“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”— Judy Garland, “Over the Rainbow”
Photo of Breakfast Rainbow today at
¡Pura Vida!
Over the Rainbow
Hotel Art
I love it when a hotel collects art from local artists and displays it throughout their buildings and grounds. Cristal Ballena is another one of those hotels!
Because of the number of photos, I chose to divide the art into two categories, with the garden art heavily influenced by the local indigenous people, the Boruca tribe, sans their many ceremonial masks they make mainly for tourist sales now (many in the hotel gift shop!). And the indoor art that is a mixture of traditional and contemporary paintings/objects, mostly influenced by nature.
Art is subjective, so draw your own conclusions 🙂
Cristal Ballena Garden Art
Cristal Ballena Inside Art
“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin (of the Comic Strip)
🙂
¡Pura Vida!
See also my photo gallery: PEOPLE, FIESTAS & ARTS Costa Rica
Or more photos from this trip gallery: 2019-September 13-21–Cristal Ballena, Uvita
🙂
Retired in Costa Rica
Green & Black Poison Dart Frog
We seem to have a lot of these neat tropical frogs here at Banana Azul, one of 7 different species of “Poison Dart Frogs” in Costa Rica. Read about them on Wikipedia. Or see my other photos of them at Poison Dart Frogs: Green & Black. or my whole Amphibians gallery.
Why are frogs so happy? They eat whatever bugs them!
¡Pura Vida!
See also my TRIP GALLERY: 2019 Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo
Sunrise Costa Rica
Good morning Costa Rica! It’s another beautiful day! Here’s today’s sunrise from the beach at Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo, Caribe Sur. And if you like photos of sunrises and sunsets, check out my gallery: Vistas and while I post I’m watching a Gray-cowled Woodrail build a nest just below my terrace. Cool!
Saturday Sunrise
“Good morning . . . It will smile at you if you smile at it”
¡Pura Vida!
Organic Gardens Today
It is called Finca la Isla Permaculture Farm and Botanical Gardens. It reminded me of the old hippie organic gardening farms we had a few of across the states. Though they were picking fruit for tomorrow morning’s Farmers’ Market, they obviously aren’t making much money at farming or with tourist visits. The only other visitor there this morning was a really nice Indian Doctor/Surgeon from Trinidad who drove me to my hotel after our visit and snack of fresh fruits. He grows tropical fruits in Trinidad as a hobby and was collecting seeds from Costa Rica. Interesting! I continue to have such serendipity people experiences like him and the French family at the Sloth Sanctuary yesterday! It’s a small world in Costa Rica! 🙂
Botanical Gardens Photos
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
— Alfred Austin
!Pura Vida!
To Bless the Space Between Us
That is the title of the latest book I am reading To Bless the Space Between Us by John Donohue, which is a book of Celtic Blessings. With this collection of blessings and his discussion I see how anyone can be a blessing to me and how I in turn can bless anyone. 🙂
It might be summed up in 3 lines from his printed “House Blessing:”
“May you have the eyes to see
That no visitor arrives without a gift
And no guest leaves without a blessing.”
~John Donohue
And thus I leave in the morning to the airport with my driver Cristian who’s positive spirit always blesses me and I end up later in the morning at one of the most welcoming and relaxing of all hotels in Costa Rica, Hotel Banana Azul, Puerto Viejo.
After a delicious breakfast on their patio watching birds, I will walk down the beach to central Puerto Viejo (I always arrive too early for my room to be ready, so I leave my bags and do my first photo-walk). 🙂 Yes, this is an annual pilgrimage for me – always full of blessings!
In this quaint little Caribbean town I will walk, greet people, and discover new beauty every few meters, to behold and photograph both as art and pura vida people blessing me! I hope in my first walk to find focus on this year’s set of Caribe photos and the photo book to follow, as I record the beauty of the “graciousness of the destination,” inspired by another John Donohue quote shared last week:
“When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.”
-John O’Donohue
People Who Blessed Me Last Year
May I accept each of their blessings and may I bless them!
Join me on my journey as I blog blessings daily from Puerto Viejo.
¡Pura Vida!
NEW Butterfly Gallery
For the butterfly lovers who have visited my photo gallery of butterflies, you may have found it “busy” or confusing or difficult to navigate through and find specific butterflies. I have now fixed that. I have wanted to add multiple shots of the same species and did some but that made for more photos to wade through. It was 205 photos and growing! Difficult!
NOW I have a separate gallery or sub gallery for each species all grouped together in a “folder” gallery for all butterflies. The above feature photo is the first page of the alphabetically arranged butterflies. You can more easily skim through the 76 sub galleries and open only the one you are looking for. It will make my butterfly gallery useful to people wanting to ID a butterfly in Costa Rica or just find a photo of a particular butterfly. I’ve seen other Costa Rica butterfly galleries by hobbyist like me and personally think mine is the best! 🙂
https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/OTHER-WILDLIFE/Butterflies-Moths
This means that a lot of links in my blog posts will be to the old gallery which I am temporarily leaving up. I hope to tackle the big job of going through all references to the old gallery and change the link! Whew! Not a global fix for that!
Tuesday Birds
The little trip to the beach gave me some different birds than the many toucans & macaws around the hotel, plus I saw a new type of Euphonia today in a tree off my room terrace, just not a good photo, but a “lifer” for me! (First time to see that species.) Only 6 birds but interesting ones:
Tuesday Birds
CLICK image to enlarge.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
~Rabindranath Tagore
¡Pura Vida!
Nature is . . .
Nature is what we see – the hill, the afternoon, squirrel, eclipse, the bumblebee. Nay, nature is heaven. Nature is what we hear…
~Emily Dickinson
Above is this morning’s photo of a Variegated Squirrel at Xandari Nature Resort (link to their website) or see my photos of last year’s visit here.
¡Pura Vida!
Birthday Retreat Tomorrow
Monday morning Walter will drive me to Xandari Nature Resort, just about an hour away, north of our Provincial Capital, Alajuela (location of San Jose Airport) for my second visit to a very “arty” nature reserve, farm and hotel made the way I think Frank Lloyd Wright would have designed it! And every room and garden is filled with art!
The gardens, nature trails (many birds) and 5 waterfalls are fabulous as are all the meals and the Spa where you can have a private Jacuzzi overlooking the Central Valley, as will my room! Though I will be hiking and birding every morning, this is more of a relaxation retreat than some of my trips and I might even get a relaxation massage! 🙂
I was there last July: 2018-July-14-18–Xandari Nature Resort (photos)
I made a photo book on that trip too: Xandari: Enchanted by Nature with the book cover my featured photo at top today. 🙂
I do believe that I have the best possible retirement that anyone could have! 🙂 And I’m guaranteed a Happy Birthday too! 🙂
My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.
~Claude Monet
¡Pura Vida!