Monday, June 23, 2008

akumal, mexico

my one big disappointment in akumal was that i never saw a sea turtle. we even took a miles-long walk on a beach where there were lots of turtle egg mounds. nope, not a single turtle. so sad. que onda was the little "hotel" we stayed in for the last couple nights of our stay. it was cute and quaint and had a really good restaurant that served breakfast, lunch and dinner. the best thing about it though was the access to the Yal-Ku lagoon for a fraction of the price most tourists paid to go through the main lagoon entrance. the snorkeling was the best in the lagoon, by a long shot.

possibly the best cappucino i have ever had, it was smooth, sweet, delicious and the foam was to die for.
the que onda restaurant with thatched roof, cute gourd-carved lights and mosquito spray on the tables so you don't get eaten alive while dining. the mosquitos were really bad if you weren't right on the water getting the heavenly sea breeze.
the next 3 pictures are the yal-ku lagoon. it was filled with tons of colorful fish, including some barracuda, rocky caverns and sandy bottoms and fresh water coming up from the underground rivers that mixed with the salt water and gave the effect of oil and water mixing or heat rising off a highway. i'll post more pictures of that.

this beauty was at the wonderful galleria lamanai in akumal. he was gorgeous, fully beaded with beautiful sparkly glass beads--unfortunately a little out of my price range. i'm usually not one for sparkly things but he was gorgeous, i love iguanas.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

snorkeling

we did some amazing snorkeling in akumal, there was a beautiful lagoon with tons of colorful fish. i got a great waterproof case for my little canon elph digital camera and it worked wonderfully. i could use all the fuctions i normally can use out of water and there is even an underwater setting. it was still extremely hard to get great shots, what with fish being really fast, not being able to hold still underwater, the sun not being in the perfect location and cloudy water conditions. oh well, i still got some good ones. here are a few, they really don't do justice to the fish in real life but sometimes we have to take what we can get. the next thing i need to do is find a good book so i can id all these fish and have better reference photos for art!





Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Akumal, Yukatan, Mexico

i spent the last ten days in an amazing tropical paradise in the yucatan. most of the time we were in akumal, a little town about an hour and a half south of cancun. we also spent a couple days in playa del carmen which was a little too touristy for my taste. i would go back to akumal in a heartbeat though. here are a few of my fav pics just to start off the tour...
just so we are all on the same page as to what kind of vacation this was--no running around like a crazy tourist....

snorkeling was a daily event but taking underwater pictures is extremely challenging

more later

Thursday, June 5, 2008

heat bloomers continued

lace cap hydrangea
blue salvia... not sure of the exact variety, just know i like it

buddleia, one of my favorite smelling plants. unfortunately this is my only variety right now, i wish i had tons of these, i really love them.


what would we (and the butterflies and hummingbirds) do without lantana in the summer??

ok, he's not exactly blooming but who gets tired of seeing cute lizards?

and i'll be out for about 10 days, we'll see what the garden looks like then....hoping for lots of rain.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

blooming in the heat

summer is really here, ugh. it is in the nineties every day and it feels like it. spring annuals and cooler weather vegetables are wilting in the heat but some things in the garden are looking very nice. the meyer lemon has tiny, green lemons all over it. mmm.... can't wait for homemade lemonade.
sunflowers

a yellow ground orchid has come back from last year.

the dutchman's pipe with the biggest bloom yet!!

a perennial geranium whose blooms are the most beautiful shade of purple with tiny orange centers, none of which showed up in this photo.