I hadn't expected to
fall in love with Costa Rica. I had been
anticipating this trip with a mix of excitement and a little trepidation. This would be my first trip to Latin America,
and I was concerned about everything from my limited capacity with Spanish to
theft. Since this was a
multi-generational trip, with 9 family members ranging in age from 14 to 79,
all crammed into a van traveling hundreds of miles, I was also concerned about
having adequate opportunities to take pictures.
But it was also a fantastic opportunity.
My wife's parents had been to Costa Rica numerous times and knew it
well. They are also naturalists, and
especially birders. A large portion of
the proposed itinerary included various nature preserves, eco lodges, cabins in
jungles, and spectacular locations. Also
in our company were my wife's sister, her husband and their three teenage and
college-age children, all of whom share an interest in various aspects of the
natural world.
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| San Vito, with the Talamancas in the distance, the day after Christmas, 2012 |
As the time of the
trip approached (we were going for two weeks over Christmas and New Years) I
initially decided to bring a modest subset of my camera gear for maximum flexibility and security. But I shared my thoughts with a friend who has spent a great deal of time in Latin America and who is
also an avid photographer. He was aghast
at the thought that I might leave my "wildlife lens" at home, and
encouraged me to make the most of this opportunity, as the Costa Rican jungles
are well-known for their diversity of birds and other animals. At his urging I reconsidered how I might
operate photographically. I wanted to be
highly mobile, able to change lenses without having to put down my pack and
rummage in it. My "wildlife
lens" is a Canon 400mm f5.6L, which, when fit on my Canon 60D, yields an
effective length of 640mm. Coupled with
my 1.4x Canon converter, I can reach a focal length of 896mm. Unfortunately, with the relatively small
native aperture, the 400mm becomes an f8 and can only be focused manually. Still, between the 400mm, my 70-200mm f4L,
and the converter, I have a lot of wildlife options. All my gear, plus traveling odds and ends for
the plane trips needed to fit in a Lowepro 302AW slingshot backpack that would
be my carry-on. In the end I needed to
leave something behind. Left at home,
and largely unmissed for the duration of the trip, were my flash and my 10-22mm
wide-angle. The wide-angle would have
been nice, but with my normal "walk-around" range of 17-85 (27-136
effective range) coupled with the knowledge that this was largely a family
vacation with an emphasis on wildlife, I felt like this was a reasonable
compromise. My bag would be light enough
to carry comfortably, with the 400mm in the bottom and the tripod on the side,
affording me excellent flexibility without ever having to put the bag down. Plus my iPad laid nicely across the top of everything.
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| Iguana at the InBio park in San Jose |
Located between
Nicaragua and Panama in Central America, with coasts on both the Pacific and
Caribbean, Costa Rica has a dizzying variety of tropical environments with a
huge range of flora and fauna. It is
also one of the most well developed and safest Latin American countries.
It was a different world than one I had ever experienced, full of sounds
of the jungle, exotic plants and animals, and a palpable sense, for North
Americans who had never been to Latin America, of being in another place. Our trip would take us from the large
population center of San Jose, located along the slopes of the tremendous
Talamanca Mountains, down to the Pacific coast, then inland to the small town
of San Vito where we would stay for a week.
Then we would travel back through the mountains, over an 11,000 pass,
returning to San Jose for a few days before flying home. We would experience lowland jungle, small
towns, the inland foothills, and the mighty Talamancas with their cloud
forests.
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| Jungle near San Vito |
Our plane dropped
swiftly down into San Jose, volcanic mountains rising all around us. We collected our bags that had, miraculously
arrived following a 24-hour delay and unexpected overnight in Newark, and soon
the small but immaculate terminal was behind us, and the adventure was about to
begin! The next few postings will cover some highlights from this trip.
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| Dusk near Hacienda Baru on the Pacific coast |
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| Capuchin monkey at Pino Colina |
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