Birthday Bouquets from Peru

27.03.2015 24 °C

This weekend marks a significant birthday of our Canadian friend, Joyce, so we thought that we would use the occasion to send bouquets of many of the beautiful flowers that we’ve come across in Cuba and South America…

To us northerners, orchids are delicate houseplants that demand our attention, but these fragrant, flambouyant, dendrobiums hang around in the trees of Havana without a care in the world…

We came across this spectacularly exotic orchid, and many others, just lying around on the jungle floor in the Ecuadorian Amazon….

When it comes to ‘spectacular’ it’s difficult to beat the vast numbers of heliconias that blossom in the world’s warmer climes. These fanciful blooms, and the many cultivars of ‘Bird of paradise flowers’, are distant cousins of the humble banana, but there is nothing modest about this vibrant blossom in Central Colombia… .

Brilliantly hued hedges of Bougainvillea blossom endlessly and effortlessly in every tropical spot in the world, even here at Chavin in the shadow of the great peaks of the Cordilleras Blancas in Peru…

Whereas roses prefer to play it cool. They flourish in the rarefied air of the Ecuadorian Andes around the Cotopaxi volcano…

This market lady in Cuenca knows a thing or two about Ecuadorian roses…

However, perhaps the nicest bouquet we can send is the one that flourishes on our terrace each summer on the beautiful island of Gabriola in British Columbia…

From Huaraz in Peru we send birthday greetings to you, Joyce, (whom Sheila has known for almost 40 years), and also to our friend, Antony Holland, who celebrates his 95th birthday this weekend. Happy birthday y’all.

Posted by Hawkson 15:15 Archived in Peru