November 27 – December 2, 2012
Week 28, as I write this, seems a lifetime ago. It was filled with the fun from our Costa Rica Vacation.
Because if the diversity of images, I chose more images than seven this week. The choice was made in large part to capture the diversity of activity we did while in Costa Rica.
Tuesday’s image was of some fishing boats in the little bay of San Juanillo. After lunch, we drove to this little bay to be in the water. The bay was part of the little village, and fishing appeared to be a large part of the village life. I took many shots of fish heads, the buildings, the people, and the water. There were some lovely sunset shots, but I was really fascinated with the boats and getting good shots. This would be theme for much of the trip.
Perhaps the best part of the whole trip was waking up at 4:30 in the morning to go down to Ostional to see a turtle arribata. The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle is apparently the only species of turtle who lay eggs in groups. All other sea turtle lay solitary. So during a new moon, they use the beach in Ostinal to lay eggs. It was AMAZING. I’ve never seen anything like it. Hundreds of turtles were coming out of the ocean and crawling up the beach. Tiny baby turtles were coming out of the sand and running back to the sea. Vultures were picking at eggs and babies. It was beautiful. It was chaos. It was the circle of life.
The turtles come at night, so you either have to go at sundown or sunrise in hopes of seeing anything. This is one of the best images I got during the trip. There are others in my previous post. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who loves nature and wildlife.
The day began before sunrise, and also included a boat trip on Rio Nosara to see birds, crocodiles and other wildlife that ended at sunset. Some of the wildlife was wild.
I was using a 50-200mm lens to get this, but we did get pretty close in the boat. Notice there are two spiders. Apparently the smaller one is a male. She is likely to eat it.
Thursday we went horseback riding through the forest and out onto the beach. It was a delightful two and a half hours made even more so by our guide, who is here with Evan.
After the horseback trip, we went to Samara for lunch. As we were heading back to the car I snapped this shot I thought was cute.
I shot many things in Samara, but I really liked the look of this one. The street photography is much different in a little village than in a big city. I asked her if it was ok, and she said yes. I’ve found that I am getting more confidence when it comes to asking strangers to take pictures. I still need more, but I am getting good when I see something I really like.
On Friday, I got a little indulgent with two shots. They are of the same moment, but so some reason, I was overly fascinated with this pig, dog, and kids playing in the tidal pool with them.
I cannot explain my fascination with these animals or why I took so many pictures. It must have been because I’ve never seen a pig and a dog play on the beach and kids play with their pig in a tidal pool. I took lots of pictures of all this, and at no time did I see an adult. Things really are different in Costa Rica. As the tide came in, I saw the kids leaving the beach with their pig and dog in tow.
On Saturday, we headed to the Four Seasons for the rest of our trip. At beach that night we saw the prettiest sunset of the whole trip.
I used the flash to fill in this shot. I love the colors and everything about this shot. We had been frolicking in the surf, hence Evan’s wet shirt look. It was such a gorgeous sunset. And fast. Near the equator like that, the sun goes straight down and then it gets dark. Not at all like Alaska, where sunset last for over an hour.
On Sunday, we went snorkeling.
We bought a Canon D10 for the trip to take some underwater shots. The first day was me getting used to the underwater features and the quirks of the camera. I did get this fun shot of Evan underwater. I do like the Canon D10 for this kind of work. Also, it is great for being in out of doors places where there is lots of water. More on that later.
Because I do love snorkeling do much, we went again on Monday.
I was getting better with the camera on the second day. There is a bit of post processing to get the images sharper and more colorful. The water was pretty murky when were out. But I like the way this puffer fish looks.
Because this day was jam packed with other activities, I do have three images total for Monday. We took another boat ride and saw tons of wildlife. The light was better this day than the previous boat ride. I got a lovely picture of a crocodile and a bird. Again, this was with the canon 50-200mm lens I borrowed for the trip.
I have more of Costa Rica for Week 29 before heading home. That will be in the next post.