Travel / 2008: Costa Rica

Elderhostel Photography course in Costa Rica Jan 28 – Feb 8, 2008

We spent several nights at five different locations. This included the vulcanos, the rain forest, the high mountain cloud forest and the Pacific coast.

Our first hotel was in a suburb of San Jose.

Our local team consisted of a naturalist, a photographer and a driver.

Gloria picked up a new boyfriend in the hotel's garden.

This was my favorite sculpture in the garden.

We sat through a number of lectures at the hotel. This was the general orientation session. The others were photography related.

The driver loaded our baggage on the top of the bus before we departed.

Our next move was to a resort near the Arenal vulcano.

Along the way we met a sloth.

Of course it had to be photographed.

The Arenal vulcano is still active, and the sky is rarely blue here.

Our hotel was facing the vulcano. Here is the view from the balcony.

The hotel was also in a bird sanctuary. Here is Marco setting up a shot for us.

Barb usually carried two cameras.

Here is what I got.

More birds.

A big one.

Nearby seven cables offere a ride down the mountain.

A group of brave elderly Brits were ready to go.

We learned how to photograph moving subjects.

We learned how to photograph moving subjects.

We now coninued on to Sala Verde in the rain forest

These guys were seen all along the road.

As were sleeping dogs.

Finally we arrived at our eco-lodge.

Here we learned to photograph nocturnal animals using a flashlight as the only light source..

The red frogs were said to be poisonous. I did not test this theory.

We saw many toucans high up in the tree tops. They were difficult to photograph without a long telephoto lens.

Howler monkeys were also abundant.

We also practiced macro photography.

Now onward to Trogon Lodge in the Cloud Forest. This included a long busride on the Trans-American Highway (a poor two lane road) and the crossing of a major mountain chain.

While in the high mountain we saw this flower. It is 1/4 inch wide.

As we decended from the mountains, the roads were like this.

Finally we arrived at Trogon Lodge in teh Cloud Forest.

One day we worked on creating images with milky waterfalls.

Here is Bob a few minutes before he fell.

Professional bird photographers would never include the feeder. Obvoisly I failed here.

This is better.

This is the best shot I could get of a quetzal, a VERY rare bird.

Finally we spent a few days at Vilas Rio Mar on the Pacific Coast. This was the only sub-par hotel on the tour.

We met this guy in a small town along the way.

In this pavillion we learned how to create panoramas by stitching together several images.

Here is the result

Our last activity before returning to the US was to shoot sunsets. This shot would be boring if the people were not included.

Here is a great shot of our instructor.

In this shot I used a flash to capture her.

After two weeks we boarded the bus to start our journey home. It was a great experience.