JoeTourist's South Africa online

My trip to Southern Africa in October and November 2008 included travel to Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa (including Swaziland). I worked hard at posting my travelogues for Zambia and Botswana about two months after returning home, however the South Africa portion of the trip presented more of a challenge.

I took about 1,000 photographs and over an hour of high definition video in South Africa. I still haven't processed the video other than to index it, however I identified some 384 still photos to be used in my travelogue for South Africa. Some of those photos are frame extracts from the HD video, so needless to say, this involved considerable work to get my photos to a point where I could start integrating them with my narrative to form a complete travelogue.

I have worked on my South Africa travelogue for the last four months, and finally have a first release posted to my JoeTourist website. I say "first release" because I now have to edit the HD video into movies covering one or more logical subjects or regions. The problem will be to decide how to combine this material, since we covered so much ground in South Africa on the South African Surprise tour. I hope to post the resulting videos within the next few weeks, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy my coverage of South Africa!

Feb 28-Mar 5, 2009 - Tamarindo, Costa Rica

February 28, 2009 – Saturday – San Jose to Tamarindo

This morning I share breakfast with several of the Southern Skies tour group before they leave for home. I also hook up with a couple who I will share a ride with to Pavas airport, where we will catch a flight to Tamarindo. My friends are also at breakfast, however they have arranged for a private driver and van to drive them to Hotel Las Tortugas in Tamarindo. I'm glad to be flying, since it takes about an hour instead of about six hours of driving time from San Jose.

Nature Air charges me US$25 for my overweight bag, which I expected since they have a strict 35lb limit for baggage. They use Twin Otter aircraft, so they also weigh each passenger (including carry-ons) at check-in. Obviously they are pretty careful about overloading their aircraft. Pavas Airport is a nice airport – small enough to make it easy to find the airline counter you are looking for. The staff is casual, friendly, and helpful.

Our flight leaves at 11:45am, which is a bit later than the 11:15am departure time printed on my e-ticket, but who cares since we don't have to make any connections. I get some really nice aerial photos as we fly to Liberia, and then onward to Tamarindo. Liberia is an international airport, with flights from American Airlines, Continental, and Air Canada landing here. If I had known that, I could have returned home from Liberia instead of taking an extra day to fly to San Jose and staying overnight there.

The taxi ride from Tamarindo airport to the hotel costs me US$30. I was expecting to pay $20, however the hotel staff tell me that is the fare for the 20 minute ride.  I think that's excessive, even for a tourist area. 

The staff at Hotel Las Tortugas are very friendly. Although not all speak English, they all understand some of what I say. I am quickly booked into my room as previously arranged, and have some time to settle in and have a shower before my friends arrive mid-afternoon from their drive from San Jose. We have a beer and a chat before they go to their room to have a siesta before dinner.

March 1-5, 2009

I like Hotel Las Tortugas – it is casual, unpretentious, located right on the beach beside the turtle preserve, the staff are all very friendly, and the meals are excellent. I'm trying to stick to the Costa Rican selections on the menu, so that inevitably means eating some beans and rice, but it's "good for me". As at La Ensenada, the food quality here is excellent. I'm particularly enjoying the chicken and seafood (very flavourful and nicely spiced) and the fresh fruit (juicy and full-flavoured). It makes the fruit we get in Canada seem so anaemic.

We met Louis Wilson, the owner of Hotel Las Tortugas yesterday. He described some of the environmental battles that have been waged in the Tamarindo area – turtles versus development. As is the case in every part of the world, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and there is always environmental impact when humans are involved. We go for early morning walks and on two occasions saw turtle tracks – one morning big turtle tracks (the size of an ATV), and another time we saw baby turtle tracks. We also discovered some broken and damaged eggs, but we never spot the turtles themselves. Turtle Season ended on February 15^th, so we obviously missed the best time to see turtles.

Each evening we join the dozens of people who gather on the beach just before sunset. As at Long Beach on Vancouver Island, sunset is a special time. We see lots of colours ranging from yellow, pink, red, and some sculpted clouds. As with elsewhere in the tropics, the Sun sets in about twenty minutes, so by 6:15pm each evening the show is over and everyone moves to the bar and restaurant. I take some good photos of the sunsets over the last few days. Getting some subject matter in the foreground is always a challenge.

March 3, 2009 – Tuesday – Estuary Boat Trip – My friends and I are up at 6am in order to be picked up at 7am for a taxi ride to Hotel Bula Bula, where we will be taken on a two hour motorboat trip up the estuary. We have time for a very nice breakfast in The Great Waltini's restaurant, where they have a tame parrot who entertains everyone with his antics. After breakfast the three of us board the little 8-seater boat and wind our way through the narrow channels of Estero Tamarindo, a national wildlife refuge. Since we depart at 8am, the temperature is pleasantly cool. We see lots of birds, go ashore to see a group of Howler monkeys, and also spot a couple of crocodiles from the boat. We return to our launch point by 10am and our taxi is waiting to take us back to the hotel. Cost of the boat trip is US$25 each, plus US$10 each way for the taxi – breakfast extra of course.

Feb 21-27, 2009 - Costa Rica Southern Skies – part 2

Below please find the final instalment of my days at La Ensenada Lodge on the Costa Rica Southern Skies tour.

Feb 24, 2009 - La Ensenada Lodge

I almost talked myself out of going on the boat trip to the mangrove swamp, however I showed up at 2pm down at the dock. I take my Canon 50D and the 17-85 zoom lens, however after we spot our first birds (Pelicans), I wish I had brought the 70-200 zoom instead. The birds we saw were pretty close, but the extra reach of the longer zoom lens would give me better image scale. We follow a similar route as last year, seeing lots of birds catching fish, spoonbills in the trees, and a Pelican colony at close range. It is cooler than I remember the boat trip from last year, and the water isn't as rough on the return trip. After returning, I have a swim in the pool before going for dinner – very refreshing!

This evening I look at M42 Orion Nebula through a 15" Obsession Dobsonian telescope one of our group has brought with them on the trip. Gary thinks this telescope holds the record as the largest aperture telescope brought on the tour so far. All I can say is the views through it are superb. The view of M42 is breathtaking – the beautiful blue colour of the reflection nebula is visible for the first time in any scope I've used on this showpiece object. We also have a look at the Sombrero Galaxy, where the dust lane is evident, and Comet Lulin's spectacular dust tail. Later in the evening, I do some astrophotography using my Astrotrac tracking mount on a tripod. It works very well, but my choice of targets: the emission in Vela turns out to be underwhelming. Later I change targets to a widefield of M42 Orion Nebula, including the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula, and am rewarded with a breathtaking resultant image.

Feb 25, 2009 - La Ensenada Lodge

After midnight, I turn my camera to Comet Lulin and have yet more success. I take relatively few frames to capture the comet's tail, and show just how fast this comet is moving through the cosmos. I go to bed tired but happy after a busy night of observing and photographing the night sky. I get up for the 8am breakfast this morning, and then return to my cabin to process my photography from the night before. My notebook computer really doesn't like operating in this tropical heat, but I organize all the images in preparation for later processing.

The Tractor Ride is an event I am looking forward to this afternoon. Not only do we see La Ensenada's property from a new perspective, once we arrive atop the lookout hill, we are served Mama's fresh antipasto snacks and cold beer and soft drinks. The antipasto is superb – the best I've had in many years - I remember it from last year's trip. Before we get to lookout hill, we see the Salinas where they make salt from seawater, the swamp from the other side, and lots of birds and cattle along the way. The view from the lookout is superb, so I take a few more photos despite having lots of coverage from last year.

After dinner I go to bed early and sleep the night through to the following morning. I guess last night's activities tired me out more than I realized. I will have to ensure I make good use of our upcoming last night at La Ensenada Lodge.

Feb 26, 2009 - La Ensenada Lodge

Swiss Travel, the company Jorge works for, originally planned to take us to a beach near Puntarenas today, however only a couple of people signed up and several of us suggested to both Jorge and Gary that we would much prefer a walk through Careras National Park. To their credit, Swiss Travel cancelled the beach trip and substituted Careras, providing each person pays the US$10 entrance fee to the park. Most of our group sign up for this trip, and we leave this morning on the bus. First stop is the bridge over the Taracoles River to see the crocodiles. They are huge – about three metres long. The bus meets us on the other side and we drive the short distance to the Careras National Park entrance, pay our entrance fee and walk along a relatively flat trail through the rain forest, which transitions from "dry" to "wet". We are treated to two opportunities to see Scarlett Macaws (both nesting in trees). We also see Jesus Christ Lizards. Jorge flushes them out and they scoot across the stream - that's how they get their name (walking on water). There are sandwiches and cold drinks waiting for us as we drive back to La Ensenada in the bus. After the hot temperatures in the rain forest, the air conditioning offers some welcome relief.

Afternoons at Le Ensenada are hot, so most of our group disappear to their cabins for siestas or adjourn to the pool for a refreshing swim. After having dinner at 5pm, we observe Venus and the thin Crescent Moon as they both set in the west at sunset – a beautiful sight. I'm tired after the hike in the midday heat, so after dinner I go to bed. I wake up at midnight fully refreshed and ready for our last observing opportunity at La Ensenada.

Feb 27, 2009 - La Ensenada Lodge

At 12:30am I go down to the ridge line where my Astrotrac is setup. My mission this morning is to photograph a widefield of the Southern Cross to Eta Carina region. Once I polar align the Astrotrac, I setup my Hutech-modified Canon XTi dSLR and set my 70-200mm zoom lens to 70mm. It is just wide enough to frame the Crux and Carina constellations. There are some clouds drifting by midway through my photo run, but I end up with enough two minute exposures to do credit to the field rich with many wonderful celestial objects, including (from left to right): the with the Southern Cross and Coalsack dark nebula, IC2944/8 nebula, Stock 13 cluster, the Eta Carina nebula, and the Southern Pleiades cluster (IC2602). I'm so excited by what I see in my images, I stay up until after 4am processing them, which results is a wonderful resultant image – just what I was aiming for on this trip!

Tired but happy, I have a couple of hour's sleep before waking around 6:30am. It is time to pack all my stuff that has spread itself out all over the cabin. Getting it all packed into my main suitcase take some doing, but it all fits and I'm ready to go to my last breakfast at La Ensenada by 8am. All the meals are served buffet style, and have been very good. We say thank you to our staff, have a group photo taken, and then we are on our way by bus to San Jose. We travel the same route we took to get out here until we reach the Central Valley, and then divert to the town of Sarchi. This is a crafts area, and is also our lunch stop. The buffet at Las Carretas Restaurant is very good, and includes complimentary beer or wine, so I have a local Bavarian Gold beer with my lunch (recommended by Jorge). I actually purchase a few souvenirs this time; we have another group photo taken, since Jorge was missing from the one taken at the Lodge, and then we drive into San Jose and the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.

Our farewell dinner is held in the Marriott this year – an improvement over last year when we were in a noisy restaurant. This year we could converse, listen to Gary's and Jorge's speeches, and enjoy ourselves and the lovely buffet dinner. It was a very nice ending to a trip which I think everyone enjoyed. Goodbyes were said, tips were given to Jorge, and the evening ended. Most of the group are leaving tomorrow for their respective homes, but some of us Canadians are staying in Costa Rica for another week. Five of us are traveling to the Tamarindo area in the northwest corner of Costa Rica tomorrow to get some beach time and just kick back. A couple from New York are going to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica for a deluxe tenting experience for a couple of days.

Please read more about my experiences in Tamarindo in a blog to follow.

Feb 21-27, 2009 - Costa Rican Southern Skies

Feb 27, 2009 – San Jose, Costa Rica

We have returned to San Jose after staying at La Ensenada "Star" Lodge on the Nicoya Peninsula. This is a dark site that is exclusively booked by TravelQuest for their Southern Skies tour participants for five nights. The Lodge is turned into an astronomical observing site:

• All the white lights are extinguished - some are replaced by red lights
• Sky and Telescope's columnist Gary Seronik is our astronomical guide
• The site offers a wonderful 360 degree view from a wide open field right in front of our cabins
• We are here during the dry season, so clear skies are the norm
• The tour is conducted during new Moon, with a couple of thin crescents visible during the last couple of days
• We can stay up all night if we have the stamina to do this for five nights in a row!
• The night temperature is about 27 degrees, so observing in shirt sleeves is in order

There were some clouds the first night, so we had to wait until 3am or so for the skies to clear. Otherwise we had clear skies every night following, and the "seeing" started out as good and progressed to excellent by the last night. Everyone went home happy, and we made some new friends along the way. There were not as many participants as last year, but it was a good sized group at 31 people. Everyone was either from Canada or the USA, so we were all appreciating the warm temperatures. Most of the group also enjoyed the daytime activities (see below for details).

I will be leaving San Jose tomorrow to fly on Nature Air to Tamarindo, where I will be staying at Las Tortugas – a small hotel nearby. This is a resort community located in the northwest corner of Costa Rica, right on the Pacific coast. I will meet some friends there, and we will have a week of yet more leisure time: poolside laying about; possibly we might see some turtles; and there is a good chance we can do more astronomical observing and photography from this location, since it is a dark site because of the nearby turtle preserve.

Since there is no Internet at La Ensenada, please find below my travelogue for the first two days of the week just past. I understand there is an Internet connection where I will be staying for the coming week, so hopefully I will post to this blog more frequently, and catch up to the current day.

Feb 22, 2009 – San Jose to La Ensenada Lodge

After a sumptuous breakfast at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel, we board the bus and leave for our journey to the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Unlike last year, the upgrading to this section of the Pan American Highway appears to be finished, so we make good time to our lunch stop at Restaurante Caballo Blanco (the white horse restaurant). As we experienced last year, the meal at this restaurant introduces everyone to the wholesome food the Costa Ricans typically prepare for their guests at every meal. Lots of fresh fruit juice, a choice of chicken, beef or fish, vegetables, rice and beans, and a nice dessert to finish. The only downside to this part of the trip is when we find out that our new bus is hermetically sealed, so the engine must be kept running the whole time we are in the restaurant in order to keep the cabin from overheating. Some of our group find this a bit environmentally irresponsible.

Our guide Jorge tells us a bit about Costa Rica and its people, and what to expect for the next few days as we drive toward La Ensenada Lodge. La Ensenada is as I remember it from last year. It is a working ranch and farm, raising both cattle and a variety of crops. It is about 40 degrees Celsius in the hot afternoon as we arrive, and the owners and staff are on hand to greet us and to give us some cold drinks to sip as we are assigned to our cabins. After I have a quick dip in the pool and a shower, it is time for dinner. The meal routine for the next few days is: breakfast at 8am, lunch at noon, and dinner at 5pm. We are eating dinner earlier that normal in Costa Rica so we have time to setup equipment and get out on the observing field before it gets too dark. As anyone knows who had travelled to the tropics, the sun sets promptly around 6pm, and it gets dark rapidly.

As noted in my introduction above, there were some clouds covering about 50% of the sky this first night. A fellow Canadian from Calgary brought down one of the biggest telescopes ever brought to this event in Costa Rica, so I stuck around to try out his new 15" Obsession Dobsonian telescope. The views of M42 Orion Nebula were nothing short of astounding – the blue colour was visible in the reflection nebulae, and it was very bright. For those who either stayed up or woke up around 3am, the clouds mostly disappeared by then, giving us some observing opportunities the first night (or morning).

Feb 23, 2009 - La Ensenada Lodge

I shot a time lapse video of the southern sky from 3:30am to sunrise using my digital SLR.

Crux Region - Southern Skies over Costa Rica from JoeTourist InfoSystems on Vimeo

Today is "at leisure" as they say in the travel industry. Jorge is leading a nature walk this morning at 6am, so I join in since I'm already up from the night before. We only walk about a hundred metres along the Lodge's driveway and spot so many birds it takes over an hour! I think the new people on the tour are pretty impressed that Costa Rica is such a rich wildlife area. After having breakfast, I go back to my cabin and process the individual frames from my southern sky sequence into a video. It turns out quite well – I'll post it online after I return home. I'm pretty tired, so I catch up on some sleep – first in the hammock on the front porch, and then in bed with the ceiling fan on low. After lunch, I go for a swim in the pool, and then go back to bed for an afternoon siesta.

Gary Seronik conducts a tour of the night sky this evening at 7pm. Everyone reclines in the lounge chairs by the pool while Gary reviews the sights in the early evening sky.