STL DPB IN COSTA RICA - FIRE DANCERS

 

It’s on the to-do list for every trip to Tamarindo. After dark, groups of dancers who play with fire go from one beachfront restaurant to another, performing to pounding music. The shows are spectacular. They do it for tips, and we tip generously.                                 

PRELUDE TO THE BONFIRE

When this post goes up at midnight in our home time zone we will be somewhere over the northeastern U.S. or eastern Canada. Heathrow awaits at the other end.

Longtime readers of this blog know that Artica ends on Sunday night with a bonfire of a huge wooden effigy known as Our Lady of Artica. Current and recovering Catholics will get the reference. It is preceded by fire dancers. I'll get a pic of the bonfire posted before I start with images from London.               

LOOKS LIKE A FANTASY MOVIE

You could see this fire dancer as performing a ritual ceremony in a futuristic society, surrounded by acolytes who worship 21st Century suspension bridges. It's just the awkwardly-named Stan Musial-Veterans Memorial Bridge across the Mississippi. Looks cool at night, though.                

NOT QUITE BURNED OUT

Okay, terrible joke. I still have a few pictures from Artica I want to use before I move on. This is another one of the fire dancers who performed before the immolation of Our Lady of Artica. The surrounding people and building give it a sense of scale.             

ARCS OF FIRE

More entertainment at Artica before the bonfire. Some good luck at 1/6 second with the image stabilization. If I was whirling that thing I'd want one of the fire suits like the guys on the right are wearing.           

WARM UP

Okay, terrible pun. I couldn't help myself. Before the immolation of Our Lady of Artica, there is always entertainment from fire dancers. Hard to shoot because there is not much light but the torches themselves so shutter speed is a problem.. Sometimes you get lucky. This was shot at 1/60 sec. using a lens and body that both had image stabilization.                  

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - APOCALYPSE, UH, LAST WEEK

From the beach fire dance shown here a few days ago. The finale looks like the end of days or the judgement of the locals, known as Ticos. Except for all the tourists taking photo or videos with their phones.

This has turned into the not-exactly-post-pandemic summer of wandering. Two and a half weeks until we leave for Kansas City and my Mrs. C's area of Kansas. Four weeks after we get back from there it's off to some interesting places in central Europe. It's probably good to get away from Missouri, which is experiencing a sharp increase in infections and deaths, almost all of which are among the unvaccinated. Anyone who wants a shot can get it for free so draw your own conclusions.              

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE EVENING'S ENTERTAINMENT

Something we see on most of our visits to Tamarindo: most nights there are bands of fire dancers who go from one beachfront restaurant to another, performing for tips. It can be spectacular and I think they do pretty well. Appropriate, given the risk of losing their hair, ears, etc. There are a bunch of these images and I may post more.

Disclaimer: the video display on my laptop seems to be failing and I can't guarantee the accuracy of the color on this and further images until I fix or replace the machine.         

DON'T TRY THIS, EITHER

As the sun began to set on the second and final day of Artica, the belly dancers who had been performing with scimitars put down their weapons and took up torches. I assume these were well-designed but I wouldn't let them near my hair, even though I don't have much. The fire light on her face gives it a special glow.             

WARM UP

 

If you have been to Artica you know why the caption is a terrible pun. It is a Saturday - Sunday event. When it is fully dark on Sunday evening, the fire dancers come out to whip up the crowd. This is followed by a torch thrown at the wooden effigy of Our Lady of Artica. We will see some of the finale tomorrow.

I was lucky to get these photos. My back was bothering me, the field where the effigy was located was very rough and it was pitch black. There was a free lawn chair maybe 50 m away where I set myself up with an f 2.8 medium telephoto. Pretty hard to grab focus.          

Danza de Fierro

Back at Latitude Blue last night for our third annual visit. As before, the food is good, the people are nice and the fire dance show is spectacular. (It always is. Here are some of the photos from 2014 and 2015.) These are some of the new shots. I have a hundred more I could edit but it's getting very late.                     

Fire Dance

One of our favorite restaurants in Tamarindo is Nibbana. Very good food, reasonably priced and a nightly show of fire dancers. We saw them at dinner last year but didn't know about the show. I wasn't properly prepared. Saturday night I took the 5D Mark III cranked up to ISO 6400 and a 50 mm f 1.4 prime lens. Ready.

I did indeed do nothing yesterday, or something approaching it. Laid around in bed most of the morning editing pictures. Looked at the ocean. Drove into town to get mahi mahi Cubano sandwiches from Addy's. Carolyn and I split a can of beer with them in the heat of our patio, after which I fell asleep. Woke up, tried to study the manual for the wildly complicated flash for my little Olympus EM-5. Got nowhere. Walked down to the beach for sunset but rather too late. Edited some more pictures. Went out to dinner at the much-hyped Pangas restaurant and was quite disappointed. Back to the condo, edited a few more pictures, wrote this, went to bed.

Enough idleness. Road trip today.