It was just a few days before it happened that I started to hear murmurs about a solar eclipse. The first time I looked into it, I thought we would not experience it here in Grecia, Costa Rica, but it turns out I was incorrect. With a couple of days to go, I looked into it again after hearing from some USA expats when I was out to lunch that the eclipse would be very viewable here in Costa Rica. Even better, it was going to be an Annular eclipse.

“Earth’s Moon is about 1/ 400th the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 1/ 400th as far from us, making the Sun and the Moon the same size on the sky—a coincidence not shared by any other planet–moon combination in the solar system, allowing for uniquely photogenic total solar eclipses.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun but does not entirely cover the Sun’s disk due to the apparent size of the Moon being smaller than that of the Sun. This results in a bright ring, or “annulus,” of sunlight being visible around the Moon. This is often called a “Ring of Fire”. How awesome is that!

Now, if you know the Central Valley in Costa Rica at this time of year, you will know that it’s often clear in the morning and cloudy, wet and rainy in the afternoon. When it starts to get cloudy and starts to rain varies every day, so now we have the potential to be under the eclipse and unable to see it! Now that would suck! Stay away, clouds, I thought to myself!

So it was now Saturday morning, the 14th of October. Some of our Tico friends in our little gated community were starting to go house to house to make sure everyone knew that later on, there was going to be an eclipse and to come out into the street, and we could all watch it together.


Right on cue, the clouds rolled in; fortunately, we were blessed with the occasional gaps in the clouds, which meant we could view the eclipse at a few different stages. Today, I am very thankful that I can travel the world, visit unique places and be fortunate to witness rare events like an Annular Eclipse whilst in Costa Rica. Ten years ago, I would never have imagined this. Now, it is my reality.

We were probably two-thirds of the way through the eclipse when a truly solid bank of clouds arrived, and that was it for our day as far as the eclipse was concerned. Despite that, it was a great experience. One for the memory book and certainly blog-worthy, even if it is just for myself to look back on one day.

Thank you to Estaban Valverde (our Costa Rica neighbour) for sharing some of the photos I’ve shown here that he captured this morning and also for supplying some viewing glasses so we could safely observe the eclipse.