“Sometimes people go to extremes and create eccentric, fantastic, obsessive gardens that linger in one’s memory and become tourist meccas.” Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight
Category: Central America
I’m thinking of Nicaragua
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Mark Twain
Costa Rica, Orchids & Ants
Lankester Botanic Garden,
Cartago, Costa Rica
I always photograph orchids, not the ones in grocery stores but in botanic gardens or any orchid exhibitions I visit. I can’t seem to get enough of their vibrant colors and varied shapes. I look at them through the viewfinder to examine the details of their ruffles and wings, to look closely at the tiny faces and figures hidden among the blooms.
This World
“As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.”
Mary Oliver
Cup of Coffee?
I begin my day with a cup of coffee. I’ve been doing so for decades. Over the years, I’ve had it boiled, dripped, pressed, and expressed. I’ve had Cafe au Lait, New Orleans Chicory Coffee, Swedish Egg style, Turkish with cardamom, Cowboy style in an enamel pot, Italian in a tiny cup, and most recently Costa Rican brewed with a Chorreador.
Colorful Moments in 2019
As I look back at my garden travel memories of 2019 the resounding theme is color! We began the year exploring South America, took a September train trip in France, Switzerland, Italy, and took a trip to Central America and Mexico, in December. Everywhere I went I found colorful food, critters, art, and, of course, colorful flowers. These images are from Central and South America, the colors in Europe are equally wonderful but that will have to be another story.