I spent ten days in Costa Rica in the Middle of March, 2004. The purpose of the trip was to Visit my friend Robin, who had moved there a year before. My second day in Montezuma, someone cautioned me to wear sunglasses, because the light there was different, strong. He was right. Almost all of the pictures I took during the day were way too bright, too much direct sunlight; mostly I tried to shoot right before dusk.

However, I just didn't take many pictures. This trip was kind of the opposite of my trip to Ghana six months previous: I wasn't interested in taking pictures, especially not of the people who lived there. For some reason, it felt oddly exploitive. I did take some photographs of the land and my friends, but I just...wasn't into it. I think the pictures reflect that reluctance.

A technical note: I resized the pictures in Photoshop on my Mac, and haven't adjusted the screen settings, or something. When working on the pictures, they seemed hypersaturated, so I turned down the saturation on most of them. However, looking at them on a normal monitor, they all seem flat, desaturated. I'm too busy right now though, to go back and fix them all, or too lazy. That's what happens when I process pictures in huge batches instead of on a daily basis: the quality tends to suffer, as I don't spend as much time on each one.

Montezuma ------------------------------------------------- We spent a fair amount of time in Montezuma, where Robin has been living for the last year. It's...unlike any other place in Costa Rica. Lots of travellers, a definite party vibe. But also a beautiful place. My favorite thing there was a set of three waterfalls you could hike up to. I didn't take a picture of the first one, the biggest; it just didn't occur to me. I wasn't in photo mode. But I spent some quality time sitting underneath the second set of falls, letting the water pound down on my head and shoulders, drowning out all other sensations. Very cleansing. A small cemetery ------------------------------------------------- We passed by this cemetery on the way from Monteverde to Montezuma. Everything until then had been incredibly foggy (see some of the travelling pictures), but it cleared up when we stopped. I didn't spend more than a couple minutes in the cemetery, as I didn't want to feel like I was violating anything, but I still wanted to be there. Monteverde ------------------------------------------------- Being in Monteverde was literally like living in a cloud. The air was dense and full of droplets, the wind was intense, and everything was damp. Because of the moisture, the forests there were teeming with life; everything had something else growing on it. So so so green. While there, we did a zipline tour through the canopy, which was a blast: flying along a wire through the trees and clouds. We also took several hikes through the forest, one of which was a night walk. It is really beautiful there. Cairns ------------------------------------------------- There were lots of cairns, or rock mounds, around Montezuma. I'm not really sure who made them, but I think it has something to do with following the energy flow of a place, or something. I love rocks, collected them as a kid, so I thought the rock mounds were pretty neat, even made one myself when I got up early one morning. Cabo Blanco ------------------------------------------------- Cabo Blanco is a forest preserve near Montezuma. Until a few years ago, it was an absolute preserve: no one was allowed on the land. We spent the afternoon hiking the trail out to the beach, which was very rocky with a strong current, and then walking back. It was really hot and we walked much more quickly than we needed to (the park closed at 4pm), so if I look a bit exhausted in the picture with Robin, it's because I totally was. Travelling ------------------------------------------------- Travelling within Costa Rica took much longer than it would appear on the map. What seems like a small distance might take a really long time, as most roads had huge potholes every few feet or weren't paved. We rented a car, a 4x4, instead of taking busses, which was much more comfortable, but I felt like I was missing out on one of the main parts of travelling. However, we did get pulled over once, and I had my first experience bribing a cop. Animals ------------------------------------------------- None of the pictures in the animals page are very good; I just posted them because everyone likes to look at animals. Aww, aren't they cute? Next. Mal Pais ------------------------------------------------- We went to Mal Pais to swim in the beautiful surfer beach, and to catch the sunset, as it was on the western side of the Peninsula de Nicoya. Nice, golden light near sunset, good ocean to swim in. After dinner we went back to the beach, and Alicia and I went skinny dipping underneath the stars and new moon, on the equinox. There were phosphorescent phytoplankton in the water, which glowed every time a wave crashed.

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