A photography teacher once told me that outdoor light was good enough to shoot if the angle of the top of an object to the tip of its shadow was at least 45 degrees. That's surely the case here, winding up our trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We question when or if we will be back. We're getting old and physical activities are becoming a challenge. The arthritis in my lumbar spine is worse, and I needed a bunch of airport wheelchairs last weekend. Having a super duper pain management procedure that has helped before, but it's not for three weeks.
So I need to search for something new. Suburban Kansas City this weekend for a family event.
I mentioned that I would show something about Nicaraguan roads, generally better than Costa Rica although CR is much more prosperous. All Chinese foreign aid. (Someone still believes in soft power.) What's notable is the tree-like thing in the center. They are all over the place, maybe 15 meters tall, brightly colored and splashed with LEDs at night. The government calls the design Tree of Life. The locals call it Tree of Garbage. Chinese designed and manufactured, but built at great cost to the Nicaraguan state. What could the money have done for education or health care?
We rent a mid-size SUV when we go to Costa Rica. Although the roads have improved a lot over the years, it's never a bad idea to have all wheel drive. However, when we arrived at the agency hours late, they didn't have what we booked. They offered an "upgrade", this behemoth. I didn't like it. I mean, the thing had mood lighting on the inside that changed when you played music. The name is like all those mysterious Chinese products you see on Amazon. Someone puts a bunch of Roman consonants and vowels in a box, shakes it, and sets out any short string that is pronounceable in a European language. I half-expected someone to say "bless you!" after I said the name.
Got a problem? Any problem? This is the place to come. Pharmacies in Costa Rica work more like those in Europe than in the U.S. No giant chains like Walgreen's or CVS here. They tend to be tiny and independent. You have to talk to the pharmacist about your muscle pain or diarrhea, and they will you tell you what to take. No vast selection of over the counter stuff like here. This one, though, seems to eliminate any need for a physician.
One of the stops on the Nicaragua tour was El Mirador de Catarina, located in the town of the same name. The view is of the extinct Apoyo volcano, whose caldera is filled with water to the depth of 200 meters. I didn't know the snack quesillos. Turns out there are varieties across Latin America, both sweet and savory. The Nicaraguan version is a thick corn tortilla, soft cheese, pickled onion and a sauce. I might have tried one but the stand was closed.
A nicer than average house in Granada, Nicaragua. No light coming in from the front. Windows traditionally face an interior courtyard.
We have not had a good flying experience on this trip. As I mentioned, both our STL - DFW and DFW - LIR segments were four hours late. Not too much inconvenience, as we had planned to overnight at DFW anyway. On Saturday, our inbound plane to Liberia was on time. However, The Liberia CR airport is so far over capacity in high season that the plane had to wait a long time for a gate to open, so much so that the pilots timed out and can't fly all the way to Dallas. So we are landing in Houston to get another crew. Customs and immigration there, then on to Dallas, where we will miss the last flight to STL of the night.
Never been to Houston. We've visited Kathmandu, El Calafate, Alice Springs and X'Ãan, but never America's fourth largest city. I could do without.
An autorickshaw or tuk-tuk, if you will, in the old colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua. I think that's Our Lady of Guadalupe on the back, along with a sticker of a hostile, science fiction-y face. Vaya con Dios.
I've done some reading about Nicaragua since our visit Tuesday. Its GDP per capita in 2024 was US$ 2,600 per year, second poorest in the western hemisphere after Haiti. There are trucks and vans, but horse drawn carts are common.
It is striking, though, that Nicaragua's main roads are clearly better than Costa Rica's. Chinese foreign aid, according to our guide. I'll find an illustration.
We spent a lot of time on the road Tuesday driving north from the Costa Rican border into Nicaragua. This is the southern town of Rivas. Some general impressions: Nicaragua is notably poorer than CR. The houses are mostly smaller and in rough shape. The cars are older and more beat up, and there are fewer of them. Lots of horse-drawn carts. In more populous areas, there are many autorickshaws, like you see in parts of Asia. Busses and some trucks are as festively painted and religiously decorated as in India. Few if any modern strip centers that are now common in CR. Many fewer supermarkets; our guide said they are too expensive and people prefer to buy from local roadside vendors. Flags are everywhere, with more of Daniel Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front than the national flag.
The day was exhausting and we took yesterday off. More of this to come.
. . . that we watch spider monkeys on a volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua, eating fruit provided by tourists during a boat ride. As I mentioned, this is a big lake (19th largest in the world), with volcanoes in and around it. Some big blow sent huge chunks of black rock through the air, creating a group of islands in the northwest corner. This pair of monkeys were settled here, we were told, for rehab purposes.
Late post today. The tour company picked us up at 4 AM and got us back at 9 PM. Now a slow day.
Another scene on Playa Langosta. Dad needs to keep a careful watch among the waves and rocks. Looonnnggg day trip up into Nicaragua today. They are picking us up at our condo at 4:15 AM. Hope we can drag ourselves out in time.
Back to our old haunts on Playa Langosta. Lots of surfing here and at next-door Playa Tamarindo.The waves are big enough to be interesting but not so much as to be dangerous - with one exception. This was shot just short of high tide. Lots of the beach has sharp, black volcanic rock, mostly submerged at this time. You really need to know where you are going or wait for low tide.
Stefan asked for pictures of volcanoes, among other things, when we got to Costa Rica. The route into the airport at Liberia, where we always go, comes down the western shore of Lake Nicaragua, which is pretty darn big. It contains an island with two volcanoes, the larger one called Ometepe, which last erupted in 1983.
I can usually get some good shots when we arrive early to mid afternoon. But, remember how our Friday flight was four hours late? Well, yesterday's flight was four hours late for reasons I won't begin to discuss. It was hazy and the sun was setting as we flew through here. I hope to get much better pictures Tuesday when we take a long day trip into Nicaragua.
Gate C 12 yesterday afternoon at beautiful Lambert St. Louis International Airport. (No one today knows who Lambert was.) The plan was to fly to American Airlines' biggest hub at Dallas-Ft. Worth, spend the night, and then go on to Costa Rica this morning. However, our flight to DFW was four hours late. As usual, the gate agents know nothing, see nothing and say nothing. Later, a flight attendant who worked the flight into STL said there was an air leak in the back of the cabin that created a terrible noise. It got fixed after a long time.
Lots of people missed connections but no one freaked out. We had a hotel room waiting for us so it was okay.
Maybe not the best picture from Art In Bloom, but it's a travel day. Flying today to a giant airline hub and spending the night. Saturday morning down to our home away from home in Costa Rica. I think it's +/- our twenty-third visit to the country over some decades (we obviously like it). Anybody want to see pictures of beautiful Dallas - Ft. Worth International Airport?
The title reminds me of calculus, which I had to take in college as a psych major. I was hopeless at it, and if it wasn't for the help of a friend who went on to a successful career in medicine, I might not have passed. I was better with the verbal stuff, which led to law school.
Art In Bloom always has an arrangement in front of this window. Usually you can see straight across the central hall, but at the moment it is blocked by the back of an enormous Anselm Kiefer painting that is on extended display, following his big show here last year.
As mentioned, it is hard to get a clean shot at Art In Bloom, what with the crowds. This one worked, and it might be one of my favorites.
Another from Art In Bloom at the St. Louis Art Museum (which has the wonderful URL slam.org). This is in a room of Baroque paintings; the one the floral arrangement is based on is off to the left of the frame.
I may need to stick with flowers until we head out of town late this week. This weekend brought us the annual Art In Bloom show at the St. Louis Art Museum. Top floral designers present pieces throughout the museum inspired by works in the collection. It gets crowded and hard to line up shots.
