Campfire's Burning
Costa Rica – Week 2
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 :)
Flame of the Forest
Lizard in Heliconia
Eyelash Pitviper
Sloth and baby
Ever tried taking a photo of a bat at night…?
…or a hummingbird?
Blue-jeans poison dart frog
Clearwing butterfly
Red-Eyed Tree Frog
The Resplendent Quetzal, a rare and magnificent sight
Flying Tree Frog
Costa Rica – Days 4-7
In the last few days have been on a river safari in the North, 2 miles from the Nicaraguan border, where we saw a whole host of birds and other wildlife. Back at the hotel, in the late afternoon I went walking through the jungle on my own and came across a 6ft snake on the path in front of me. Needless to say I waited patiently for it to get out of the way before continuing! Turns out it was one of the safer snakes in Costa Rica, but it sure didn’t look like it at the time! I went back on a night trail (somewhere less isolated this time) and snapped lots of insects and little frogs.
Went white-water rafting the next day, and got nicely sunburned on my thighs :S The following day went spelunking with bats and big spiders with scorpion-like pincers, and in the afternoon relaxed in geothermal springs (41 degree water on sunburned legs = OW!!)
Ringed kingfisher. The fish was far too big for it to eat, so after a few attempts at swallowing it, the kingfisher discarded it and carried on fishing.
The 6ft Mussurana snake that crossed my path in the middle of the rainforest. Best not to meddle…
A ball of spiders (well, they’re actually harvestmen, or daddy-long-legs)…
Costa Rica – Day 3
Today’s activity was canyoning, which is abseiling/rappeling down waterfalls in a canyon. While the 2 guides had a dry bag, I chose not to take my camera, but my brother’s camera has several shots of us abseiling, and a few photos of the stunning scenery. Imagine being in the thick of the rainforest, with steep walls either side, a flowing stream at your feet, and waterfalls every now and then, which we got to rappel down :) My very favourite was the 60m fall we dropped down, getting soaked halfway down, and abseiling the bottom half. Not quite adrenaline-fuelled, but the experience and view both up and down were amazing.
Getting to the canyon, walking through the stream and abseiling, then walking back up, driving to lunch (spoke to a guy with his cute little girl, called Emily, thankfully my Spanish kicked in :), and back to the hotel took pretty much the whole day. There was some more lava visible coming down the volcano, and some stunning stars, but clouds came and spoiled both views while I was wandering around the hotel grounds trying to get a photo. (The volcano has just rumbled, it still has indigestion even when cloudy ;) Instead, I spotted dozens of fireflies in the trees, flashing away, and heard frogs croaking near the pool. I found two of them in a small pond, and spent a long while getting some nice photos of them :)
Costa Rica – Day 2
I wasn’t planning on writing again today, but today’s events were even better than yesterday, and while I’ve got free internet at the hotel, and my family are all early-to-bed people on holiday, I thought I’d write some more :)
A couple of things I forgot to mention yesterday were that they play lots of Salsa and Merengue music everywhere, and that every time I try to speak any Spanish, I think of Italian. It’s like I have a brain elf that goes through lots of doors in my head, trying to find the right one for a word translation, and occasionally opens the wrong door and sees a word in Italian, Dutch or Hebrew. Weird analogy, but it came to me this afternoon ;) My brother has been getting by fine, having travelled around Central and Southern America a few times. Hopefully it’ll kick in. Didn’t help that we flew over here with Dutch airlines, where I found myself speaking Dutch to the staff!
Anyway, back to Costa Rica – this morning we went to Sky Trek (www.skytrek.com), which has a cable car over the tree tops (for some nice views, and to get height for the next step: a series of unbelievable zip lines hundreds of feet over the trees. There were 7 in total, and the longest was 600ft above the tree canopy, and 750m long, reaching speeds of 45mph. While the thrill was amazing, I just couldn’t get over the breathtaking views, with rainforest waaaay below, and Lake Arenal in view… I got some video footage while going along. If anyone’s seen Medicine Man, or David Attenborough documentaries, this is similar, but with a huge injection of adrenaline and speed! Alton Towers’ Air, eat your heart out ;)
On the drive back from that, we stopped on the side of the road to see a few Howler Monkeys climbing and jumping through the trees. We knew they were Howlers from the driver, and then definitely when they started howling!
We stopped in the nearest “village”, La Fortuna, which seems to have popped up due to tourism, but has kept a nice village square, church, and two high streets. Quite a few dogs wandering around, and some interesting locals, made for some good cultural photos of non-wildlife.
Saw a pair of macaws in the grounds of a neighbouring hotel, one of which flew from the trees straight onto my brother’s arm. Some pretty butterflies in their garden, and vultures swirling overhead.
Back at the hotel, the clouds cleared over the peak of the volcano, and we could see puffs of smoke appearing down the sides. The puffs progressively appeared further and further down the side of the volcano, almost like ripples appearing when you skim a stone on a pond. I then realised that the puffs were caused by lumps of rock tumbling down the side of the volcano. As it got dark, we could see these rocks glowing red, and they’d appear now and then in varying amounts. I was taking some photos of these, and suddenly saw the whole top of the volcano erupted!!!!!
An unbelievably lucky sight to see!!! I managed a lucky photo, but the sight (and delayed sound) were unforgettable! My family were all inside and missed it, but came out after the loud rumble to see lava flowing down the side of the mountain.
I’m very VERY lucky to have seen a volcano erupt :) All the while, there were howlers howling in the distance, frogs croaking, crickets, a large spider on the leaves above my shoulder, and a pretty frog in the pond just in front of our rooms. Ah, jungle bliss :)
Costa Rica – Day 1
I had the great fortune of going on holiday to Costa Rica for two and a half weeks. Here are some notes I wrote while I was out there, along with a few photos from each day.
Yesterday was travel day – 10am flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Orlando (for compulsary USA fingerprinting and photo, even though we got straight onto another flight), then Orlando to San Jose in Costa Rica.
After a decent night’s sleep and shower – we took a taxi to Arenal, an active volcano in the middle of the jungle. On the way, we saw a troupe of Coati (aka Pizote) by the side of the road. Very cute, and not at all afraid of cars or people.
The volcano was impressive, but the peak was shrouded in cloud. Hopefully it will clear, and the flowing lava will be visible – apparently it’s most impressive at night…. The hotel is a set of houses, dotted around in the middle of the jungle. Went for a pleasant hike through the jungle near the hotel, up and down steep hills, and saw leaf-cutter ants aplenty:
The sights were complemented by bird-calls and jungle sounds aplenty. I was in my element, and snapping away! Had a swim when we got back, the pool overlooking the volcano, with jungle birds calling nearby. We’re here for the next 4 days, doing some interesting activities like walks through the tree-top canopy, river safari, canyoning and white-water rafting.
I have a fan!
I just got a message from KT Tunstall saying she liked my photos! OK, so she’s really nice and contacts lots of her fans, but it still got me beaming again after last week’s encounter :D
She’s on tour in Australia at the moment, and had chance to look through the photos I took of her performance at the Cambridge Folk Festival last week – it’s rather neat that we’re, ahem, fans of each other’s work. :D
KT Tunstall
It almost seems like a dream now, but I just met KT Tunstall!! She’s SO nice!!!
I first saw KT Tunstall perform live at the Cambridge Junction back in May (my cousin first told me about her and wanted to go), and was blown away by her talent, energy, and great songs. Her performance live is an order of magnitude better than her album, which is itself fantastic. I decided against taking photos back then, and we both enjoyed the concert much more for it. Since then, her debut album has gone platinum, and she’s been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
So when I saw KT Tunstall on the billing for the Cambridge Folk Festival, I contacted the festival organisers and her manager to see if I could get a photo pass. The festival organisers couldn’t help me out (they didn’t get my original e-mail until it was too late), but KT Tunstall’s manager and tour manager were really helpful and arranged my photo pass and festival entrance. I only found out on the morning of her set that I could get into the festival to use the photo pass they’d arranged a while back, and still wasn’t convinced until I turned up and was given a wrist-band and guest pass!
I had a bit of a wander around, bumped into another press photographer I’d met before, who shared some useful logistical info. About 10 mins before her set was due to start, met the Media Liaison people who escorted us to the pit area. There were about 20 other press photographers there with me (from the music press, local news, photo agencies, folk magazines etc.), and we had 3 songs to get our photos. I snapped my way through a load of photos in that time, which seems like a blur now, and for the rest of her amazing set, took some more photos from the guest area at the front/side of the stage. I spent most of Saturday sorting through all of them, and they’re now on CantabPhotos, along with photos of The Proclaimers, and general shots around the festival. On first glance through the pics when I got home that night, I was worried that they were all blurred or out of focus (low light, difficult angle), but now I’m really happy with the photos I got of KT; I think my very favourite one (for lighting colours and her pose) is photo 48 on CantabPhotos (shown below).
Getting great photos wasn’t the best part of the evening though – I hung around afterwards and asked the media liaison/stage management people nicely if I could say thank you to her tour manager, for arranging my photo pass and ticket. The media liaison person let me backstage and introduced me to the assistant stage manager, who had a better rapport with the performers. I met her tour manager, Murray, who was as friendly and helpful in person as he had been in all of his e-mails while arranging my ticket for the festival. While waiting for KT and her band to finish their discussions, and then for KT to finish talking on her mobile, I spoke with Murray and a couple more musicians (Ryan, the Australian bassist of Cat Empire, and then some of KT Tunstall’s band), before meeting the lovely lady herself! Had a chat in her dressing room, (what exactly we talked about is lost in a blur now!). While she was talking to the one or two other people there, I called up my cousin and said “You’ll never guess who I’m standing next to right now……KT Tunstall!” – she wasn’t sure if I was joking, or how I’d managed it, until I gave KT my phone and they had a chat – my cousin was rather speechless afterwards! Of course I got the requisite autograph (on the concert ticket from May) and photo with her :D before she had to leave, bound for Australia the next day. I was still smiling when I woke up the next afternoon!
She’s SO nice! She truly deserves all the success and happiness that her considerable talents afford her.
These seem to be the most popular photos in the gallery:
Is Trinity a Den of Thieves?
There are hundreds of tales recounted about Cambridge, many are probably apocryphal, but they’re still juicy enough to tell people who haven’t heard them yet (or gullible tourists in a punt). While taking the photographs shown below, I noticed the inscription on the Trinity Chapel, which reminded me of one of these tales. I’ve not checked the veracity of the tale, but shall pass it on anyway…
Lying on the John’s Backs in the summer, you’ll often hear the reason why the John’s New Court Wedding cake has no clock. Allegedly, there was a race between St. John’s and Trinity to build a clock on their new courts, as they didn’t want to have clocks interfering with each other’s chimes on the hour. Trinity being Trinity, cheated and finished their clock tower in wood (while John’s built the New Court Wedding Cake with stone). The terms of the deal meant that Trinity now chimes the hour twice – the first time for Trinity, and then again immediately afterwards, for St. John’s. In return, St. John’s was able to choose which inscription should be placed on Trinity’s Chapel entrance, as long as the text came from the Bible. So a verse was chosen from the New Testament Gospels:
“Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur”
which translates as:
“My house will be called a house of prayer”
Sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it. Except the line following on from this line is:
“Vos autem fecistis eam speluncam latronum”, which translates as:
“You have turned it into a den of thieves”
So, did John’s exact their revenge for not having a clock tower? Perhaps, but the same inscription can be found on the church of Ste. Madeleine at Rennes-le-Château in France, so perhaps Trinity chose the inscription of their own free will…who knows…..
Prague
Lucky, lucky me.
Another week, another conference, another country. This time I’m in Prague, and am relishing the opportunity. Having got up at a ridiculous hour (4am, after 3 hours’ sleep), my colleague and I got into Prague at 9am. Quite impressive, considering most people back in Britain were still enjoying their Saturday morning lie-ins…
The Charles Bridge early in the morning
From the airport, we had the choice of paying the princely sum of 700 Koruna (about £18) for a taxi into town, or of using the efficient (and very cheap) public transport (bus, then metro), for 15 Koruna (30p). I learnt my second word in Czech (Vystup = Exit) – the first Czech word I learned was during my previous visit to Prague, 9 years ago. Somehow, I still remember that ice cream is called “zmrzlina” – maybe I considered it a useful word to retain, or perhaps its run of 5 consonants made it particularly memorable.
We found our way to the conference location, and our accommodation – the Prague Hilton. In a thoroughly modern area of town, away from the charming old architecture, the large glass building looked rather uninspiring from outside. Once within, the reception area opens out onto an expansive and very impressive Atrium, creating a huge courtyard topped by a glass roof 10 floors up. For some strange reason, they only have elevators on one side of the building, and due to the central space, reaching my room involves walking half way round the circumference of the building to reach the other side. The room’s window looks into the Atrium, with plants and waterfalls below, and the glass ceiling above – all very futuristic.
My French colleague and I spent the afternoon visiting Prague, walking the “Silver Route” from the Powder Tower and Municipal House, past the Cathedral and Astronomical Clock on Wenceslas Square, over the Charles Bridge, and up to Prague Castle. Each building we passed seemed more ornate and impressive than the last, and by the time we reached the castle, our reaction to yet another beautiful spired rooftop was rather blasé.
Having walked around for nigh on three hours, we returned for a short nap before setting up our booth in the conference venue for the opening drinks reception, and offering product demonstrations to passing conference delegates. Now joined by our third colleague, we returned to the centre of Old Prague in the evening for dinner on Wenceslas Square, surrounded by the beautifully-lit Cathedral and Astronomical Clock Tower. We had another wander to Charles Bridge, to see the towers and Castle lit up, and to help digest yet more fried fare.
Prague Castle at Night
The bridge seemed a world away from its daytime persona – all of the street vendors and masses of tourists had disappeared. The gold-bearing statues along the sides merged into the night, and you’d see the occasional beggar, lying prostrate on the ground, head almost touching the ground, proferring a cup for charity. Giving the appearing of a meek, unworthy soul, it is certainly a radically different approach to the all-too noticeable beggars of London & Cambridge.