The rainy season has arrived here in Nicaragua. I am happy to report I no longer spend the entirety of my days sweating. Now the expiration is interspersed with sighs of appreciation for delicious and welcome breezes. I live in an open house with a large upper patio lined with plants and colorful swinging hammocks. Wind chimes are singing and gentle winds are flowing and swirling around me while I type. When the first ‘tormenta’ came calling, the winds picked up with overwhelming force, the skies grew black, the darkness opened up and it rained toads and serpents (the Nicaraguan saying is ‘llover sapos y culebras’).
The lorikeets went mad with delight. Flapping and cawing and cavorting, reaching their wings outstretched to capture a taste of the delicious cool rain. The ducks danced through the puddles, wagging their tales and drinking and wagging and repeat. The tortugas were swimming through the kitchen as the house was now filled with ankle deep water. The magical home I live in is something of a Zoologico.
The morning after the rains, it is always the same, the water retreats, the mud is swept away, the sun comes out and the landscape looks lush and green. The breezes come creeping in and the rainy cycle continues. The sky changes from cloudy to glaring to grey and then black as night. Sometimes we are treated to incredible sky lighting displays. Rumbles of thunder, crashing color and swirling waves of bright light.
On a stretch of beach last week-end called Las Penitas, I was treated to a lighting show. It went on for what seemed like hours. My tripod was not traveling with me this trip so I danced around a patio restaurant trying out every pole or post I could find for stability. The art to capturing these fleeting bursts is surely timing and a stable base. I attempted my best hands of a surgeon trigger push. Hard to do when I am jumping with delight at the colorful light and from fright at the grumbling noise.
If you have a good tip for capturing lighting displays, share away! I will be treated to a few more months of these spectacular shows and plan to be better prepared for night time photography. I much prefer nature lighting up the sky randomly and spontaneously to organized celebrations using fireworks. And once the storm passed onward, and the skies were dark and silent again, the only sounds left were the waves crashing on the beach and the smell of rain.