind which is still spinning from this read. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
The National Theatre of Costa Rica: A Historic Landmark
Thanks to Tico Times for this good short article and great photos that are so much better than my photos of the theater: https://ticotimes.net/2021/12/10/the-national-theatre-of-costa-rica-a-historic-landmark
¡Pura Vida!
Merry Christmas!
Mall Christmas Trees
City Mall, Alajuela, Alajuela, Costa Rica at San Jose Airport — Photos of two of their Christmas Trees that have been up for weeks!
Dia de la Mascarada Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s answer to the American Halloween tradition is “Day of the Masquerade” or Dia de la Mascarada (Wikipedia article) and today I experienced a tiny fringe of it at my favorite Supermarket . . .
And I have more photos and information . . .
Continue reading “Dia de la Mascarada Costa Rica”Indigenous Meditation?
Ever since the gardeners broke my fragile pottery bird in my garden I have intended to replace it with a more substantial or concrete art and finally did that this week. This particular meditating indigenous man statue is one I’ve seen in some of the lodges I visit and liked, but not available in Atenas or even in the viveros (plant nurseries) of La Garita. My gardener sent me to an outdoor arts business on the outskirts of Naranjo de Alajuela and there I found depictions of the indigenous people of Costa Rica.
I haven’t found out yet if he is intended to be “the thinker” or someone in “some kind of meditation,” but the art style (copied of course) is similar to the Pre-Columbian Diquís Culture statues as a part of the Meso-American Pacific Culture. I like it and think it adds a touch of calm and history or maybe even spirituality to my garden. It is made of concrete, thus not as likely to be broken! 🙂
STREET ART: Nashville
My last post in this Street Art series will be from my last hometown in the states before moving to Costa Rica: Nashville, Tennessee USA (where I lived from 1977-2014 less 3 of those years in The Gambia). As in other places, Street Art was not my focus as a nature photographer, but this is a sampling with some commissioned art I’m sure.
There is so much “purposed” Street Art in Nashville that it leaves not much demand for “graffiti-style” art as you can see in my gallery: Pre-Costa Rica NASHVILLE Photos 1977-2014 within which you can find statues and architectural art along with art projects like the 2010 Bike Rack Sculptures, 2005 Guitars, and 2003 Catfish art objects found all over Nashville! Those are really a type of “Planned Street Art” as are some beautiful special installations like at Music Circle and Riverfront Park included in another gallery Public Art & Statues. Nashville is worth exploring by the art lover! Not to mention some great art museums & galleries! 🙂