Another Trip Report - Very Pic Heavy - Tried out our new DSLR camera in Costa Rica

[Albertadiver]

Well, a number of AO members helped me with a surprise digital SLR camera for my wife on our 5 year anniversary. She love’s the camera, and I kinda like it too.

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=116945

After taking nearly 1500 photo’s in the last week, I’ve picked out some of the finalists to share.

There’s also been some threads lately on Costa Rica, so I thought I’d post this up even though we’re nearly on a different continent.

We spent a week in Playa Conchal, Guanacaste Costa Rica. We stayed at the Westin.

This was our second trip there and the place is truly paradise. We did 3 days of diving, and the rest was simply relaxing at the pool, no trips to the cloud forests or volcanoes. Maybe next year (I hope).

The diving was fantastic, but we didn’t take many pics as I didn’t want to take the camera on the boat. Boat pics are with an Iphone. On the final day, we had 10+ foot swells in crazy wind. It was literally like grabbing onto a bucking bronco to get back on the boat. I had a BLAST!!

We actually needed to wear our scuba masks to see on the trip back. Seeing wild dolphins on the bow of the boat 4 feet away jumping out of the water is a lifetime experience.

Diving, we saw many different species of Rays, eels, octopus, schooling fish, and more. Even diving in the red tide was an experience. If you are a diver in the Playa Conchal or Playa Flamingo area, this was our second year diving with Aquacenter and Eduardo and his divemasters are a great group.

Anyhow… here’s some pics. Always appreciate critiques on photo taking as we are complete newbies to this. Hope you like some of them.

So to start with…. Here’s some of the landscape of Costa rica.

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[Albertadiver]

Landscape part dos

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[Albertadiver]

Landscape part tres

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[Albertadiver]

And here’s the resort we stayed at – the Westin Playa Conchal…

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[Albertadiver]

Resort part dos…..

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[Albertadiver]

Some of the many amazing flowers we saw. It is the dry season there, and the much of the green we saw was strictly at the resort. The dry jungle was really something neat to see too though.

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[Albertadiver]

Purty flowers part dos


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[Albertadiver]

And here’s some of the abundant lizards running around….

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[Albertadiver]

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[BGSH]

Your living the good life, i enjoyed your pictures, thankyou

[Albertadiver]

Some of the thousands of bird species there…. The place would erupt at dusk every night. We saw some amazing birds. Our favourite was the yellow parrots, but couldn’t get a good photo of them.

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[Albertadiver]

…more birdies….

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[Albertadiver]

And a few of the mammals we saw…. The howler monkeys sounded like really angry lions, and turn out to look like such cute little things… Wouldn’t want to make one mad though. I’m sure they can fling poo like nobody’s business!

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…must be warm cause his nackers are sure hangin’ low!
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[Albertadiver]

….And a shout out to my mojito loving friends….

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Hoped you enjoyed the pics as much as I enjoyed the mojito girly drinks… after a while that dang penguin kept trying to hit on my wife. I sure showed him…. (think of that movie billy Madison…)

[greylynx]

Thanks AB:

The flowers and animal pictures are wonderful.

The baby flamingos are really cool. I love the bird pictures.

Thanks again.

Question: Any diving or snorkeling when you were there?

[Albertadiver]

Question: Any diving or snorkeling when you were there?

Yep, did 6 dives with my wife. Lots of life and a lot better visibility than last year. the water temps were cool, but it was very refreshing. The coldest day we had was somewhere around +32C....

The diving was wicked awesome. Can't afford an underwater camera rig at this time though... A decent one is about 6K.

[Rocky7]

Gracias.

[Albertadiver]

The baby flamingos are really cool. I love the bird pictures.


Those pink birds are spoonbills, pretty neat to watch them. They look pretty plain jain, but when they fly the underside of thier wings is a really neat bright pink.

[Alberta Bigbore]

Nice pics!! Thanks for posting.

[Lefty-Canuck]

Nice pics man.....I hope you had a mojito for the rest of us in the cold :)

LC

[Albertadiver]

Nice pics man.....I hope you had a mojito for the rest of us in the cold :)

LC

I had enough for at least a few dozen AO members. BGSH should be feeling real warm and fuzzy....

[Ken07AOVette]

Awesome pics B!

DSLR's sure are fun, aren't they?

[Boxer-O]

Great pics! Really enjoyed them.

[omega50]

Enjoyed the pics-especially the unique quality of the morning light.

When you are ready to buy a place shoot me a PM:). My buddy is a Remax agent in Playa Hermosa

[Albertadiver]

Enjoyed the pics-especially the unique quality of the morning light.

When you are ready to buy a place shoot me a PM:). My buddy is a Remax agent in Playa Hermosa

Thx!

My folks have considered buying a condo at the reserva playa conchal, but have sat on the fence the last three years. This is thier 7th trip to Costa Rica and my 2nd. We really love it down there. If the diving was better (i.e. Carribean waters) we'd have everything we could ever want down there.

For now, my wife and I are having enough 'fun' just paying for our own home up here, so no investments for a looong time for us. Probably won't be going on another southern vacation for at least a few years.

[just_dave]

Love the photos. Thanks for sharing!

My sister arrived there the same day you left.

[Twisted Canuck]

Great pics man! Now, did you bring me back a Green Apple Mojito?:love0025:

[Albertadiver]

Great pics man! Now, did you bring me back a Green Apple Mojito?:love0025:

You bet sweetie!

[Nester]

Very nice.



Your peeing in the pool here, aren't you? :burp:


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[bessiedog]

That place is certainly on my 'gotta go there ' list.

I decided to get certified in diving this year. We did the caymans and I was Amazed at the snorkeling ... My brother dives and he keeps telling me how im missing out.

Nice resort you were at.

[TreeGuy]

Good stuff buddy.

When'd ya get off the no fly list? :innocent:

[mudbug]

Right on :happy0034:

[sewerrat]

We were in the same area you were, we stayed in Conchal Hotel about 500 M just north of where you were staying, came home last night (sucks) Great pics by the way, to bad you could't make pics of the wind it self, that was someting else,

[Albertadiver]

We were in the same area you were, we stayed in Conchal Hotel about 500 M just north of where you were staying, came home last night (sucks) Great pics by the way, to bad you could't make pics of the wind it self, that was someting else,

We stopped at a few of the hotels near you on our way through Brasalito to Flamingo Beach. We dove with Aquacenter there. Thankfully the three days we dove had the least amount of wind, but even then on the last day it was pretty challenging to get back into the boat with the crazy swells.

The day we left, a mangrove tree at the pool came crashing down. Nobody was in the lawn chairs thankfully. And then another big tree (can't remember the name) went down at the main gates and took out a lady riding a motorbike. She was hurt really bad with extensive burns to her legs from the bike exhaust.

When we were there last year it was nowhere near as windy. The locals were finding it strange too.

[Pep]

Whoaaa. Nice pics. If one wasn't into diving would you still recommend that place for a holiday? I know of the dry jungle as we have been to Huatulco, Mx many times and it is the same and we don't mind it.

[Albertadiver]

Whoaaa. Nice pics. If one wasn't into diving would you still recommend that place for a holiday? I know of the dry jungle as we have been to Huatulco, Mx many times and it is the same and we don't mind it.

It's actually only an 'ok' place for diving. I have been in far better locations, but the diving is still pretty good.

My folks aren't divers (they enjoy golf) and they love the place. The thing about Costa Rica is that you can be in the cloud forest for a day, and in the dry jungle for dinner.

My folks have been going to Costa rica for 7 years now. First few years they were down in Tambor, now they like coming up to Playa Conchal which is about 45 minutes from Tamarindo.

They've been kicking around the idea of buying a condo which of course we'd love since flights down to the Liberia airport (which is brand new and a great facility) are pretty cheap through kayak.com

http://www.slh.com/destinations/americas/costa-rica/playa-conchalguanacaste/reserva-conchal/?refcd=GO20111201125222106894s_Reserva_Conchal_Cos ta_Rica&tsacr=GO19671497012&gclid=CMSQ2PW5364CFUgaQgodUjSDYg

http://www.sothebysrealtycr.com/costarica/internarc.php?categoria=144

http://www.reservaconchal.com/bougainvillea.php

[Albertadiver]

Just had some pics emailed to me by a fellow diver we met down there.

As you can see, this isn't the aquamarine carribean seas, but it is still great diving. The life down there is amazing. We saw lots of different rays, sharks, octopus, lobsters, schooling fish like Jacks and Red Snapper....

It was pretty cool to see dolphins on the bow of our boat jumping just a few feet away from us.

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[walleyechaser]

Awesome trip report as usual.

One place i have to go to in the near future

[sewerrat]

Whoaaa. Nice pics. If one wasn't into diving would you still recommend that place for a holiday? I know of the dry jungle as we have been to Huatulco, Mx many times and it is the same and we don't mind it.

It is acctually an awsome place to vacation, we rented a vehicle, for 10 days went from Liberia to La Fortuna in the arenal area, we were there for 2 full days, from there we went to Monteverde, stayed there for 2 days as well and each day was filed with exiting things we've done. then we stayed in Brasalito for 6 nightsThe roads are not the best expect many kilometers of washboard, boulder, pothole style roads. the suv we rented was shook appart. People are very freindly and helpfull.

The beaches on the Pacific side are not as nice as on the Caribean side , in fact at Playa Conchel there was "red Tide" where the water is brown and it looks like coffee, but if you go to another beach the water might be clear.

The beaches are all somewhat deserted, not many people on them and hardly no vendors to speak of. Playa Avelana was our favorite , nice Restaurant called Lola's where a giant pig roams around, it is a great place for surfers.

Food at the local "soda's " are the best.

And yes the area reminded us like that of Huatulco as well, where it is hot and dry.

http://www.conchalcr.com/

https://www.google.ca/search?q=playa+avellanas&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=JiRdT82kMubd0QGsoKiqDw&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=782