Costa Rica – Week 2 – Claude Schneider's Photoblog

Have been without internet for the last few days, and with good reason. Went to the Caribbean coast for 5 days, to a great area in and around Puerto Viejo, which is half Spanish (Costa Rican), and half Reggae/Jamaican. Very laid-back and rural. The reason I had not internet is that our “hotel” was a tree house. Yup, all wooden, no outer walls, and built around a tree. OK, so there were some mod-cons (quite surprising), but when it rained (torrentially) it sounded like a jet plane on the tarp covering (not great when it keeps you awake two nights running), and there were 360 degree views of the rainforest all around. Which meant it was very easy to see lots of wildlife – we had an opossum rummaging around in a cupboard (very nonchalantly), lots of crabs in holes between us and the beach, lots of weird spiders, lizards, insects and pretty flowers. And thankfully, surprisingly few mosquitoes.

I took advantage of being on the coast and did my Advanced PADI Scuba course – 5 dives, including a mandatory deep dive and navigation dive, and I then chose Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Naturalist (took a few photos), and a Night Dive, which turned out to be an incredible exercise in dealing with the worst conditions you could not wish to encounter (3 feet of visibility in a pea soup, very strong currents, and 10 feet of space to get through a gap, with the reef everywhere I swam. Still, was good experience, if not entirely pleasant! And I now love green glow sticks for an entirely new reason: survival!!!

Anyway, not going to ramble on too much – the photos should show it all, but brief background to some of these pics: went on a walk through the Cahuita Reserve, saw Capuchin monkeys up close, a good view of a sloth (and more ;), and a couple of snakes.

For the last 3 days we’re staying in the centre of the country again, at the most amazing hotel – it is in a big area with a butterfly observatory, serpentarium, 5 huge waterfalls, ranarium and hummingbird garden. So I’ve been taking photos pretty much constantly ;)

This is my favourite photo of the whole trip, can’t believe I got to see this frog and get this shot!!! Will probably be the cover photo for my book :)