Fiddlebacks and Wildlife in Costa Rica 2018

hasco

hasco

Joined
Jan 30, 2014
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The family and I just got back from a quick to trip to Costa Rica. We were there a few years ago in a different area. I posted a thread about that trip too, but it has since been eaten by the photobucket beast. This time we flew in to San Jose, rented a car and headed for the Nicoya peninsula. After driving through traffic, getting on a ferry and some very pothole ridden dirt roads, we arrived at our destination in Santa Teresa on the Pacific Coast.

I would love to say I always travel light but in reality it is almost always the opposite. Along with clothes, travel necessities, camera gear, and two surfboards, I was able to cram in my Fiddleback machete and production kephart. I also rented a 100-400 lens for my Fuji xt2 to try and get some wildlife shots. Although the lens is rather large and getting good shots of moving wildlife in the jungle can be difficult, I was able to get a few decent shots. There were a few birds that just would not cooperate for good lighting opportunities unfortunately. Here is a small sample of the over 1000 pics I took. Since I often had the big lens on the fuji to take pictures of wildlife, some of these pictures are taken with my phone.




























The production kephart has become my go to knife for a lot of journeys now. I should know by now to bring a sharpener for the kitchen knives when we go on vacation. Since I didn't have anything to sharpen the dull kitchen knives, the kephart far outperformed what was there.



 
The machete was the go to for opening coconuts.










One of the biggest surprises of the trip was the food. The beach town of Santa Teresa has attracted people from all over the world including some amazing chefs. We ate some of the the best food I had ever had.



My son liked the food too. We were trying to get him interested in all the wildlife, which he definitely was, but the food was so good we were also inadvertently turning him into a foodie.



I was excited to see him getting into the birding and other wildlife. By the end of the trip he was identifying birds better than me. He had looked at the bird guide so much he could tell you what page in the book to turn to from memory when looking up a bird.







We had a good trip and I was glad to have my Fiddlebacks with me for the adventure.





 
That's awesome! Thanks for sharing! Very cool that you're taking your son traveling, a lot of kids don't get that opportunity. I was one of the lucky ones that got to do a lot of traveling in my middle school/junior high/ and early high school years. It definitely helped shape me as I was maturing. I actually wrote my college application essay on all of the traveling I was lucky enough to do in my earlier years. :thumbsup:
 
Awesome post and photos Tod! The fuji does take some great photos, for general travel photos I don’t find the need to do any color correction. Very pleasing out of the camera. Great to see a post to one of the older Fiddleback forum members :)
 
Wow!! That's all I got for now Todd. I'm on my way to take Alayna to a dance then out for dessert afterward. I'll have to respond more after the second perusing :)
 
Very cool trip. Great choice of knives. The pro-kephart is a knife that really shines in those environments. I think you son needs a pro-hiking buddy to carry.
 
This is such an awesome post. After all of the dreary grayness...lifelessness of winter here, seeing the greenery and wildlife is wonderful. Makes me miss the subtropics of the keys and glades of south Florida very badly. I have it on pretty good authority that being a bird-watching-foodie isn't the worst thing a guy could be :) Great shots Todd, thanks for sharing man.
 
Hey Tod, for the last few months, I've been trying to convince the wife that we NEED to go to Costa Rica this year. I think your pics were just the fuel I needed :D Thanks!!

And, thank you in general for the post. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
 
Kal-El said:
Hey Tod, for the last few months, I've been trying to convince the wife that we NEED to go to Costa Rica this year. I think your pics were just the fuel I needed :D Thanks!!

And, thank you in general for the post. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Click to expand...
Costa Rica is now know as Hawaii 40 years ago. It’s the place to move to.
 
mistwalker said:
This is such an awesome post. After all of the dreary grayness...lifelessness of winter here, seeing the greenery and wildlife is wonderful. Makes me miss the subtropics of the keys and glades of south Florida very badly. I have it on pretty good authority that being a bird-watching-foodie isn't the worst thing a guy could be :) Great shots Todd, thanks for sharing man.
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Thanks Brian! Yes, a bird-watching-foodie is definitely a good thing to aspire to! I just thought it was a bit ironic that part of my reason for traveling to places like Costa Rica is to expose my son to different cultures and see a life that very different from ours at home. We started off the trip eating some authentic Costa Rican food, but once we got into the town of Santa Teresa we ended up eating at a lot of restaurants that were started by people from all over the world. It was a great culinary experience for all of us and we loved it. It just wasn't quite the cultural food experience I was expecting. I like when we are somewhere that is different and we have to eat in way we might not usually. I think it is especially good for kids as some of them can get picky about what they eat. I notice my son is really open to eating other foods when there are not any other options. It just turned out that there were lots of great options where we went. We did get some more authentic Costa Rican lunches as we were traveling that we all really enjoyed. The most ironic thing was on the last night the nearest restaurant to the airport hotel we stayed at was a Denny's. My son had never eaten at one and he loved it. :D

Here is a shot of our first typical breakfast of beans, rice, eggs, fried plantains and fruit.

DSCF8450
 
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