When It's Hot and Steamy

Hi everyone.

I'm back  with another entry for my When It's Hot challenge at Art Journal Journey. I've gone tropical today because we've had a long stretch of the hot, humid and steamy tropical weather here in New Hampshire. Which is not my favorite weather. And has finally broken also-so hurrah for that!

I painted the palm fronds, stamped and painted the sun, used a lady I cut out of an old FLOW magazine, and then added 2 stamped and colored toucans.

I was inspired to make this AJJ page while working on my retirement album. In 2013 I went on a 10 day school cultural immersion trip to the Osa Peninsula rainforest of Costa Rica. Most of the trip I lived with a local family (challenging as I don't speak more than a few words of Spanish), worked in some local schools, and learned about life in this part of the world. Part of the trip we stayed also at a hostel, which is where the bottom photo was taken. 

The school runs this trip for kids each year, and then in the summer for teachers. One thing we all worried about was how hot it was going to be, but once there, we discovered it was no different than being home during this hot steamy weather, the kind we have been having lately.

You can see I also used the same toucan stamp.

My background is made with the same tropical leaf stamped in multiple shades of green. Then I added the photo, some cut outs off of the periodic table poster I have been using in this project, and some sticker letters.

If you wondered why I added the whale for Costa Rica, it is because we took a day trip across the Gulf to an eco-friendly lodge, and during that trip we saw some amazing humpback whales that breached right out of the water for us. We also saw lots of dolphins leaping out of the water too. And a few tropical critters also as we took a rainforest hike. It was really a memorable day for me as an animal lover. 

But now that I am retired, no more of these adventurous school trips for me.  I am definitely feeling glad I don't have to go back in the fall with all the Covid-19 and just happy I took advantage of these adventures when I did. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful day. And thanks for visiting!

10 More Views from Costa Rica

We're here! Saturday! Back at the weekend.

Always a good thing but this weekend will FLY since it is only 2 days and not 4 like last weekend was for me.

Wouldn't it be great if every weekend was longer than 2 days?

Guess it wouldn't be so much fun if every weekend was long but I think I could still handle it.

Ha-ha.

So today-

10 more views of Costa Rica.

I took so many photos and have so much to show.
Think it is just about time to get moving on though.
Mentally, I am moving forward and leaving this trip behind except in my memories.
So ready?

View 1:

Bananas- just have one of these tree in your back yard is pretty cool.

View 2:

View 3

Grinding cocoa beans to makes the worlds most delicious hot cocoa.

 View 4

A beautiful sunset on the Pacific Ocean

View 5

Hopscotch in a pre-school play yard

View 6

The beach

View 7

A little down after a dip in the warm (like 90 degree) ocean. Some of us traveling teachers, after a morning in school.

View 8

And isn't this tile work gorgeous.  It was at one of the homes we visited, the kitchen counters were all tiled like this. I love it!

View 9

And we went to a Costa Rican bull fight.  More like a rodeo with bucking broncos, no bulls get killed-thank goodness- its more to judge the bulls to see which ones are the best at bucking and throwing off the riders.  It is a HUGE sport here- along with soccer.

View 10

And final photo, this mural at the elementary school in Port Jimenez. Handprints, happy faces, one sad face, a mon, a few names.

Love this. 

Hope you loved my 10 random photos too.

Costa Rica- Wet and Wild

We took a cruise on the Gulfo-Gulf of Dulce- while in Port Jimenez on our Costa Rican adventure. The gulf is very warm and there are large pods of dolphins that live there. In fall, humpback whales come into the gulf to give birth. We were lucky,we saw lots of dolphins and humpback whales.

None giving birth though.

We went out in 2 small boats. This is the other boat with half our group, similar to the one I was on.

The dolphins and whales were amazing. While we ate lunch on the beach we could watch the whales breaching. Even without binoculars their pectoral fins were huge.  No good photos though- just a bit too far off shore.

What a fun life this looks like!

And the rain was coming but we outran it.

This is the port when we arrived back to the Peninsula.

All this adventure was only part of the day.  We had a rainforest hike, a picnic, a quick dip in the ocean and a chance to see how an eco-lodge actually ran.

More stories to come.

Happy Monday.

It is NOT all Beaches and Resorts

Costa Rica is NOT a place of just plush resorts and green jungles and blue oceans.

It is a complex place that I got a tasting of during my 10 days there.

Hardly enough time to really get it.

But the landscape is beautiful and the people are lovely.

And it is different from here in the US.

Do you know shampoo and those other beauty products are so expensive they are kept under lock and key in stores?

Love these colors.

And this salsa is always out on the table. Not a chunky tomato based salsa.

And I had rice with every meal. I am tired of rice right now.

You only mix rice with beans for breakfast.

One thing that really surprised me in Costa Rica was the bakeries. Lots of good bakeries. Who knew? 

And if you ask them what this baked good is, you'll laugh when they tell you its a donut.

Boy was it yummy- that's carmel on the top.

And with nothing to scale it here- this was probably 7 inches across.

Good thing I split it with Immaculee.

And better than ice cream. Guanabana (soursop) and leche (milk) smoothies.

There's all kinds of smoothies in Costa Rica. Some made with water. Some made with milk.

This one was beyond delicious with milk.

If you haven't heard of guanabana (like me) before, this is what it looks like.

So hope you learned something new about Costa Rica.

I love learning new things about places.

Its all part of the adventure.

In the Jungle

"In the jungle

The mighty jungle

The monkeys screams at night."

Those howler monkeys- they start at like 3 a.m.

Here we are, on one of our 2 rainforest hikes in Costa Rica.

One of those noisy howler monkeys we saw and heard.

I never saw wild monkeys before.

Pretty cool.

This how they look when they make their noises. 

Did you ever read The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver?

She describes the howler monkeys at the beginning of the book and it is a very memorable description.

Looking up!

No monkeys in these palm fronds.

And check out those leaf cutter ants.

They are all over but really pretty cool.

Those little leaf fragments are being carried by those leaf cutters on their ant superhighways through the rain forest.

They take the leaf pieces and use it to feed a fungi that they grow in their giant ant hills. That in turns feeds the young larva.

What adaptations

Why I find biology so crazy cool.

I never thought I'd be hiking in the rainforest and I did.

It was hot, damp, muddy, noisey, lush, fascinating.

Maybe not sound very appealing but it was.

More another day.

Thanks for visiting.

More Costa Rica- Tropical Blooms

Tough morning.

I need to go back to work today.

UGH!!!!!

But in another way I am ready to go back.

I GUESS?

Just want to say its been a weird summer.

Think I just had too much going on and never really got into down mode-

until last week.

And yesterday my baby moved back to college for her senior year.

Yes, you heard me right, her senior year.

I am in shock.

BUT...

Enough of that already.

To keep us all cheery,

here's some beautiful tropical flowers just growing here and there in Costa Rica.

The plants there were just amazing.

This plant, whatever it is called, fills up with water from all the rain they get. We were told that people use that water and nectar mixture that forms for shampoo. Didn't try it myself. This might actually not even be the flower, but it is pretty amazing looking.

Unreal.

I felt like was walking through a greenhouse.  Even on our rainforest hikes we saw these plants that you can buy for houseplants here. Wandering jew, philodendrons, bromeliads. Never mind all the other trees and plants that grow.

It was a feast for my biological senses.

These flowers are adapted so it is easy for hummingbirds to get into them. They're more open on the top.

Those hummers buzzed all over the place.  Here's one who landed on a branch not too far away.  More in silhouette than specific colors, but you can tell its a little hummer. 

And wild orchids. Just growing on the side of the road.

Here's a few more gorgeous blossoms for you to enjoy.

Isn't this a great feast for your eyes on a Monday?

Maybe someday I will figure out the names for all those gorgeous flowers.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.