Tulemar Hotel

View from the hotel restaurant

After San Jose we drove down to the Pacific Coast and stayed at the Tulemar Hotel in Manuel Antonio. Our hotel was situated in the trees on a steep slope above a private beach.  Sloths in the tree right outside our bungalow and monkeys all around.  Some of the best bird watching of the whole trip was from the breakfast table in the hotel restaurant.  Stuey and I even spotted a blue-crowned motmot while eating breakfast!  But the best part of the hotel was the private beach.  At the beach they handed out boogie boards and you could also borrow kayaks and snorkeling gear.  Really you did not need to leave the hotel grounds to have a good adventure. And the food was excellent!

Patrick

Our bungalow

Another view of our bungalow (the one on the right)

Pool by the hotel restaurant - we played a lot of Marco Polo in this pool!

The inside of our bungalow

Another view of the 'restaurant' pool

In the evening I'd read by the pool while the kids swam and played with other kids

My blackened tuna meal from the first night

Poke tuna appetizer

Stuey's dessert

Costa Rican Wildlife

Costa Rica is a VERY different place than Alaska.  Fruit grows on trees and there are some pretty amazing birds and animals.  We saw four species of monkeys and both species of sloth.  And colorful birds like trogans, toucans, and macaws.  The bird highlight for me was a Turquoise Cotinga. And on an evening bird hike with a bird guide I saw 34 different species of birds in an hour (and that only counts the birds we were able to identify).  Patrick

Toucan eating Papaya

Tropical screech owls

Find the croc!

Black throated Trogan

Casa Tomas and Anna

Anna's pancakes for Stuey (actually everyone)

We started our Costa Rican vacation in San Jose where we spent a few days at the house of my old college roommate Tomas.  The kids were super impressed that they had a pool.  No one in Alaska has a pool.  They were actually more impressed with the pool than they were with his airplane.  People in Alaska do have planes where many places are not connected by roads and small planes are a necessity of travel.  The same is actually sort of true of Costa Rica where the roads are super congested and often in poor repair, and as a businessman Tomas often has to visit far flung places - places that would take all day to reach by car.

In San Jose Anna and Tomas fed us well and I got to meet another friend from college and his family who also now lives in San Jose.  But the theme of San Jose was pool and more pool. Stuey, to his utter delight, discovered that they also have a pool table.  Later in the trip none of the hotels we stayed at had a pool table and for this reason I think Stuey liked Tomas' house the best of all.

Tomas gave us an evening sightseeing tour in his plane.  We flew down towards the coast and saw the places we would later visit by car.  Flying back to San Jose we flew over the Alaska Airlines jet landing at the international airport.  The same flight we had arrived on the day before.  It was funny to hear the Alaska Airlines pilot talking to air traffic control in American accented English, and listen as air traffic control switched to English when they replied.  All the other planes were talking in Spanish.
Patrick

Casa Tomas and Anna's - Much to Tomas' delight Nora asked if the grass was real

And they have a pool!

Stuey could not get enough of the other type of pool

Neither could I

Tomas' Cessna 206 - we did an evening sightseeing tour

Night swim

One of Anna's orchids

Puntarenas (Costa Rica's main port), freighters and even tuna boats waiting to deliver fish

Costa Rican Vacation

Yesterday the kids and I returned from a trip to Costa Rica.  While there we visited with my college roommate Tomas and his family in San Jose, and explored the Pacific coast of the country from hotels near Quepos and Porto Jimenez.  I will be posting a lot about the various aspects of this trip in the next few days, but highlights include: lots of swimming pools and Marco Polo, amazing food, river rafting and snorkeling, learning to surf, horseback riding in the jungle, zip lines and waterfall rappelling, and seeing lots and lots of strange wildlife and birds!

Even the low point of the trip had its highlights!  On the way home we missed our flight connection in Los Angeles and it took 48 hours to get home.  But this meant we got an extra day of vacation in LA and spent the travel day by the beach in Santa Monica.
Patrick

My Old Cameras

My First high end SLR - Fujica ST605N (1978)

Tomorrow the kids and I are off to Costa Rica, and I got a new camera for the trip.  My waterproof camera with the practically full sized sensor that I have been loving so much for the past year got a crack in its waterproof case.  So I had to send it off to get repaired.

In the meantime I needed a small 'travel' camera that still has a big sensor.  Something a little more than a 'point and shoot' (and an iPhone), and something a little less than than my big SLR with all the extra lenses. Since I will be getting back my waterproof Leica camera and still have my old Olympus Tough waterproof cameras I decided not to get another water proof camera.  I also wanted something with a little bit of a zoom lens.  I ended up choosing the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II.  And I think I like it!

Anyway, getting a new camera got me thinking about all my old cameras.  I made a list of all the cameras I have ever owned.  It made me realize that cameras used to get obsolete a lot less quickly than they do these days!  I used my old Pentax K1000 for almost 25 years.

Film (5 cameras in 30 years)

Kodak Instamatic (Mid 1970s)
Fujica ST605N (1978-1980)
Pentax K1000 (1980-2004)
Olympus Stylus (2) (1992-2000; 2000-2006)

Digital (11 cameras in 12 years!)

Pentax Optio (3) WP10, 60, 80 (2006-2012)
Canon Powershot G9 (2008-2012)
Canon EOS 5D Mark II (2010-present)
Canon G1X (2012-2017)
Olympus Tough (3) TG1, TG2, TG3 (2012-present)
Leica X-U (2017-present)
Panasonic Lumix LX100 II (Newest camera)

I did not use 2 cameras until the 1990s when I got a point-and-shoot Olympus Stylus.  It was small with a fixed 35 lens and I always had it in my pocket.  But I still used the K1000 for when I needed 'a better camera'.  Funnily enough once I got into digital I only used a waterproof point and shoot for quite a long while (the Pentax Optio).  That is until I got my first mid range camera - the Canon G9.  That camera fills the same niche as my newest Panasonic Lumix.  These days the lower end digital point and shoots are pretty much obsolete because phones can do a better job.

I did get a high end digital SLR - The Canon EOS 5D - but it has always been too heavy to carry around, and has always been mostly used close to home.  It is still not obsolete but I doubt I will ever get another big SLR - they are just too big and fragile.  I actually think the waterproof and shockproof Leica with a fixed lens that is in the shop is about the perfect camera for me.

The bottom 4 photos are all taken with my new Lumix.  It takes excellent close ups and takes pictures that seem pretty sharp and colorful.  I will admit that after the practically manual controls of my Leica it is a little confusing to have so many screens and options.  But it does have nice dials that allow me to use it like a manual camera.

It'll get a workout in Costa Rica!
Patrick

Me and my Pentax K1000 - Karluk 1985

Incised pebble - this is a serious close up!

Stormy Seas

Leo bows to the weather

The weather this past weekend was pretty dismal for outdoor activities.  The hard rain and high winds was super conducive for taking a nap!  And I did take a couple of long naps, read and worked on puzzles.  But I also got outside.

On Saturday I took the dogs, Nora and cousin Leo to the beach by Boyscout Lake.  It was calm but wet in the trees and then as we got near the beach we could hear the roar of the wind and waves.  We had to dare ourselves to step out onto the beach and into the brunt of the wind.  We had to yell to each other to be heard. The power of the sea and the weather was actually pretty awesome.

Then on Sunday I tried mountain goat hunting in the rain and fog.  I got up super early and hiked up through the forest in the dark.  I could hear the marbled murrelets flitting through the trees and making their calls on the way from their nests to breakfast at sea.  I was going the other way.

Up high we actually had almost a foot of new snow and for a while it was calm and not raining.  I thought I might even get a goat.  But then the fog socked in and the rain started.  It was so dismal I did not even take any pictures.  I got soaked and had to keep moving to stay warm.  I went home when I realized that harvesting a goat would mean I would have to stop moving - I'd freeze!
Patrick