paisajes, flowers, and quiotes, oh my!

Instead of sticking them in amongst the other posts, I decided to put most of my favorite plant& landscape (paisajes) fotos in their own post. Notwithstanding the fotos of the plants in the jardin of the ex-convento Yanhuitlán. See captions for any details, but I don't generally know any of the species names or anything like that, ja!

paisaje of the cerros (hills) that surround Teposcolula. Oaxaca has the very.best.clouds ever. (and really- many of the groups here in Oaxaca, their names for themselves as a people translate to "people of the clouds" ... or "people of the rain" as is the case for Nuu Savi/Mixteca people whose region this is.)

upclose on some cactus flowers and pollinator/visitor, Teposcolula

oh the colors and textures!!! and an unknown bird flying by (I think it might be a woodpecker?)

lots and lots of visitors all at this one flower at one time. Thalia spent her time while I was taking this foto, admonishing them to SHARE the pollen. I love her. I love pollinators. I love taking fotos. It was a fairly perfect moment.

this B&W foto is of a succulent's inflorescence that have a beautiful pink purple color. But I liked the play of shadows and light on this particular plant's inflorescences. And I'm trying to see more fotos in B&W lately- purposefully taking fotos with the all along intention of converting them into black & white. It doesn't always pan out, but it's a practice. One I started with the new year, for what that is worth (I don't really do New Years Resolutions but yeah).

Here's Eric with the giant agave and its quiote we ran across in Yucunuma. We are mildly obsessed with agaves. Well, maybe just Eric and me, Thalia generally just rolls her eyes at us.

another foto I planned for as B&W-- this one worked reallllly well. I'm especially pleased with the crisp texture of the agricultural fields and the mistiness of the morning mountains. I was inspired by a photo of Oaxacan mountains taken by a photographer I follow on la insta that I thought was so sublime. Teposcolula.

sublime quiotes silhouetted against a ridiculous lovely cloudy sky

Here's another, rather exuberantly flowering, individual of the succulent I posted above in B&W. See what I mean about the color? It's pretty amazing.

Our first evening we were treated to a pretty great sunset, here with some of the trees of the plaza of Teposcolula.

the rather scrubby hills in between Yucunuma & Teposcolula- before the pine forests begin

another cactus from the jardin at Yanhuitlán

This paisaje has the church at Teposcolula in it, but whatevs. I liked the fotos too much to not include it here.

I was not very successful in catching how the light reflects off the needles of the pine trees that grow all over the mountainsides between the villages of Teposcolula, Yanhuitlán, and Yucunuma. But this is as close as I got.

On our way home to Oaxaca de Juárez, I made us stop to take fotos a couple of times, once in the town this foto is set in/outside of, San Juan Teposcolula.

And then we stopped again so I could get some shots of the part of the mountains between Teposcolula & Yanhuitlán where the soil goes all deep red. Such a soft sky here.