At the Grand Opening of Galería ARTenas this Sunday, 15 October, 10am to 7pm, there will be a drawing for free art items from the gallery participants. And from me you can win this beautiful Flora Accent Pillow with one of my photos of a Bird of Paradise Flower printed on both sides! 🙂
If you are anywhere near Atenas, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica, I hope to see you at the grand opening this Sunday of our new art gallery in Atenas, in Calle 2 Plaza adjacent Linea Vital & Pizzeria La Finca.
Please attend the open house of our new art gallery in Atenas, Alajuela Provincia, Costa Rica, just 12 days away! Sunday, 15 October 2023! It is at the corner of Calle 2 & Avenida 3, beside the new Linea Vital Medical Plaza in the even newer Calle 2 Plaza, 100 meters west of Banco Popular and 50 meters south of La Finca Pizzeria, Crema y Nata & El Rayo. See you there! 🙂
Last week’s early Facebook promotion of our coming art gallery in Atenas.
For what it is worth, the sunset on the top row of the collage is my photo and the Red-eyed Tree Frog on the bottom row is also my photo. Each artist in the gallery got two images for that collage. Tomorrow I will send out the invitation to the Grand Opening on 15 October.
Yesterday I had my house fumigated for insects, mainly for an invasion of two different kinds of ants and believed the treatment would be more effective if I left my house closed up with the fogging and spray overnight and thus not healthy for me to sleep there. So I spent last night at our little neighborhood hotel, Colinas del Sol, which is a group of cabins along with a few larger, long-term rental houses. I was put in Villa 3 and snapped a few shots before the afternoon rain started. I can’t go anywhere without capturing photos of the nature there!
I’m writing this last night and my plans are to enjoy their breakfast included with the room this morning and mid-morning return home to open up and air out the house, with all the ceiling fans on for awhile! 🙂 Then enjoy my ant-free house! And tomorrow’s blog post will return to the continuing reports on Hotel Banana Azul in Caribe Sur! I’m still processing photos with a lot more to share! 🙂
I leave this morning for a mid-day, 30 minute flight back to the Central Valley and will miss the beautiful sunrises of the east coast. Here’s 5 shots made of this morning’s sunrise . . .
The wildlife refuge was Wednesday and the best report on that is my Gandoca-Manzanillo GALLERY. And as a sample, here’s one bird, one butterfly and one “other” wildlife pix! 🙂 PLUS one shot of the cloud covered sunrise this morning. At 8 am today I’m going to Cahuita National Park with a report on that later and tomorrow (Saturday) will be my last day for nature around the hotel which will be reported on even later. A good week! Here’s 4 sample shots from Gandoca and one of sunrise today.
I got similar shots yesterday and this morning with the sun completely hidden behind clouds, but as always, it is still beautiful and no two sunrises are alike! 🙂 Here’s 4 shots from this morning while having my early coffee on the beach! 🙂
And you can take that literally since the Limón Landing Strip in on the Caribbean Beach just south of the provincial capital of Limón with a 25 to 30 minute drive to my Hotel Banana Azul in Puerto Viejo where the owner comes down and welcomes me again! 🙂 Here’s 6 arrival afternoon general shots. Though I’ve started photographing birds & butterflies, I’m saving those for later posts.
Today begins what has become almost an annual tradition of spending a week in the Southern Caribbean of Costa Rica, during September when this rainy rainforest has the least amount of rain. After trying a few other hotels, I’ve settled on Banana Azul as my favorite and it is right on the beach (one of the few!) in a favorite room with balcony overlooking the beach and hotel gardens. It is one of my most relaxing weeks of the year! This Puerto Viejo area is south, near the Panama Border and quite different from my other Caribe fave which is north of the port of Limón and in a great wetlands wildlife national park called Tortuguero.
I have just two morning bird hikes scheduled, one in the Cahuita National Park and the other in Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. Otherwise I just “hangout” at the hotel and beach, walking both the beach and a forested beach road where last year I found a bonanza of butterflies! 🙂
Sunrise at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Limón.
Read on for some of my past creative endeavors from the South Caribbean of Costa Rica . . .
This past Friday was the 15th of September, Independence Day for Costa Rica, when in 1821 it shed the colonial rule of Spain. In this small but very significant little developing country, patriotism is big and almost everyone wears red, white & blue and many decorate their houses with banners and flags. I wore my national futbol (soccer) shirt, red, white & blue! 🙂
And almost every town of any size has a parade, usually featuring their local schools, and Atenas is no exception! 🙂 I have for several years now been photographing it most years (when not traveling) with galleries for those years included in my super-gallery: PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica. Which of course now includes a gallery for this year’s 2023 Desfile del Día de la Independencia, Atenas. And here is a sample photo from each of the 7 sub-galleries in this year’s parade gallery . . .
