When in the World?

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Where in the world?"

My question is not so much "where" in the world but"when" in the world. I would give anything to be in a "when" with Otto still by my side. So this is the story (much condensed) of our last trip together outside the United States - a journey to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We traveled by small cruise ship (40 passengers) with extensive land excursions.

This beautiful bromiliad and these burgeoning new coconut palms were in a private preserve on the island of Curu. We visited it on the day after we had boarded the ship after busing from the airport in San Jose down to the coast, and, while many people took advantage of swimming on the pristine beach or being led on a nature walk, I chose to prowl with my camera, entranced by the tropical foliage. This was my last trip without a digital camera, and, stupidly, I had brought no telephoto lens. There were unusual animals and birds, a tribe of monkeys, a tri-colored squirrel, but the photos we attempted showed mostly jungle with teensy dots of the critters which were perfectly visible to our eyes.

We had to settle for this humongous toad (about the size of a man's foot) who was occupying a corner of the communal shower for the swimmers.

This macaw was at a highlands ranch called Los Innocentes to which we traveled the next day.

On the last day on the Costa Rican side of the border everyone explored, in zodiacs, channels in the nearby mangrove swamp -

where this pelican was sighted - probably looking for snakes rather than fish - according to our accompanying naturalist.

The next morning, after the customs inspectors had left our ship, we landed for the first time in Nicaragua. I came ashore before Otto so that I could take a picture of him landing. That's he with the wide-brimmed sunhat.

We then traveled by bus up to the town of Rivas, where these pics show some of the produce for sale.

Otto holds a long specimen of papaya, his favorite fruit.

This shy little girl wore her best clothes to go to market with her mother.

Another day we traveled to the Vulcan Masaya, which has a lake of fiery lava in its center, and where parrots nest in cliffs of the crater in the noxious gases.

For a trip to the cloud forest (isn't that a lovely name) our bus was not deemed sufficiently powerful to take us up the steep and winding road, so we transferred to this truck.

These boys by the side of the road watched our climb.

And the above are what grow in the cloud forest.

These musicians serenaded as we boarded launches on Lake Nicaragua to attend a fancy barbecue at a beautiful home (roll of film lost).

On our last day in Nicaragua, we visited the city of Leon and were treated to the following sights. First, street theater with elaborate stilt figures...


and the cathedral with this dramatic scene through its bells.

As I look at this very condensed version of a memorable trip, I realize how seldom Otto and I took "We were there" photos. Neither of us figures in any of these pictures, although both pairs of eyes saw them, though two people talked, compared, enjoyed them together. Maybe I should have called this post "WHO in the world".

Guess whom I would have chosen?