One is a butterfly and the other maybe the busiest week in Costa Rica.
Crimson Patch Butterfly, Guayabo Lodge, Turrialba, Cartago, Costa Rica – A “Bokeh” Photo!
Crimson Patch Butterfly
This butterfly is one I photographed at Guayabo Lodge last week and my first time for it! I had earlier mistaken a Bordered Patch for this species, but the big difference is the two-toned orange on the underside of wing. 🙂 See my new Crimson Patched Gallery and to compare the two, my older Bordered Patch Gallery. Even though the photo above is of a damaged butterfly, I like that photo better than the next one below because of the better soft background which I just learned yesterday from another blog is called a “Bokeh” photo – “. . . defined as ‘the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject, using a fast lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or wider.’ Simply put, bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of out-of-focus blur in a photograph.” ~nikonusa.com
I think it was the same day I posted the recent park update that they added an electrified SUN sculpture to their concrete structure. I know it is electric because my taxi drove by it on the way home from dinner Saturday night and it was lit up a bright yellow! 🙂 Kind of shocking in a small country town, like a gas station sign downtown! 🙂
I got some daytime photos this morning and I plan to go back tonight to get a night photo before posting this, if still lit behind the construction fence. I hope they don’t cheapen the park with too much “neon” color and lights. I suspect now that the ATENAS letters will be lit up also, in their bright red color. I guess it will add to the party spirit of the many fiestas, concerts, festivals, dances, etc. that will take place in the park after Covid! I just hope the new, very modern park does not eliminate all of the quiet, sophisticated places in nature that it has had. We will see! Maybe a little of both! 🙂 If it helps people interact, then that is good! 🙂 And recently lots of people are using the park as it is while still wearing their masks! There’s always a group of old men talking and after school a lot of both children and teenagers.
Adding “El Sol” or the Sun to Central Park Atenas.
For the last year or two I’ve worked hard a preparing good, healthy meals at home from making 8-servings of spaghetti with meat (eating 1 & freezing 7 for future meals) to multiple recipes of homemade vegetable soup to help me eat more veggies, last week a yummy Chick Peas Salad from a Washington Post Recipe and also last week a 7-layer dip (mostly veggies). And I do breakfast at home all but one morning a week with 3 or 4 fruits, nuts, whole grains in either bread, hot or cold cereal or French Toast, saving my omelets for some dinners! 🙂
But living solo, I still like to eat out and I’m now trying to find more restaurants that I like while some I liked closed during Covid. So I was a little surprised to see two new ones open in the last few weeks, one serving everything from pizza & burgers to steaks & seafood and the other one our first “genuine” Mexican Restaurant:
They usually have a nativity, but for now just this tree and laurels around the entrance.
La Coope Supermercado, Atenas
Entrance to my favorite supermarket, La Coope, operated by the local coffee farmers’ cooperative. I try to keep my money local. 🙂 The other big supermarket is “Maxi-Pali,” a Walmart-owned junk store.
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:
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.
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 . . .
Dia de la Mascarada a La Coope Supermercado Parking Lot
Only great books deserve “re-reading” and The Hobbit (Wikipedia link), the 1937 published book by JRR Tolkien, is certainly one of those! I just finished reading it again on my Kindle and of course discovered “new stuff” not in my memory! He pretty much introduces a new character or creature in every chapter and then brings them all back together for the epic “Battle of Five Armies” at the end of the story.
Cover of The Hobbit on Kindle.
I will not write a full or formal review but just share some first impressions and personal feelings on the re-read of a favorite book, which I followed by a re-watch of the 3-movies version of the book . . .
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
~Aaron Rose
🙂
When I searched my old photos, all made before moving to Costa Rica in 2014, I quickly chose 125 photos without even going through all and decided to stop looking. Then I made cuts down to 40 photos that had “the right light” and I considered “extraordinary” and still too many! 🙂 I arbitrarily told myself “No more than 20!” (hopefully fewer) and the last cuts were the most difficult! 🙂 So forgive me for doing a post with 20 photos, but the chosen ones are all below in a gallery where you can click an image to see it larger. The feature photo in the header is my favorite Clouded Leopard shot from Nashville Zoo and this sample below for the email recipients (who have to click “Read More” to continue) is one of many extraordinary shots from 2 safaris in the Masai Mara . And these are not necessarily favorites but seem to fit in these two locations. 🙂
African Elephants taking their Children to bed for the night, Masai Mara Reserve, Kenya.
Some of you know that I prefer traveling solo; maybe it’s selfish or maybe it’s the results of 20 years of marriage. 🙂 I also enjoy eating solo, reading my Kindle or just observing what surrounds me. Occasionally in the informal lodges people invite me to join them at their table and never wanting to offend, I often accept. This group from Florida asked me to join them on the second night and I think I told them I would, but for dinner only, since I liked to read at breakfast and lunch. They have also invited others to their table like this couple from St. Thomas with a teen son. It’s been interesting as long as I ignore political statements! 🙂 Our waitress made this image on a couple of our cellphones for us last night.
Like pretty much everywhere in Costa Rica (except San Jose) all our meals here are open air, just under a roof because of mucho rain! 🙂
Like me recovering from cancer and the just-as-bad cancer treatment, this pitiful-looking damaged butterfly is still flying and eating! 🙂 He is a Ilus swallowtail or Dual-spotted swallowtail, Mimoides ilus (Wikipedia link) and note that it is very similar to another butterfly that I originally labeled this as, the Emerald-patched Cattleheart. The main difference is the Cattleheart has emerald or light-green spots on the upper wings instead of white as this Swallowtail has. (And by the way, Cattlehearts are in the Swallowtail family!) See my Dual-spotted Swallowtail Gallery or all of my CR Butterflies. Note that in the additional photos below this feature image there is one of a non-damaged Dual-spotted that got in my house on the window screen before I opened it and let him fly out.
Damaged Dual-spotted Swallowtail, Atenas, Costa Rica
And some more shots including of one not damaged (+ health update) . . .
Friday and Saturday (after I’ve gone back to Atenas) the hotel is hosting another concert weekend featuring Debi Nova singing on Friday night from the stage in the swimming pool! Since the Ministry of health is not allowing public venue concerts because of Covid, the hotel gets around that by renting rooms with balconies overlooking the swimming pool, priced by quality of view! 🙂 And a max of 4 to a room. The above link on hotel’s site has photos of earlier concerts with people watching from balconies and below is this Friday’s singer Debi Nova . . .
Debi Nova
There won’t be a crowd of thousands but a fun experience for a lot of young adults I’m sure and a tiny boost to one of the many hotels suffering from the Pandemic lack of tourists. Below are my photos of the setup as it looked on Thursday and I won’t be here to photograph the concert. 🙂 . . .
