Lily pads

I doubt that Claude Monet ever made it to Costa Rica, but if he had been able to visit, he would have found lots of water lilies to paint.

This week we have photos of Punahka, Bhutan, posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Who has been eating this leaf, and why are they so neat about it?

The straight lines of these holes evidently made by insects struck me a s strange.  It looks like someone took the leaf, folded it over a bunch of times, then used a hole puncher.

Somewhere there is a mother insect who has taught her children to be very neat and careful when eating.

This week we are showing some photos of a very old district of Rabat, Morocco on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Giant elephant's umbrella leaf

This is a view from one of the walkways at La Paz Waterfall Gardens looking down on the canopy of the forest below.  It provides an unusual perspective on the giant leads of the elephant ear plant.

This week we are showing some additional photos from Ethiopia on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

A tender blossom in the rain forest

The tiny spindly elements of this blossom int he jungle attracted my eye, but were difficult to photograph.  This is just one example of how scouting for photographs makes one more observant of the details of nature.

In keeping with the holiday sprint, we are showing photos of the spirituality of the people of Nicaragua.on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Spotted leaf

It looks likes a bug must be eating this spotted leaf in the cloud forest.  I am sure that it plays a small role in the circle of life for whatever is this role of this type of plant and inect causes

This week we are showing photos of the spirituality of the people of Nicaragua on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Giant leaves in the cloud forest

At the La Paz Waterfall Gardens it is possible to look down on the cloud forest as it plunges into the ravine through which the river and waterfalls slice through the jungle.

This is similar to the views of the cloud forest available from canopy walks in places like Monteverde.

A couple of weeks ago I showed a photo of the giant leaves of the elephant's umbrella plant.  This photo shows how the plant is well adapted to compete for the rain and sunshine with the blanket of other jungle plants that cover the forest floor.

This week we are showing photos of the people of Ethiopia on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Fiery Red Ginger

This fiery fed ginger is one of the many delightful tropical plants that one commonly encounters in Costa Rica.

This week photos of the architecture of Ronda, Spain, posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Elephant's Umbrella Leaf

This huge leaf is called an elephant's ear.  It is about one yard (one meter) in diameter.  I took this photo while on a little day trip up into the mountains from San Jose, although we also have these plants at lower elevations near our beach condos in Tamarindo.

Comment about the Criminal Conviction of Tom Brady's Bodyguards:  In my post two days ago I commented about the declining homicide rate and the lack of gun ownership in Costa Rica.  Here is another item from the newspaper.

A Costa Rican court has just convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison two of the former bodyguards for U.S. football star Tom Brady and his Brazilian model wife, Gisele Bundchen.  When they were in Costa Rica for their wedding in 2009, the bodyguards confronted two photographers who worked for a French press agency who were photographing the wedding from a neighbor's property, with permission of the neighbor.

When the two photographers refused to surrender the cameras and memory cards to the bodyguards and returned to their car, the bodyguards shot out the rear window of their car.  No one was hurt, but the two bodyguards were just convicted of attempted murder.

This week photos of the architecture of Ronda, Spain, posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Fern leaf study

After my disappointment in yesterday's photo, I looked at the photo a little more and decided it might be possible to salvage a passable photo by cropping the lower left corder of the photo.

I definitely like this photo better.

When Julie and I travel she has a good eye looking at our photos of street scenes or groups of people and  finding smaller segments of the photos that are better when viewed alone rather than with the rest of the scene.

News Update Re Foreign Trade:  Yesterday the World Bank issued a report that said that Costa Rica accounts for 40% of all of the exports under the Central America (and Dominican Republic) Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR)  with the United States.  This is a huge success story for the Costa Rican economy.

The diversity of Costa Rican exports is also impressive, with high technology components and medical devices leading the way, in addition to traditional exports of coffee, bananas and pineapple. 

This week we have photos of the street art of Valparaiso, Chile, posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Perspective on a fern leaf

I like photos using angles such as this, although this is not a particularly good example.  I took this photo with a semi-automatic camera at an extreme zoom, so the depth of field was compressed.  

Typically it is preferable to focus on the foreground when depth of field will be limited, which I did, but I think having the center of the photo out of focus is distracting.  I should experiment more.

This week we have photos of some examples of the extensive, high quality street art of Valparaiso, Chile, posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Heliconia

Heliconias are common in Costa Rica.  They are related to ginger plants and banana trees, both of which are also common.

Today is Sunday, so we have new photos posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.  This week we are showing photos of the street art in Valparaiso, Chile.  If they had an award for the city with the best and most extensive street art, Valparaiso would be the winner.

Sunlight hitting a fern leaf

I like the play of light, filtered by the forest, hitting the leaves of ferns.

This week on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site we are showing photos of one of the most remarkable buildings in the world, the Mezquita Cathedral - Mosque in Cordova,

Macro study of a fern leaf

This macro photo of a palm leaf is a good study in depth of field, as the eye is carried from the forground into the background.

Conventional wisdom is to focus on the foreground and sacrifice clarity in the background, rather than having the discordant effect of an out-of-focus foreground.

Tomorrow's photo will be a startling contrast to today's macro photo, as it is decidedly not a macro subject, yet it was taken with the same camera and lens.

We have new photos of Gibraltar on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site this week.

Pinuelas plant

Pinuelas plants are a relative of the pineapple, but they are not edible because their fruit is sour.  The fruit that grows in the central portion of the plant, similar to a pineapple, has the segmented exterior similar to a pineapple, but it is not in the neat, compact shape of a pineapple.  

This week we are showing photos of the Spanish colonial architecture of Grenada, Nicaragua on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Barnacles on a Tree?

Continuing with my little series on biodiversity, here is a photo of a tree that has what appears to be barnacles on its truck.  I don't know the type of tree this is or why it has this adaptation.  In North America, it might be to discourage bears from climbing the tree, but we don't have bears in Costa Rica.  We have sloths and monkeys that climb trees.  This would make an ideal tree for a bear to scratch his back.

This week we are showing photos of the Spanish colonial architecture of Grenada, Nicaragua on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Monkey Ladder

I have had a few posts in the last few days about biodiversity, so here is a photo of one of the unusual plants in Costa Rica.  It is called a monkey ladder, and with good reason.

The turning shape of the vines that lead from the canopy to the ground provide excellent hand holds for monkeys to climb up and down.

This week we are showing photos of the Spanish colonial architecture of Grenada, Nicaragua on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Biodiversity: 650 New Mushroom Species

Costa Rica is justifiably proud of its biodiversity.  The National Commission for Biodiversity Management has just added 5,000 additional species of plants and animals that have been documented in Costa Rica and are now added to the inventory of species found here.

Among the additions are 650 additional species of mushrooms.   That is why I am showing this photo of some mushrooms from a hike in the forest at Rincon de la Vieja National Park, northeast of Tamarindo.

I will explain more about the new flora and fauna tomorrow.

This week we are showing photos from Tanzania on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site, featuring photos of elephants and giraffes, including some teenage elephants fighting.

Leaf Cutter Ants

Red leaves are a favorite food for red leaf cutter ants.  When there is a red leaf on the ground, I usually stop and watch to see if it moves.  Usually it does. Then I look for the direction of travel and often there is a stream of red leaves as the ants follow each other.

As I have pointed out in the past, leaf cutter ants do not actually eat the leaves.  They feed leaves to a fungus underground, and the ants eat the fungus.  The ants know which types of leaves the fungus prefers.

Who knew that fungi were picky eaters?

And speaking of animals, yesterday there was an article about Costa Rica on the front page of the U.S. edition of CNN website, which is unusual indeed.  It was a news report of a plan by the government in Costa Rica to outlaw all zoos.  The environmental miniserr said that no animals should br confined in cages and should be observed in heir natural habitats.  Years ago Costa Rica banned circuses that include animal acts.

This week we are showing photos from Waterford, Ireland, the home of Waterford Crystal, on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Red leaf

Whenever I see a little red leaf on the ground by itself, not clustered around other red leaves, I know that there is an explanation, which also involves the color red.

I will explain, tomorrow.

This week we are showing photos from Waterford, Ireland, the home of Waterford Crystal, on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

Delicate purple flower

These purple flowers caught my eye during a walk in Tamarindo. The structure of the flower appears somewhat similar to an orchid, but I do not think that they are orchids.  Orchids do grow wild in Costa Rica, and I will have some orchid photos coming up in the future.

Today is Sunday, so we have new photos posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.  This week we are showing photos of the ancient Khmer temples of Cambodia, beginning with one of my favorite photos of a monk in Angkor Wat with perfect backlighting.