We’ve had a busy couple of weeks. After…well actually both before, during, and after…my last post on July 3 we spent the week packing for a photo workshop in Costa Rica on the Osa peninsula which is on the Pacific side just about 25 miles from the border with Panama. This however…was a different sort of workshop in that +1s were invited to come along for about half price compared to the workshop participants. We were scheduled to stay at the Botánika Resort in Puerto Jimenez for the duration of the trip and it was pretty luxurious so Connie elected to come along. She wasn’t much interested in photo workshop stuff…but planned to spend the week by the pool and going out fishing with a local captain as she loves to fish.

So we spent most of July 3 doing packing and putting the hurricane shutters up just in case…there was the storm that eventually became Beryl passing through the southern islands. We were pretty sure it wasn’t coming to FL…but ya know how it goes…if we put them up it would bypass us and if not it would abruptly change course and come to FL. Sure enough…up they went and Beryl passed south of Cuba and across the Yucatan peninsula before curving northward and making landfall near the TX/Mexico border. We left around noon on July 4th for the drive over to Miami for our flight the next morning…stayed overnight at the Sheraton at the airport and left the car parked there and took the shuttle to the airport. Oh yeah…we had to take Connie’s car…Neil’s battery failed over the previous weekend and while he got a new one there was an error code and he didn’t have time to figure it out before we left and although he was pretty sure it was related to the dead battery he wouldn’t want to have issues on the way to Miami 2 days after getting the replacement. Once we got home he cleared the alarm…it was an engine communications failure thing…and it hasn’t returned so his surmise was correct.

Anyway…late Friday morning they boarded their American Airlines flight to San Jose…and sprung for business class seats to give them plenty of overhead bin space for the two backpacks of photo gear they took and Neil’s briefcase of batteries, laptop, iPads, and assorted electronic needs. Arriving in San Jose the Botanika people got them transported over to their hotel for the night at the Hilton Garden Inn…this is actually a high rise hotel with reception one the 22nd floor and their room on the 27th floor.

Here’s the view from their room…pretty nice, eh? San Jose sits in a valley surrounded by mountains as you can see.

They had a shower and then grabbed a glass of wine in the bar before crashing for the evening. Early next morning…like 0530 early…they mustered down at street level for the ride to the domestic side of the airport for their bush plane flight to Puerto Jimenez. After getting checked in and weighed they boarded the flight and were told that Connie’s suitcase along with a couple others overloaded the plane and would be there on a later flight. She wasn’t too happy but at worst she could have borrowed some clothes from Neil Turns out that there were 4 wives along on the trip and 2 were workshop participants and 2 were +1s just there for a vacation.

Once checked in at the Botánika Resort after the short flight from San Jose we had the whole welcome meeting thing and lunch…and I gotta tell you the staff fed us pretty darned well for the week…we staggered away from the dinner table every lunch and dinner completely full and ready for a nap.

After lunch Neil headed off for their first outing of the workshop…but I can’t show you any pictures yet as he’s not processed them. We spent the next 7 days taking pictures, laying by the pool, and fishing…coming home with about 19,000 shots to sort through. 

The only drawback of the trip was that by Tuesday his lower back was hurting…he just took drugs and kept going on but by the time we got home he was pretty sore. Not sure if it was diverticulitis acting up, bruises to his kidneys from bouncing on the lousy roads, or perhaps a kidney stone that got jarred loose by the bouncing he’s slowly getting better but no final resolution yet.

Speaking of roads…back when he was in Africa there was a long debate one day about whether the roads in Africa or Costa Rica were worse…Rose insisted that CR was far worse and 2 workshop participants said Africa was worse. After being on both of them…Neil can definitely state that the ones in Africa are overall worse. But…here we have a dissenting opinion from Judges Right and Left from the kidney wing of the court. In their opinion…and on further review he agrees with them…it’s not just the roads that have to be considered but the vehicle you’re in. In Africa they use Toyota Highlanders modified with heavy duty suspensions that actually give a much better ride than the Mercedes Sprinter vans that are used in CR. So…overall…roads better in CR but ride worse and the net effect on kidneys is worse in CR.

The week progressed quickly…Connie caught some fish and spent time by the pool and doing her counted cross-stitch while Neil was out and she even went on the one workshop excursion where +1s were invited along to the chocolate plantation…I’ll give all the details on the photos and such later on as he finishes working on pictures.

He was supposed to go on a 3rd workshop out to Glacier National Park in Montana 10 days after returning from CR…but the back pain forced him to cancel…which he really should have done anyway long ago when he signed up for the CR workshop…we’ve been back a week now and none of us are fully recovered from the heat, humidity, and hard fun we were having. 

Here are a couple of teaser photos for ya…straight out of the camera iPhone images.

Green Parrot.

Connie and one of her fish…a Jack which they tossed back as they’re bony and oily and not Good Eats.

Fer-de-Lance…one of the venomous snakes found in CR. This one was resting under a tree on one of their nature walks and he took this shot from about 3 feet away. Good thing it wasn’t being aggressive.

The look out over the bluff at their last stop on the last day of the workshop…this is a really, really high end eco-resort.

That’s all for today…just wanted to let ya know we were still alive and kickin’.

Cyas.