Dood’s Photo of the Day

Originally clicked and uploaded by – Pratosh Dwivedi – 16th Oct’08

I saw these most unusual kind of flowers while trekking up the mountain of Nevado de Toluca. Even though it was overcast and not enough sunlight was falling on the ground, these flowers were shining distinctively all over the place. They had leaves like cactus and a sizeable core with shades of purple.

The ones which bloomed were looking as in the picture, while others who had lived their lives were dry and their cores were split open right in the middle. Strange things nature has in store.

P.S There is one thing which I have decided to change from this post onwards. If you can tell what it is, please leave a comment

Click here to see the full sized image

Originally clicked and uploaded by – Pratosh Dwivedi – 15th Oct’08

There lay a small lake just at the base of a Grey rocky mountain, with patches of green around it & some random pieces of rocks scattered in the middle. As I was walking past it the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds and the shadows of the clouds were sweeping past me and on all the other things around me.

It was so quiet and serene that you could actually hear the flapping of the wings of a bird flying over your head. You could hear yourself breathing and the wind blowing past you. You could hear the thoughts breezing past your mind. A kind of unusual, satisfying peace.

Click here to see the full sized image

Originally clicked and uploaded by – Pratosh Dwivedi – 13th Oct’08

At the first look, this photo will give you an image of a huge mountain with some sundry small things filling up the rest of the frame. The sheer size of the Grey mountain on the right of the frame seems to overshadow the significance of almost everything else in the picture. But if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it and see the full view, you will observe that there are three main things which catch your attention. What are they, I leave it for you to decide.

I took this picture while trekking up the mountain of Nevado de Toluca.

Click here to see the full sized image

Originally clicked and uploaded by – Pratosh Dwivedi – 12th Oct’08

I saw this unusual looking flower in a town called Valle de Bravo. We stopped at the place for some snacks and parked the car in a nearby parking when I noticed these flowers growing right in the center of the parking area. My friend told me that they are called “Birds of Paradise” and indeed they gave the appearance of small birds.

Their unusual shape and vivid color combination gave them a type of beauty which is something very different from what one expects from flowers in general.

Click here to see the full sized image
Click here to see the flower from another angle

Nevado de Toluca is a large volcano in central Mexico, located about 80 kilometres west of Mexico City near the city of Toluca. It is generally cited as the fourth highest of Mexico’s peaks. There are two crater lakes on the floor of the basin at about 4,200 m, the larger Lago del Sol (Sun Lake) and the smaller, but deeper, Lago de la Luna (Moon Lake). A road runs into the caldera to the lakes, making this perhaps the most accessible major Mexican peak.

The one you can see in the photo is the small lake – Lage de la Luna. I trekked all the way up to the volcano and then down to the crater in around 4+ hours. The place was cold, silent and perhaps one of the most beautiful natural settings I have ever seen.

Click here to see the full sized image