Solstice sets. (Favorite photos of last week)

Inti Raymi! Kind of the biggest party we have here in Ecuador. Especially in the regions that are mainly indigenous. While last year came with quite a bit of rain, this time it's dry and dusty and incredibly sunny.

(Click here if you want to read more about Inti Raymi)

Since that is always around my birthday, I generally gift myself a night away from all the trouble and loudness. I participated the first years, still did some with Lily, but now I try to stay away. It's just not my cultural heritage. I lost interest, as it's the same every year, and I don't have that much more to learn about the background anymore. The language, yes. One day.

On my way to the cabins, I stopped at a "mirador", with a great view over the valley. I almost ran into this cool spider net, full of caught flies, and that double spider right in the middle, in perfect sinchrony. I really like this shot a lot.

Of course, the river never leaves out a chance to look awesome. This was early morning. I went to bed late, but when I woke up and saw that special kind of light, I just had to get out. The water was incredibly cold. Still worth it.

I did practice a little bit, too. This one had the idea to have blurry leaves in the front, and then the flower in the back. Unfortunately, I'm not that good at it yet, and this is the only one that is kind of what I wanted to achieve - with a little bit of blurry leaf at least.

In this one, the automatic focus blew it. I tried macro, I tried normal, everything. But the plant was incredibly small, as you can see by the grass leaves next to it. Next time, I'll see if the pro mode on my cellphone can do better. Or I really have to get a camera...

Just a flower in the morning light. Here, the focus worked nice. Nothing more to say!

I did write a pretty good post where I feature more pictures, but mainly for narrative. This one is out of that post. A huge banana "head" (they're called that here) hanging over the fence, just next to the post with a crooked lantern. A lot of dissonant geometry in this one, if you look for it.

Just like last year, we went to Zuleta this year, too. With friends, including Kami. It was very crowded, and this doggy seemed to have been tired of it all.

On our way back we stopped three times because Kami wanted me to take picture, as the sun was setting in the most beautiful way. This cultivated forest was the second stop we made. Some of the pictures I took turned out really well, but I don't put Kami out here until she's 18. She was quite happy, and we laughed a lot. Another bonding experience for us.

First station was a field of these. It was SO beautiful and the pictures turned out amazing. Luckily, Ellie is a Photoshop/Illustrator wizard and extremely good at editing (since she's a model at her company, it serves her to be meticulous), so it will be easy for her to get them right even though they're taken against the sun.

I tried to take some out of the car, too, but it wasn't as easy. This one is very Ecuador, to be honest. Poorly maintained concrete houses with rebars sticking out of the roof, cables everywhere, but the most beautiful views, anyway.

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That's it for today. As always, any feedback and especially tips and tricks are very welcome! As long as it's not AI generated content or comment spamming... 😅 If you want to see more pictures, and not just my selections, I usually post the best ones of each day in my diary account, @beelshops. Feel free to follow!

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Thank you for stopping by!

All pictures are taken by myself with a Motorola Edge 60 Pro and I reserve the copyright - but you're welcome to ask if you'd like to use one of the pics!