photo.d

The blog is dead: long live the blog

2011-10-08T14:37:00.000+13:00

This will be the last update here.

Go here instead davidroos.co.nz

I'm moving old posts across and adding new stuff as I go

Walk to Mission Bay

2011-09-24T13:45:00.000+12:00

well... that was the plan...

Three Strikes

2011-08-27T16:20:00.000+12:00

Ignoring the Socialist Aotearoa representative (no, I'm sure the majority of people did not feel 'entitled' to whatever they want without paying for it because the 'rich' bad guys can afford whatever they want. Or at least I hope so...), was interesting and fun. Pity no one cares, but then, what was I expecting?

Thanks to all the other speakers though, much braver than me.

If you don't know what I'm talking about:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/guilty-until-proven-innocent-new-zealand-rushes-ahead-with-p2p-bill.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/us-nz-sweden-others-condemn-three-strikes-internet-laws.ars

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10730748

...and New Zealand doesn't even have a baseball team...

Wynyard Quarter Opening

2011-08-06T14:48:00.000+12:00

Before it got busy...

Auckland update

2011-07-24T17:14:00.001+12:00

Beaumont Quarter/Tank Farm

Colourful fences and cleaned up old tanks (blue one in the background)

Tramlines loop laid, almost finished and all wired up

Playground/sandpit

Viewing platform (will be covered in creepers I think)

Marsh and grass!

More planters, more grass

One of the old tanks being cleaned up and new benches

More grassss. These tanks also appeared to be having some work done

Purdy - sandpit, tanks and viewing platform. The 'road' I'm on goes from Westhaven marine right across to the the new bridge to Te Wero island and on to the viaduct.

Water feature and wind sculpture

New events centre

Public viewing platform

New bridge (which will one day hopefully have a tram going across it)

End of the road - the viaduct beyond + shipping container viewing platform

Bridge, container viewing platform and events centre from te wero island

The colour, it burns

2011-07-17T15:27:00.002+12:00

Little Miss

2011-07-17T13:45:00.001+12:00

2011-05-17T15:27:00.000+12:00

"This page intentionally left blank"

Dubai in Black & White

2011-02-26T10:10:00.002+13:00

Old and New

World of Birds

2011-02-18T21:32:00.000+13:00

Just a few of the good ones

Garden Route

2011-02-18T21:28:00.000+13:00

Cango Caves

Pass from Oudtshoorn to George

Wildernis Lake District

Knysna Heads

Monkeyland

World's highest Bungee jump - Bloukrans Gorge

Storms River Mouth (Eastern Cape!)

Looking back up Storms River

Would be lovely on a sunny day...

Wait... no it wouldn't....

Lots of sharks!

Nature's Valley

Old kitchen in the hostel we stayed at near Nature's Valley

Dinner

Plet

Lovely...

Buffalo Bay/Buffelsbaai

Mossel Bay. Allegedly

Dinner for two

2011-02-18T21:05:00.001+13:00

Climbing Table Mountain - Skeleton Gorge to Platteklip Gorge, via the Cable Car area

Skeleton Gorge

Up the Gorge

Table Mountain Flora

Central Valley

Top of the Mount - 1084m

On the Edge

Quietly shitting myself

Back down Platteklip

Sore knees!

Cape Day Trip

2011-02-18T20:59:00.000+13:00

Muizenberg

Franschoek

Hermanus

Betty's Bay

The Road back to Gordon's Bay/Strand

Climbing Lion's Head and Clifton Sundowner

2011-02-18T20:54:00.000+13:00

Lion's Head

Clifton

Cape Point

2011-02-18T20:49:00.001+13:00

Catching up on the backlog!

Muizenberg

St. James

Cape Point

Chapmans Peak Drive

Road Trippin (part 2 of 2)

2011-02-05T19:23:00.000+13:00

Tuesday 1 February
4:25 wake up and we were on our way before 5. 45km we were at Dune 45 which we started to climb in the dark. Climbing giant sand dunes is really hard work, especially when you end up at the front and there are no pre compressed steps to walk in.

We and the dutch guys (who happened to be there at the same time) were the only ones to make it to the top but it was worth it.

After a cup of very strong coffee we were on our way again to Sossussvlei and a short walk to Deadvlei.

Back at the vehicle we had a quick drive around the vlei before heading out to find that the water had once again arrived at Sossussvlei. This only happens every 4 or 5 years so we were quite lucky to witness it pouring in (and that we didn't come down in the Combi because we would have been stuck!)

We found a mechanic who came to our site and started the car first try and it drove fine. Annoying. Still don't know what happened, possibly heat or something else - it was a rough day for the poor old combi, but it pulled through.

We lazed about the rest of the day, swimming, eating and sleeping before (successfully) making it to the canyon for sunset. We couldn't walk in the canyon very much as it was now full of water!

Wednesday 2 February
We headed out at first light, aiming initially for Keetmanshoop. We took a longer road than we came in on, but a much better road - less stress and would rather get there slowly than get stuck! It was a beautiful drive regardless!

Arriving at Keetmanshoop, we did a Spar shop and decided to push on to Grunau. We arrived, but the camp site was a bit of a dive, so we decided to try the next big town. We arrived to find no campsite whatsoever, so decided to aim for the border. No camp site there either. We crossed the border back into SA (after a watermelon break in the no mans land) and finally made it to Upington where we camped on the shores of the flooded Orange river. Long day...

Thursday 3 February
Woke up on the banks of the swollen Orange River - an interesting start, but the facilities were good and we were soon on our way (after being towed out of the drive as it was too steep).

Steers for brunch, for me anyway and we were on our way to Augrabies - our host for the night told us of the alternative route on the other side of the river, not affected by the flooding. The road wasn't terrible and we were soon there.

The falls were truly spectacular in full flood, I will let the pictures do it justice (hopefully!). The spray was rather drenching and a lot of the park was closed off due to flooding.

Friday 4 February
Up early again - off to look at the waterfalls one last time before heading off.

We decided to call it quits and head for home - all a bit tired an lacking the enthusiasm for three ore big days of driving, so decided to do the garden route another time as part of the Stellenbosch/Franschoek/Hermanus bits, with a bit of a break in between.

Wrap up:

All in all, the Combi went well, only really letting us down once (the other times were human error or excusable after a rough days driving). We pulled out of the camp site in Upington, managing after three tries to reverse up onto the drive, only to find that it was far too steep (it was not that steep) for the combi to handle.

Namibia is beautiful and everyone should go there. The landscape changes so often and suddenly, but ideally you would be in a 4wd car I think, just to make life that little bit less stressful.

I think the fact that we went at the wrong time of the year made it all the better, you remember these trips for the challenges and the rewards, and both were great.

The butterflies were immense in number - the front of the combi would literally be plastered with butterfly (and occasionally dragonfly, large beetle and other) remains, which incidentally are made up almost entirely of a runny liquid (though with enough force I'm sure anything would turn into a runny liquid).

We lost the front numberplate on the first few days, not sure how. As we were heading south out of Namibia we got pulled over by a cop who didn't seem all that keen to talk to the ladies. I managed to get us off with an infringement notice though, and not the $500 fine (equivalent to R500 or about NZ$100). At the border to SA we had similar issues, but once they saw the inside of the combi they were much friendlier and sent us on our way.

Wildlife spotted:
Giraffe
Baboons
Vervet Monkeys
Gemsbok
Springbok
[Other deer]
Warhogs (though not by me)
Ostrich
Monitor lizard?
Yellow scorpions (two came out from under my tent at Sossussvlei)
Insects attracted to light
Mongooses
Crabs
Owls
Blue Crane (maybe)
Social Weaver birds
Wild horses
Not wild horses
Goats
Sheep
Cows

Road Trippin (part 1 of 2)

2011-02-05T19:00:00.002+13:00

Warning: LOTS of photos follow.

Friday 28 January
An early start - on the road by 6 heading north out of Cape Town. Miss the N7 turn off and drive around for half an hour before finding our way back to Edgemead and on the road we needed to be on, eventually waving goodbye to table mountain in the distance behind us.

We got as far as just before Citrusdale, south of Clanwilliam, where we met road works and a long queue of cars. We stopped and turned the engine off and when the traffic was allowed through again we tried starting the car to no avail. There we sat until the road workers towed us off the road to a little cafe, which conveniently had bathrooms and WiFi internet access.

A tow-truck eventually arrived and dragged us on to Citrusdale where the mechanic started the car first try... Not satisfied, we made him check it out and it turned out that the carbs were flooding due to bad timing. Or something. Either way, we were on our way again.

The rest of the way up was uneventful, and we arrived at Springbok fairly early so we decided to keep on going - to Namibia! Crossing the border was a ... relaxed affair, which was nice really, and we were soon in the start desert north of the Orange River. We arrived at the Norotshama campsite to find a lovely place, almost finished and with some damage due to the recent flooding. A lovely swim and dinner followed.

Saturday 29 January
The road north to Fish River Canyon was beautiful - so dry and barren. As we had made so much progress the previous day it was only a short drive and we were soon at Hobas camp site.

It turns out this was one of the areas Raleigh had been working in previously (As was Sesreim at Sossussvlei).

We got comfortable, had a swim, had some lunch, had a swim, lazed about, had a swim (it was HOT) nd just generally relaxed. At about 6pm we headed to the Canyon viewing point about 10km from camp. Apparently sunset is a poor time to see the canyon.

Back at camp we moved to another spot to avoid the huge (talkative) group who parked next to us. Boerie for dinner!

Sunday 30 January
Up early to see the canyon again in the sunrise, in case we really had missed out the night before, but I don't think so. It it a beautiful place and very large.

On the road again at about 9am, before going over a fallen over sign (marked road closed it turns out) resulting in two very flat tyres. We managed to get hold of the AA who put us onto a tow truck operator who brought out another tyre. We followed him to Keetmanshoop (a bit out of the way of where we wanted to go) where we had our rims banged back into shape and the tyres re-inflated - good to go!

On our way again - heading to Luderitz. The geography of Namibia is massively varied and changes quite suddenly at times with Luderitz being an extreme example of going from a fairly vegetated area (around Aus) before suddenly being in stark desert. The camp site was very dramatic, but windy. We managed to find a nice out of the wind spot and settled in with some dinner.

Monday 31 January
We headed into town first thing to take some snaps of the odd little town before heading out to Kolmanskoop - a ghost town, which was amazing.

Northward bound, we headed back into the 'lush' interior and through the incredibly dramatic pass down to the drier lowlands. Difficult drive. We passed by a private little game park where a friendly, rickety old giraffe was hanging around.

In the distance there was a lot of rain, and some very hairy (dry) river crossings. This required a certain amount of offroading and 3 maimed shrubs, but we arrived at Sesreim in good time.

We got a camp site, bought our passes and decided to head out to Sesreim canyon for the sunset. We got about half way before the car decided to not work, so I walked the two km back and wrangled some friendly dutch fellows in their 4wd to come save us (We had seen them previously - they were doing cape to Cairo/Algeria/Netherlands over about 6 months). Safely back at our campsite we had some dinner and just generally tried to relax.

Managed to wrangle ourselves a berth on a tour bus heading in to the Canyon the next morning though, which was a relief.

Peninsula and Table Bay

2011-01-25T19:18:00.000+13:00

Cape Town Central

Oukaapseweg

The Boulders

Near Fishhoek

Table Bay

Waterfront, Signal Hill, Bo Kaap

2011-01-23T10:12:00.000+13:00

Waterfront

Signal Hill

Seapoint

Bo Kaap

Today's Favourite:

Kirstenbosch

2011-01-22T20:10:00.000+13:00

Arrival in Cape Town

2011-01-20T04:01:00.000+13:00

Granny's house

Out we go - Seapoint, Clifton, Camps Bay, Hout Bay

Devils peak

Saunder's Rock

The fog rolling in...

Hout Bay

Lunch - Delicious Fish and Chips (Hake)

The final goodbyes

2010-12-23T02:56:00.002+13:00

Left Fieldbase Sunday for Cahuita on the Caribbean coast - a nice drive down with a bunch of people that I've spent the last 3 months with. We arrived to slightly grim weather - I was not sold. We dumped our bags, got changed and headed for the beach regardless. It was absolutely covered in debris - massive amounts of driftwood making it hard to even get into the water, but once you got passed that it was amazing - brilliant waves and one of my favourite swims ever.

A handful of people left on Saturday afternoon - sad, as it was two of my best friends here (though really, as everyone has left I've realised that so many are...)

Since then it's been a lot of relaxing, mixed in with Saturday night where we all had a few and had the most amazing night making our way about Cahuita central (after some impromptu spa pool action). My night culminated in learning to dance from a very, very stoned Caribbean man, lying in a muddy puddle in the road to watch the lunar eclipse while having deep and meaningfuls and finally a quick (...impromptu) dip in the pool before getting to bed around 2:30ish.

Up at 6 - off to the national park. It was lovely, but after everything I've seen (and being _quite_ tired) it was pretty boring so I made by way back and lazed about the rest of the morning by the pool. A bunch few more people left that afternoon, more sad goodbyes, more doubts about people getting home for Christmas.

We planned a quiet night, but we picked the world's worst restaurant - suffice to say I just about fell asleep waiting for my (bad) food (after having to change my order because they didn't have bugger all food) and once we did eat and head off I had totally lost interest pretty much anything, so headed off for an early (ish.. 11pm, we arrived for dinner at about 7:30pm, so slow...) night with a couple of other deserters. It turns out everyone else headed back not terribly soon after.

This morning was really hard, with 10 people heading off to Panama for Christmas. A lot of people there I'm really going to miss.

So now I'm sitting, just waiting for my bus back to San Jose. I will be heading up with 5 other people, then continuing all the way up to the airport town by myself for the night, then off first thing tomorrow.

It's been amazing, done and seen so much, met so many amazing people, going to miss it so much. Bring on Christmas, family and friends.

This morning in Turrialba

2010-12-15T11:06:00.005+13:00

Leaf cutter ants, seconds away from my desk. They are everywhere, but I finally was near a tripod.

This is the end (just about)

2010-12-13T17:26:00.001+13:00

This will most likely be my last big expedition/roadtrip blog post - from here on I'm going to be glued to my desk with much to do then I'm off to the Caribbean to laze on the beach for three days. I'm sure I will have more to say between now and then, but for now, thanks for reading and I hope it was entertaining for you!

So...

We arrived at Rincon Lodge on Wednesday evening - a rather nice spot, especially if you've just been trekking for weeks. We met up with Zulu 3 at about 5:30, said our hellos, set up camp, did dinner and got to bed for a sleep in (5am wake up! luxury!).

Rincon is an active volcano in the North West (Guanacaste) region of Costa Rica, topping out at roughly 1800m above sea level. For reference, Rincon Lodge is at about 600m, so we had 1200m to climb.

We started on our way just after 6, reaching the ranger's station just before 7am. After a bit of faffing (40 minutes worth...) we were once again on our way, this time through a pleasant jungle walk, climbing about 800m before reaching the ridge line to the summit.

The weather up top was... windy. I was glad to have my poncho to break the icy wind because without it I suspect I would not have been able to continue. The views from the top were initially disappointing... in that there weren't any.

But then the wind would blow some more...

We carried on climbing...

Climbing...

The volcano was quite impressive...

More climbing... The terrain become less and less vegetated as the wind become stronger and stronger...

Dramatic recreation:

We had to pass a narrow ridge - normally no problem, but with the wind blowing at a constant gale, with gusts enough to knock you off your feet...

Climbing around the crater toward the summit...

The alien landscape

Once we climbed some more we reached a flat area. At that point we split roughly in half - a brave few decided to climb the last 200m (vertical, 700m horizontal). I didn't take any photos on the way up because of the driving moisture in the air, but it was spectacular - unlike anything I can describe or could ever hope to see again. At one point I found myself about 20m up from everyone else and I sat, crouching behind a rock, looking back down the hill watching the other 9 clinging to the rocks in the driving wind and cloud. Just epic.

But we finally reached the top! My camera braved the elements for a couple of victory photos

The summit:

After topping out we made our way back down to a sheltered side of the mountain for our lunch rations which were, as always, eaten gladly.

Further down we were greeted by some even better views of the mountain and surrounds

Back in the safety of the forest we warmed up slowly - I didn't realise how numb my hands and arms were until I tried to fiddle with my camera and was completely powerless to do anything.

The forest:

We were back at camp by 4pm, a good effort considering what we had achieved, and the fact that I was actually horribly ill.

Interesting tree at the camp site:

It was a hard, long day, and I really didn't feel up to it, but I'm beyond glad that I did. I know I said Cassita was one of the best moments of my life, but this topped it, easily.

That night was incredibly windy at the camp site - the tent would just about fold flat every time there was a big gust (every 30 seconds or so) and the wind was slowly folding the corners of the tent in on itself, meaning that it got smaller and smaller throughout the night and I had a face-ful of tent every time the wind blew at all (every 1.5 seconds). Not a great nights sleep, especially after the porch tent pole snapped and half the tent (the non sleeping half, fortunately) collapsed.

The next morning the hardy trekkers left at 4:45am. We swanned about for a few hours - packed up our battered and broken tents and loaded up the car.

We then headed to Playa Junquillal on the coast where Zulu 3 will finish their trek - it's a beautiful beach.

We made our own breakfast - scrambled eggs on the trangier.

It's a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

We headed South after that that, to Camaronal. We stopped at the place where I'd previously seen all the parrots and toucans (which you would remember if you've been paying attention!)

Behold: The Amazing, Jumping toucan (Greatest creature in existence)

We arrived at Camaronal later on that afternoon and settled in for the night.

The next morning was Saturday - their day off from working on the path and miradors up on the hill at the end of the beach.

They decided to head to the next beach north - Playa Carillo (Ca-ree-yo) for a day of R&R.

It was a 7km walk. Keeping in mind that I was ill and rather tired, this seemed an unnecessary thing to do, but I went along anyway.

Large, but shallow river to cross.

Wet boots.

Playa Carillo - marvelous.

(Soon to be) Dry boots

We (The PMs and fieldbase) headed back via a cafe for some snacks - a (very disappointing) Pinya con leche ("pineapple and milk") and some semi sweet potato fries (which were lovely). Got back at about 4 - decided to take my boots off and take the river like a man. Only hurt a little.

The sunset was lovely that night, but the sand-flies were not (The fires are burning driftwood)

A great nights sleep followed.

Onto this morning - we decided to head out around 5:30 to see the miradors and to be up the top for some nice views and light (and miss the heat).

I was completely knackered - no energy in my legs at all and it was by far the longest beach in the world (ignoring the amount of dodging waves that was needed) - no doubt in my mind.

It was pretty though...

The view from the top:

By now it was pretty hot - the slog back took a thousand years and aged me greatly, but I got there in the end, where I waited ages for a delicious rice pudding for breakfast and then we were on our way!

The drive back was uneventful, though I did have a delicious ice cream and coke for lunch.

It was a bit sad thinking how I would never see these places again, drive on these roads - my last real road trip. But at the same time really exciting that I will be home soon, and just thinking about all I have seen, done and achieved was quite gratifying. It really has been amazing.

Looking forward to seeing everyone, but for now - to Cahuita!

Talamanca

2010-12-06T10:12:00.000+13:00

Coroma is an indigenous reserve in the South East corner of COsta Rica - the river we drove along before catching the boat actually forms the border with Panama. The map below shows where we were headed. Coroma is on the bottom left corner - the top right is the Caribbean and everything south of the grey line is Panama. On a side note, at the top of the map is Cahuita - this is where I will spend my last 3 days in Costa Rica - lazing on the beach.

We drove down the 36 to Bribri before heading inland along the river/border as far as Suretka where we parked up and transferred to our boat/dugou canoe with an outboard.

The ride up was beautiful - the river is very complicated and as you are travelling along suddenly another part of the river joins in and you get some turbulence and the little boat struggles its way along - great fun.

Once at Coroma we said hi and helped out a bit at the worksite - part a school Raleigh is helping to construct.

As we has arrived on the Friday afternoon, our full day there was Saturday which meant making chocolate and sports activities.

After a hard days work/play the best spot is the river. By far the best spot - really lovely and refreshing

After a great day we headed off this morning at 8am - another beautiful ride on the river...

...and a brief stop at the giant sloth museum/sanctuary thing...

The misadventures of David

2010-12-03T09:40:00.000+13:00

Still alive!

Went out for a simple food drop last night near fieldbase, passed some small slips on the road where we needed to move some big rocks. Nothing major, some minor concerns about if it would get worse, but we needed to get there so we did. Next morning on the way out a giant tree and come crashing down, blocking the road entirely. I reversed the car back down the hill after getting all we could carry out and walked back up to meet the rest. Since we couldn't pass and we had an infected-footed-trekker with us we made a plan and got ourselves back to fieldbase, bending some rules and getting a grilling for it. Sorted a plan and I headed back up with another driver and we transferred the rest of the gear across the tree/blockage and headed back here, after I reversed the car down the hill again. Speaking to a lady down the bottom, I was told that they expected it to be cleared in 3 hours. Not sure I believe that, but we have a contact in the area who will let us know. I'm not convinced, and quite frankly, can't be arsed to go back again if I need to.

Lessons learnt:
Reversing down ~2km of road, twice in one day, gives me a sore neck.
Trees are big, and break in half when they fall quite far.
Costa Rica is very pretty, but the pretty bits by definition are prone to landslides.
You can move big rocks with a stick on 4 men

Plans plans plans

2010-11-30T12:18:00.000+13:00

Since a lot has changed in the last few days I am updating everyone with my upcoming movements. Uhm.. where I will be.

Wednesday December 1st I am out in the mountains at Bajo Pacuare meeting up with the trekkers of Zulu 2. I will spend the night with them before heading back to filedbase on Thursday the 2nd.

Friday December 3rd I leave again, this time for Talamanca, in the south (Just north of Panama on the east coast). I m here for two nights, then back to fieldbase on the Sunday the 5th.

I have a couple more days at fieldbase, then once again on the road on Wednesday the 8th, this time heading up to the Guanacaste region, specifically Rincon Lodge - the base of Mount Rincon. I will climb that with Zulu 3 then head off to the coast to do their final food drop and then finally head back to Camaronal (turtle beach) on Friday the 10th, there on the Saturday and finally return to fieldbase on Sunday the 12th.

After that I will be around until the 19th. The venturers arrive back from their phase on the 15th so I will have a mad rush getting everything finalised before then. They depart on the 17th I think and all the PMs and fieldbase staff have 2 days of intensive cleaning of fieldbase before we head down to Cahuita on the Carribean coast (Very close to Talamanca in fact).

I will spend 3 nights there - the 19th, 20th and 21st - before heading back up to San Jose (well, the airport town Alajuela) to spend the night of the 22nd. I fly out of San Jose on at 8ish am on the 23rd to Phoenix, Arizona where I have a 6 hour stopover, then a short flight to LA where I have three hours to change from the domestic to International terminal before catching my flight to Auckland, arriving at around 9am on the 25th!

After that I'm hoping to travel a wee bit, go camping or whatever and try and get a bit of fitness in me again before I head back to the airport on the 17th of January - this time Cape Town bound! Yay! I arrive back in Auckland again on February 24th, after spending a night in Dubai.

My plans for Cape Town are to see everyone I haven't seen in the last decade, but thoughts in my head at the moment include:

Climbing Table mountain
Watching the sun set from the Spur at Blouberg (while eating delicious, delicious food)
Cape Point (never been!)/Fishhoek/Simonstown etc
The other side of the peninsula
Getting into the wine region/Ceres Valley
A few nights in the dessert
If I'm feeling really adventurous, getting out to Namibia

In Dubai I plan to mostly sleep, but also go up/see the Burj Dubai and go the Dubai Mall (the largest in the world).

After that I guess I 'll find a job or something.

Oh, I shaved also. Sorry to everyone who was hoping to see me with horrible, horrible facial hair. I couldn't go on any longer, for obvious reasons:

I look lovely now, you'll be glad to know.

Semi-firm movements in the coming weeks

2010-11-26T02:15:00.000+13:00

November 30th I depart on a day trip up Volcan Irazu to say hello to the trekkers, Zero 2 and the workers on the mountain, Zero 4. Back to fieldbase on December first.

I then leave again on December 4th to again meet the trekkers at Selvaand then down to the Talamanca project with Zero 7 for a couple of days before returning to fieldbase again on the 7th.

My final trip leaves on the 8th when I head off to meet the Guandacaste trek (northern Costa Rica) and climb Rincon (much like the Dragon and Volcan Casita in previous phases) before heading back to the turtles at Camaronal! Back at fieldbase on the 12t of December, where I will be until the 19th when Raleigh officially ends and we all bugger off to a beach on the Carribean coast for some proper relaxing.

I will most likely stay there until the 21st or 22nd - depends on how long it will take me to get back to San Jose. I will aim to be in a hostel near the airport on the night of the 22nd for my 8:20am flight on the 23rd to Phoenix (Arizona), where I will have a 6 hour (ugh) stopover before being on my way to LA, where once there I have three hours to kill - enough time to change from the domestic to international terminal and deal with the security circus etc. After that I am Auckland bound for Christmas lunch!

Mapped photos - where I've been

2010-11-21T10:58:00.000+13:00

I've mapped out all my photos (the ones you have seen on the blog/emails) on google maps, so nwo you can see exactly where I've been.

The link is:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidjroos

Once there, you can click on any of the galleries (roughly broken down into the blog posts I've done)

David vs. Nicaragua

2010-11-19T09:06:00.000+13:00

Typing this on my newly (mostly) repaired laptop in the car, heading back from San Jose to Turrialba.

If you don't want to read all this, then in summary: Nicaragua is Beautiful.

Saturday 6 November
I was to deploy with the Nicaraguan bound Venturers (X-Ray 1, 6 and 7) as I was to spend the first week at the community at Las Tablas (X-Ray 6), near Achuapa and Estelli. I was up at 3am - had the last bits of packing and checking to do before packing breakfast (the usual jam sandwichy things, along with grabbing tons of snacks for the drive up). Loaded up the bus and before I knew it (~5am) I was off and on our way!

The windy roads out of Turrialba in the big NicaExpress bus were interesting... a few queasy stomachs, myself included (until I realised that I was just hungry) but after that it was plain sailing. We stopped once before hitting the border at 12, where, I have no idea. The border crossing went smoothly, we didn't appear to lose anyone and the bank was nicely air-conditioned, though the toilets were not functioning. The building we had gone to previously to get our visas on the Nicaraguan side had been demolished which was I guess interesting (in that it had changed since I was last there anyway).

Another few hours and we were at a school in Jinotepe, a bit south of Managua, for the night. Not exactly sure why we go via Jinotepe, as we were Estelli bound the next day which was on the other Northern road, but there was a lovely market. I was a bit unsure at first, but once you get into the hubbub of it is quite nice. Having a native Spanish speaker (Esteban) with us made it a lot easier to find the good places and we all tried various corn based foods including what would have been sweet corn cookies had they been sweet.

After that it was pineapple tart and Pepsi before heading back to the school, a bit late (though the light was lovely). Dinner was Raleigh rations, what exactly I don't remember and then to bed in the corridors of the school.

Sunday 7 November
Up again at 3 - was quite chilly in the night (apparently, I only got as far as into my sleeping bag liner/sheet though was nippy once I was up and about). I was packed and ready to go by 3:18 which no one else seemed as impressed as I was, but then it was breakfast time, followed by much faffing and cleaning. We were all in the 'party bus' (a repurposed American school bus, like most busses in Nicaragua) by 5 and on our way again, to Estelli. The quotes around party bus might sound negative but they were illustrative of the fact that it was just a bus, but it was awesome. 80's power ballads, ABBA, Michael Jackson and Bob Marley blaring nonstop for 5 hours is superb. The sunrise was not spectacular, but quite lovely, especially when reflecting on where I was and what I was doing and what bus I was on.

We arrived at Estelli and dropped off X-Ray 7 - they were to catch another bus up the hill to Miraflor/El Rodeo, had a loo break and then carried on our merry way to Achuapa.

The road to Achuapa was the exact one we took on the PPV (waaay back, remember that?) and after getting briefly stuck in some mud alongside another stranded school bus proceeded at a steady pace. While we were driving along the road an off-road (dirt bike/quad bike) time trial seemed to be occurring. The highlight of that was a big fat man in a pink, skin-tight leather bodysuit going by... Regardless, we turned off somewhere to Achuapa - where I'm not exactly sure because when we drove it we didn't see any turn offs. We were all dropped off, had our bags thrown off the roofs onto our heads and then sent the trekkers (X-Ray 1, Maribios Trek) on their way.

We had a couple of hours to kill, so we hung out and had some lunch in the central park. Achuapa was... basic. I'm sure it was fine, but the general unkemptness of the park and scavenging, underweight dogs did detract a little.

Eventually our ride arrived - a Ute to take our bags up the hill to Las Tablas. We were to walk the 8kms. Was a nice walk, quite hot and bumpy, but I've had much worse - only took about 2 hours.

Once there we got sorted into our various families (myself with a Venturer named Hiten in the house of Marciel, whose wife is currently working in Costa Rica). We got as acquainted as two non Spanish speakers and a Nicaraguan man who lives in a village can get and then settled in for dinner (rice, eggs, tortilla and cheese), cooked by the Mother-in-Law who lives next door (where the 3 PMs, Wellard, Ade and Dr. Phil live), partly saw a great sunset from the chair in which I ate, purified some water then set up some beds and went off to sleep.

Monday 8 November
Got up at 5ish - a good 8 or 9 hours though not perfect with the chickens, dogs, pigs etc going off from quite early. Was fairly cool in the night - quite nice really. Quite windy up there also! Wandered off to the loo (long drop in the pig pen) then had my coffee and a chat with Marciel about... something. Turns out the cookies I was ignoring on the table were to have with the (incredibly sugary) coffee. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Breakfast was soup with rice (in it), green leafy bits and yucca (cassava).

After breakfast everyone met up and we headed up to the upper village (we were in the lower village - the previous group, Alpha 6, lived and worked in the upper village) where we split into groups and started working - half on digging trenches and working on the new tank and the other half finishing the trenches down the road to the lower village. The water system being put in place is a gravity fed system from a couple of springs in the hillside, so everything needs to be below the capitation tank we were building. This meant digging up a corn field to dig a pipe about another half a meter deeper as the tank itself needs to be 1m into the ground to be low enough below the initial spring capitation point.

At 11:30 we broke for lunch (as we would every day) - back down the hill (About 20-30 minutes each way, depending on how much of a rush you are in. 15 if you are really in a rush, just saying). Lunch was rice and chicken with tortilla (always with tortilla) and tropical tanged water.

The groups swapped, but I went back up the hill again to try and make sure I had pictures of everyone. I was barely taking photos though - lots of work to do!

We finished around 4 (again, pretty much standard for the duration of my stay), so it was back down the hill for personal time and a _spectacular sunset_. They were amazing every day. Dinner was rice, fried plantain and an amazing tomato salsa.

At 18:30 we all met at the T-junction in the road under the big tree for the review etc. I tried to pay attention but the massively starry sky was distracting....

Tuesday 9 November
Slept not as well - we had a baby in our house now who cried most of that night (but not after thank, thankfully) Woke up at 4ish, out of bed at 5 and into the shower... well... the curtained off area near the other pig pen and water trough. The experience of washing myself with a bucket of water in a garden surrounded by chickens, ducks, pigs and a few rags if cloth for my privacy under a slowly brightening, but still very starry sky is quite special. It was also quite cold. And I still smelt a bit... it is really hard to get a good lather and rinse cycle going. After getting decent I wandered the 10m to the road to watch the sunrise over the valley.... amazing.

Breakfast was a giant bowl of watermelon, banana and pineapple followed by some freshly made orange juice which brought some consternation as I did not see where they had gotten the water from (they are supposed to use our chlorinated water).

After much consultation we decided to ask and they had indeed (allegedly) used our water and the orange juice was lovely. Fingers were crossed. Sitting on the rock outside my house I decided that there were much, much worse places in the world to be than Las Tablas, and ended up wandering (as you do) how I will feel once I am back home amongst the 'real' world and the general consumerism.

Dug trenches all morning - made good progress and got hot, but not suntanned (I'm still horribly cursed with an epic t-shirt tan). Lunch was rice and spaghetti and tortillas... god knows why, but it was nice anyway. Back up the hill for afternoon work followed by a quick jog back down the hill. Not convinced the water was purified, or maybe I just needed to be more careful - started washing hands really really well before eating. Our afternoon meeting was under the tree again and Hiten (my roommate) kindly bought me a coke for 7 Cordobas (about US$0.30) which was lovely. We played with the local kids and I took a bunch of photos - they really, really love having their photos taken and I'm now very glad for the screen protector on my camera (grubby fingers all over my camera!).

Dinner was amazing and made up for whatever caused me bother before - fried tortillas with tomato sauce and cheese between them, rice, beans and fried plantain. So good - the best meal I had there.

Wednesday 10 November
Breakfast was amazing - rice, beans, tortilla and a fried egg with greenery bits on it - delicious all chopped up together.

Today's work involved starting construction on the water tank and laying pipe and filling in the trenches over them. It went well, fast progression and everyone was happy to chat as they worked which was lovely.

While working a small commotion behind me alerted me to a coral snake (the bad, non fake kind) about a meter behind me. This was promptly chopped up by the locals working with us - a bit sad, but I did kind of appreciate it.... Lunch was spaghetti soup with yucca and the green potatey stuff. Then back up the hill again. Just taking photos initially, but then felt bad so carried some bags of sand. Sand is very heavy. Got the pipes all the way down to the upper village.

After work it was up another hill for a view of the sunset from higher up - a bit noisy with everyone there but pretty amazing otherwise.

Left a bit after everyone else and enjoyed the dying light, but wished I had stayed until after dark for the dramatic colours. Was worried about finding my way out of the field in the dark though (I did take a torch, mind you). Dinner was rice and spaghetti...

Thursday 11 November
Up at 5, shower, rice, beans, banana, tomato and onion salsa with tortilla. Heavy on the onion but good otherwise! My serving was much bigger than the other... don't ever accept an extra tortilla or help others finish unless you want to double your potion sizes :p.

The PMs organised some English lessons at the local primary school, but not before climbing the hill to do comms and dig some trenches. I just took photos at the school - no teaching, but it was surreal, where I was and what they were doing - the kind of thing you see on TV or hear about but never get to see. Fieldbase was scheduled to arrive sometime during the day, but I was really enjoying myself and had grown quite attached to the food, house, my housemates, sunsets, long drop and various farm animals (30 chickens, 9 ducks, 2 cows, 2 pigs).

I was taking pictures of another amazing sunset when Bravo 1 pulled up with Fieldbase in it - said hi, chatted then went for dinner followed by a bonfire and singing songs with the community. We didn't know the words to anything. Late night - not in bed till 11pm!

Friday 12 November
Packed, went for a walk, took photos of Marcial and the 'Gangster' (Sergio) then had my final breakfast before we shipped off around 7:30am. Lot of driving that day - Julian (Costa Rica boss person) had some meetings all over the place.

We saw Chinandega, Cosiguina (epic volcanic crater) and ended up in Leon for the night in a nice hostel.

Steak and chips for dinner in an herby mushroom (Tortuga) sauce which was really, really good, much to my surprise. Checked email then off to bed after a nice (cold) shower. Actually it was a crap shower, but these things are relative.

Saturday 13 November
Headed to restaurant to check email again, our accountant arrived with the news that his hostel roommates stole all his and our budget money. Not the end of the world.... but a hassle when we wanted to have a nice breakfast and see the sights! Went to the police station at the edge of town to file a report (insurance purposes) which wasn't as much of an experience as I had hoped. That out of the way we headed back for some breakfast! We found an amazing French bakery were I had far too much delicious baked goods (i.e. roughly one of everything) and then we had a wander round to see the sights - some churches, the cathedral and some old businesses dotted around.

Grabbed our bags from the hostel, checked out and we were once again on our way - this time to Colonia Santa Cruz at the base of Volcan Cristobal and Volcan Cassita to meet up with X-Ray 1 (The Maribios Trek).

We got there around 4, hung out, had some dinner and then went to bed in the local school.

Sunday 14 November
Up at 4 - slept terribly. Started climbing at 5:15 with our now apparently sober guide. The views from Cassita were amazing, worth the 5 hour/1.3km vertical climb/walk up. Volcan Cristobal is just amazing - incredibly dramatic and scarred - one of the top experiences of my life, easily. We headed down at about midday - about another 3-4 hours before dinner, setting up beds again and then sleep!

Monday 15 November
Slept amazingly - being completely shattered will do that I suppose. Up at 3am to pack up with the trekkers who were off fairly soon - got the car sorted by 4:30 so had an hour to kill before it was light enough to drive. This mostly involved sitting around awkwardly while being started at by the developmentally stunted boy hiding in the shadows.......

We met up with X-Ray Papa/'Wow' at about 10:30 as they came down from the hills in ... somewhere south of Estelli. We rescued Sophie who was struggling a bit and added her to our road trip. Spent a couple of hours in Estelli where I had bacon and egg salad which was a bit weird but pretty good really.

After that it was up to El Rodeo - Miraflor - to get some photos of X-Ray 7 at the worksite and hanging out with the community before playing some Frisbee and bullrush.

A bit sweaty and with sore toes I took my bag up to the house we were staying in, said hi to all the PMs struck down and had great pinto for dinner followed up by some pineapple and sleeping in grandma's house next door.

Tuesday 16 November
Slept badly, considering how comfy the bed was. Up at 4:30ish finally, packed in the dark before the awesome Spanishy music of the grandma's clock radio kicked in at 4:50. Packed car after a quick goodbye, ate the cakes El kindly gifted us and then headed out. I drove over a tortoise on the road out, but between the wheel, not over it exactly. Not much excitement on the road, except that we were in the lovely Granada for an early lunch!

The colours everywhere are beautiful and it's not particularly touristy so I must recommend that everyone sees it before it gets ruined. We had some omlettey things for brunch which were fine, but took forever to arrive. After that we split up to see what we wanted to see - I wandered a bit before heading up the tower of an old church (a $1 'donation' was required). Great views - I guess it was worth it :p

We headed out at 12:30 and got to the border pretty soon after that. Changed our money, filled in forms, blah, blah, etc. Good news arrived that my laptop was now functional, bar the speakers (which does not concern me in the grand scheme of things), so I was in a pretty good mood.

We ended up in Liberia on the Costa Rican side where we found a great little hostel, had BK for dinner (oh god, so good, so weak) and then bought a bag of cookies, which I shared a little but mostly ate alone.

Wednesday 17 November
Up at 4, on the road by 6 and then stopped at an amazing waterfall about 15 minutes south.

Had breakfast at the Caballo Blanco (White Horse) - I had gallo pinto with an amazing papaya milkshake. Did I mention amazing?

Reached San Jose at about 10:30 where I grabbed my laptop and started typing on the way home. Arrived back around 2 - just in time for lunch!

Overall it was a really, really amazing trip - it's such a beautiful country and the weather was just perfect - barely saw a cloud and every sunset and sunrise was spectacular. On the animals/'pet' front - they were not as bad as I thought they would be, but it's not ideal. Where I stayed at Achuapa the dogs were lean but looked after.

The amazing adventures of David vs. Costa Rica (Now with photos!)

2010-11-06T02:23:00.003+13:00

The purpose of this road trip was threefold - resupply Alpha 2 (The new Costa Rican trek that I was on earlier in the phase), visit the other Costa Rican Alpha groups (to take photos and bring them candy and cigarettes to buy) and finally to make sure that everyone at fieldbase gets a chance to see the country.

I spent the 23rd putting together a trip plan - where we needed to go, what time we needed to be there, when we had to leave by, alternative routes etc. Took the better part of the day, but then I enjoy that sort of thing. The trip would take 9 days to complete.

View CR Roadtrip larger

24/10/2010 - Day 1 - Fieldbase to Puriscil to meet Alpha 2
Up at 5am - still lots of planning, packing and stressing to do. The car (Toyota Hilux double cab) was very, very full - to the point that I wasn't sure we would get everything in. We did fit in.... just - bags on laps and not really much space for the person in the back, but it wasn't a long drive that day. We finally left fieldbase (A) at about 13:30, headed for Puriscil (B) via Paraiso - a bit southeast of Cartago. We met up with Alpha 2 at the back of the shop at about 3ish and had a nice little reunion before handing over their first food drop and some of their personal kit. It was really nice to see everyone again and hear about how they were doing and what they had gotten up to/been through since I had departed.

At 4pm I set the radio (as in, communications system, not car stereo) up in the car and we all gathered around for Radio Raleigh before settling in for dinner. There was a great atmosphere and we headed off for bed at about 7.

It was a tight squeeze but we all fitted into the room and got to sleep - really hot though. I woke up at 11pm absolutely freezing - decided to climb into my sleeping bag (which I was lying on - extra padding on hard floors), but this was a challenge as I lie my sleeping bag face down to use the hood as a pillow case for my clothing sack/pillow. With no real space to move I managed as much as unzipping the side and crawling in... mostly. Didn't have a great nights sleep, but used to that!

25/10/2010 - Day 2 - Puriscil to La Cangreja to meet Alpha 3
Woke up at 3:30. The floor was very, very cold, but the air was warm, so standing up and getting packing solved that. We loaded up the car (with a bit less stuff now! Yay for a tiny bit more space in the back). Ate some breakfast, said goodbye and we were on our way again. We headed through Cartago, up to San Jose then south (once we found the offramp - there was one very clearly signposted... except that the road didnt exist any more) towards to coast before arriving at La Cangreja.

The road to La Cangreja was quite precarious - very steep dropoffs and a lot of rain meant that there were a ton of landslides, but the road was well passable, if not a tad exciting.. After we arrived, I watched them work a bit - saw what they did there (Building a mirador and planting tree saplings), what the Mirador (viewing platform) was like, what their mood was like and took a bunch of pictures before helping out a bit.

While wandering around taking some scenery shots a lady in the rangers station shouted out to me about something pretty over there (in spanish), I didnt understand fully and bumbled about, literally and in trying to talk back to her before noticing a 30cm lizard dashing off into the plants - what she was trying yo draw my attention to! I decided to head down the hill to their jungle camp before lunch to get some shots while it was still sunny - I had been informed to expect rain. The walk down takes about 15 minutes, but once you reach the bottom you get to the river which is just beautiful. I crossed the bridge to their camp and was just stunned at how beautiful the area was.

But everyone was a bit miserable! The rain was getting them down as they would work in the morning then head down to camp to sit under their tarp in the rain. Later on, everyone went to bathe in the river (which no one seemed to think was quite as amazing as I did) and I sat chatting to Wellard (one of the PMs there) next to the river about what it was like there. I kept trying to remind everyone there about how beautiful a spot they were in and that they would probably never be anywhere quite like it again, but no one was really biting! Hopefully some of it sunk in. Wellard then showed me the main river, where another log USED to be, before a massive amount of rain raised the river level a meter or two...

We stood around on the bridge chatting with the 3 PMs waiting for dinner, just about everything going on with them, and while doing so had a ton of bats flying around overhead - very cool. I then scored some brownie points (which I plan to redeem!) by handing out some shoulder massages. We later on had some dinner, at which a bench collapsed in the most humorous was possible (a cracking sound, a moment of confused and anxious looks and then four pairs of feet pointing skywards) and then shortly afterwards a scorpion was caught on the table (and killed, not ideal, but too dangerous to try anything too nature friendly).

As there was no space in the camp, we trekked back up to the work area and set up our sleeping areas on a concrete pad under a tin roof, using plastic chairs to support our mosquito nets.

26/10/2010 - Day 3 - La Cangreja to Camaronal to meet Alpha 5
Woke up a lot during the night, mostly awake between 3-4am. In the light of the streetlight I could see (and hear) some sort of night bird fluttering about and calling, chasing insects.

Got up at around 4, packed a bit and sorted out car. Beautiful sunrise over La Cangreja (The Crab - the mountain after which the park is named) - amazing. The venturers really don’t know how good they have it, but they are all still in bed. Took about 1000 photos. Found the local Toucan (TOUCAN!) singing in a tree - something I had resigned myself some years ago to never seeing in my life (Why, I don’t know). Had a really cute little call. Looked back down into the valley and saw a pair of red Macaws squawking at each other. Watched them for about 15 minutes - amazing. The whole valley was just a mix of dappled morning sun, misty clouds and dramatic hills and exotic birds...

Finished packing up and headed out at about 6am - southwards to Parrita (D) at the coast and then northwards, through Jaco (E), where we stopped to pick up a few things for Alpha 4 and 5 and up to Steve and Lisa’s for brunch and to kill some time. Carried on North through Tarcoles, where we crossed a bridge with loads of wild crocodiles swimming and sunning themselves underneath, then onto Puntarenas (F) where we got onto the internet for a bit and bought a tarp before continuing northwards, then south again around the Nicoya Gulf towards Camaronal Wildlife Reserve (G).

The last couple of hours or so of road getting there were not fantastic, but we got there just after dark in the rain. Headed down to Alpha 5’s jungle camp, set up their tent, had a lovely cold shower at the rangers station then headed back for some dinner and an early night - turtle patrol tomorrow morning!

27/10/2010 - Day 4 - Camaronal with Alpha 5
Woke up at 2:45am for turtle patrol. One of Alpha 5’s tasks is to patrol the beach at night to a) collect eggs as they are laid and b) deter poachers from doing the same. The eggs are all deposited in the hatchery where they are safe from predators.

It was raining lightly and pretty warm, but very dark. The tide was in and we walked up and down the beach for a couple of hours in but didn’t have any luck, bar a few recent turtle tracks with no eggs to be found. The rain got a lot harder and and the thunder and lightning got progressively closer and heavier - each bolt would illuminate the entire beach in a rather spectacular fashion.

We saw some poachers with a dog wandering along (No one else would be on a beach in weather like that...) before heading to the hatchery to see if there were by any chance hatchlings. Indeed there were! They were all over the place so we hopped over the fence and started collecting them up and putting them into a bucket. They are really tiny - I could just fit my fingers between their front and rear flippers to pick them up - and really strong - the force of them pushing against my fingers was quite impressive. Quite a moment! We took the bucket and poured them out onto the sand a few meters from the beach and watched them scurry off into the crashing waves. Amazing.

Carried on with more beach patrol before deciding, after one particularly nasty and close crash of lightning and thunder, that it wasn’t safe to be outside any more and we started back to the rangers station. On the way a wave swept in, as many had before, alas this one was carrying a log not visible to me which very dramatically took my legs out from under me. It was great fun in all honesty, didnt really hurt and I got quite sandy and wet, though my camera bag on my back was fine and under two layers of waterproofing. Realised that my poncho was inside out back at the rangers station also, which I guess made sense as to why the inside seemed so wet. It was dark when I put it on, in my defense.

When it got a bit lighter Lou and El, the non night shift PMs came around and we headed back down to the hatchery to check again. I’m glad I did - we released probably another 50-60 babies into the ocean and I got to take some nice (and hopefully decent photos) and some videos which will be going up online once I get the chance. There are vultures hanging around the hatchery all the time, so us being there to release and look after them really was important.

The rest of the morning involved me eating breakfast and swanning about until they started work on the coastal path at about 11am, where I took a load more photos, and then on to lunch. The sun at that time of day is incredibly intense and after just taking photos I felt quite feint and pretty exhausted the rest of the day. Once it cooled down we headed down to the beach for some ‘Beach Olympics’ which involved volleyball, limbo, 3 legged and wheelbarrow races etc etc. I got about half way through before I needed a lie down, so had a nap/looked through photos in the tent and then it was dinner and bed!

No turtle patrol that night - lots of driving to do the next day!

28/10/2010 - Day 5 - Camaronal to Dragon Base with Alpha 2
Up at 4:15 to pack up the tent and car, showered, ate breakfast and once again we were on the road. We filled up the car where the road meets the coastal road heading south and had a coffee. Heard some birds calling outside so went to look, and just as I did a huge blue Macaw came flying down past me! Saw a bunch of red ones in the tree above before noticing a house that was just full of wildlife - macaws, toucans, baby deer... took a ton of photos obviously.

We then continued on our way, back south towards Parrita (D). It was around this point that I noticed that a lot of the roads in Costa Rica look very similar to New Zealand which was at timed a bit boring, but some areas are very dramatic and quite different. That was especially the case over the next few days...

From Parrita we needed to get through a date plantation with no signs, maps or proper roads, so we relied on people to point us in the right direction. They did not, and we ended up a long way off course in Bijugual, not Bajos Bijigual (obviously....). At this point it was just as long to go back as it was to go forwards, so we proceeded on north to San Ignacio (H) then south again to approach Dragon Base (I) that way.

In a phrase, the roads were a fucking nightmare. I’ve never seen roads that steep in my life - I got stuck coming down a massively steep hill behind a real plonker doing about 3kph which meant that by the bottom the brakes had well overheated and were barely functional. The good news was that it was mostly uphill from here and that the scenery was properly epic - jaw droppingly beautiful and very dramatic. The bad news was that a) these were not the kind of hills I ever want to have to drive up again in my life, that we had pretty much no idea how to get where we were going, except roughly accurate 30 year old maps and that everyone was in a pretty shitty mood after a long day.

We ended up at a cross roads where we discovered that the main road was ‘no el pase’ - unpassable - a landslide. This meant taking the secondary and much longer road, taking some educated guesses, getting lost, missing turnoffs, using GPs readings, thunderstorms building in the next valley, wondering about how much petrol was left and finally arriving in the dark, 4 hours late. Relief. Relief for Alpha 2 also, as we had their food drop! Got our stuff ready, packed up everything else into the cab for security and then James and Laurie (thank god) turned up to show us the way to where they were camping.

We took some basic supplies to them to last the night and for breakfast, and Polly and Corinne kindly set our tent up while we scarfed some dinner and fruit salad (yum) before heading to bed. The wind up there (we were very high up) was pretty cold, a nice change, and sleeping all snuggled up my sleeping bag was amazing. Had a great sleep.

29/10/2010 - Day 6 - Climbing the Dragon and on to Jaco
I woke up just before my alarm at 3:15am and packed up my stuff and the tent. I had a bit of spare time after breakfast so I took my stuff down to the car to make it quicker and easier later.

5:15am - The ascent begins - 600 vertical meters to climb! It starts off with a massive grassy hill up to a ridge which took about half an hour to get up. From there we watched the sun rise over the magnificent view of the mountains, the plains (including the plantation we went the wrong way in) and the Pacific Ocean and Playa Palo Seco - Alpha 2’s final destination. This was Alpha 2’s first glimpse of the Pacific, after seeing the Caribbean sea on the other side on day three while I was still with them which I think was a pretty special moment for them.

We carried on, along the ridge and into cloud forest - damp and tropical jungle before a bit more grass and then hitting the steep climb through more jungle to the summit. It was very beautiful, very muddy, quite challenging in places and exactly how you would expect cloud forest to be (including old dead trees having been taken over by other plants). It was surprisingly quiet though - no birds at all really.

All in all it took about 2.5 hours to get to the top where we found a massive panorama and a very steep dropoff which gives a real context to how high up you are, especially when you can see your camp site almost directly below where you are standing. We could see above all the other hills and mountains and clouds flowing through the valley below. We took it easy, sat around, had some lunch and took and posed for photos and then started back down. Once again, very pretty and a bit quicker, taking just over 1.5 hours to get down. The group at the front saw a black snake which had a go at one of their walking sticks. The rest of us made brisk moves past that spot - it was still there according to those that could see it, but I couldn't (and wasn't that keen to hang around to find it!).

I headed straight back to the car while everyone else was faffing to unload everything and get it ready to be repacked for our trip. Once that was all sorted we were on our way... once I managed to get the car going up the hill. Wouldn’t budge in first... burnt the clutch a bit trying to get it going before someone suggested perhaps going into low range. A good suggestion it was! Low range and 4wd was the name of the game the rest of the day - again, some of the hills I drove up that morning were... daunting. No drama though, just some more absolutely spectacular hills, mountains, valleys and hills. I feel very lucky to have been given the chance to see it all, because I don’t think a lot of people will ever be able to get into areas as remote, challenging and absolutely amazing as this.

Finally made it back out into the plantation near Parrita (D) - it was a big relief to see a Honda Civic after nothing but big 4wd cars for the past couple of days... Getting out of the plantation was complicated, but the compass got us out in the end - back onto the coastal road! Very happy at that moment, and in celebration we stopped at a soda for some coffee/coke, breakfast (it was 3pm but still felt very early) and to make good use of their facilities and wifi (where I heard that my Threadless.com order had arrived and that all my lens bits and pieces were in the post - yay!).

On the road again at 4 to Jaco to find a hotel for the night - the only night we would spend indoors over the course of the entire 9 days. We stopped somewhere random, near the beach and it ticked all the boxes and we settled in for the night with some faffing and showering. I took a walk down to the beach where a Jamaican looking man (“Hey, my friend!”) offered to sell me some weed, which I politely declined, if you were wondering, before standing on the beach watching an electrical storm out at sea, wondering how far lightning bolts can travel. I should explain a bit about Jaco - it is Costa Rica’s biggest tourist town and is full of foreign surfers and sun chasers and along with that comes all the dregs that such things in society stirs up. It was quite jarring after being in such remote and quiet places for so long to suddenly have the big bright lights, obnoxious sounding Australians and loud music everywhere.

After the beach I headed to the supermarket (“weed! weed! sweetie!”) for some Nougat and fruit juice to have with my re-fried beans ration, watched some TV (a real novelty these days!) - Scrubs and CNN (THE TERRORISTS ARE GONNA GET US!!!) before crashing. The air conditioning was nice also.

30/10/2010 - Day 7 - Jaco to San Lucas Island and Alpha 4
Up early again, though I didnt need to be. Not good at sleeping much past 4-5 now. Made myself some yummy breakfast (oats, sugar, chocolate + milk power and water) and then headed north to Puntarenas (F) where we had some coffee, bought some fresh fruit and veggies for Alpha 4 and got back online for a few more minutes and into the world of consumer electronics (damn you, Engadget) and on top of some more emails (ie deleting the crap).

We then rushed off to make our boat to San Lucas Island (J). Rush we did not need to do - after unloading and unlocking the car we waited another 15 minutes for the boat to turn up. Heading out from the north side of the peninsula was beautiful, but not how you would expect. It was dirty and gritty, but it was exactly as I would have imaged a 3rd world fishing port would look - and it looked amazing! Once into the relatively open water of the gulf it got a bit more choppy, and once we got closer to the island there were large patches of disturbed water which was quite curious. Once we got closer we saw hundreds of seagulls and tens of pelicans flying around and I realised that the pelicans were diving into shoals of (what the boat driver said were sardines) fish which brought them to the surface where the other birds picked them off. This was happening in about 5 different spots at once and was quite a spectacle. I kept thinking how much amazing stuff I had seen on this trip.... but was actually feeling quite homesick.

Upon our arrival we unloaded the boat and walked down past the prison (San Lucas is a now-disused prison island with a quite notorious history) and down to Playa Coco to Alpha 4’s jungle/beach camp, past a troop of howler monkeys, little blue tailed lizards as well as a big green one.

It’s a very nice spot, right on the long sandy beach with tons of coconut trees, beautiful scenery and nice waves for swimming. Sitting by the pile of wood for the bonfire I could see crabs all over the sand, heaps of Pelicans flying past and tons of driftwood, but also plastic garbage - one of their tasks was beach cleanup. We had a game of rounders (my team won easily) and ended up getting really hot and tired, so had a swim - my first in Costa Rica - and it was fantastic. Took a ton of photos of the dying light and tried some coconut juice from freshly chopped coconuts. Still don’t like it, nor the flesh.

You can see the Puntarenas peninsula lighting up as it gets darker which makes the whole place feel much less isolated (I also saw a cruise ship sliding across the horizon in the dark to Puntarenas). I sat watching that for quite a while with dragon flies buzzing about and tons of hermit crabs scuttling about. They are fun to mess with - pick them up and they go into their shell then put them down on your leg and wait for them to come out, then give them a fright causing them to ball up again and fall off. Hilarity ensues. The bonfire was excellent and really beautiful to watch for ages and dinner was great - tons of veggies + energy bombs with banana (an excellent combination). There are a huge number of crabs all over and around their camp at night, a lot of hermit and big orange ones with purple claws. I went to have a look at their long drop facilities, as I had never seen one before, and took a slow walk, dodging crabs. On the way back I was dodging more when something caught my eye and I stopped - a brown and black stripey/checked snake, around 30cm long with a small pointy head. I took a step back and in that moment it vanished and I scooted by sheepishly past, back to the camp.

Back at the beach we were watching the waves and could saw phosphorescence in the crashing waves - very cool! We headed back to the pier to sleep under the stars and I saw a barracuda like fish (which has a proper name that I don't recall) in the dark water as well as very bright phosphorescence points and expanding ringlets where fish were coming up.

31/10/2010 - Day 8 - San Lucas Island to Playa Palo Seco to wait for Alpha 2
Slept pretty badly on the pier - hot then cold, woke up a lot hearing boats coming near but then watching them stop at the offshore house/fish processing place, buzzing mozzies... Got up at 4:30 to pack up and get to the beach for the sunrise. Once again, as I was heading through the jungle to the beach there was a troop of howler monkeys with one making their loud barking noise which I got on video (will be online!). Took a ton of pics of the beautiful sunrise before heading back to the prison with Tony for our guided tour.

It really is an interesting place and I have a took bunch of photos - very dramatic and aesthetically pleasing. Back down for a scrambled eggs on bread breakfast then back up to the worksite for pictures of them toiling away. Tony also showed me the bull ring - an old circular wall which used to house all the cows/bulls back when it was run as a prison farm (for the profits of whoever was connected enough to get given the job).

Eventually the boat arrived to pick us up and we were back on our way to the mainland. Reloaded the car in the blazing heat and then headed down for our last stop at Playa Palo Seco, just south of Parrita (D). We arrived at the camp site, set up our tent then just took it easy for a few hours, wandering along the lovely beach and taking photos of the spectacular sunset (amazing sunrise + sunset in one day = win!). Mac and Cheese rations for dinner + tinned fruit for dessert was great, wandered beach some more, feeling a bit lonely then got to bed. It was hot as hell and I got mauled by mosquitos before it started pissing down at about midnight.

Awful sleep that night.

1/11/2010 - Day 9 - Alpha 2 arrive at Playa Palo Seco and back to Field base
Gave up sleeping at 4:30, went for a walk on the beach before being attacked by a swarm of bugs. Beautiful though, and enjoyed it despite the little bastards! Rained most of the morning, but cleared up at about 10am. We got word at about 11 that Alpha 2 were near, so we wandered up along the road to meet and greet. As soon as they got to us it started raining though, but they didnt care and ran straight into the ocean.

I was feeling quite jealous of how I knew they must be feeling, how hard they worked and what they had achieved. We sold the last of our shop stuff to them, gave them their food and kit then hit the road again, bound for San Jose and then Turrialba, arriving back at about 5pm.

Where from here?
I have a few more hectic days of changover, then I HOPEFULLY HOPEFULLY get my laptop on Friday, then I understand that I will be deploying immediately at the start of phase 2 for Nicaragua for about half the phase. I will post dates when I know them. Vanessa arrives tomorrow morning with my replacement lens (24mm f/2.8 prime, yay!). Finally some good news.

I’m having an amazing time, but I am tired - miss my family and friends, I loving my music though. I feel like every cent I spent to get here was well spent, but I am looking forward to home now. Maybe having my laptop will fix that a bit, I feel so disconnected and discomforted without my own personal computer space...

On the move again

2010-11-05T17:25:00.000+13:00

I will update my last full post with pictures tomorrow (Brace yourself - it will be massive).

For now, here are my movements over the next couple of weeks:

Saturday morning I get on a bus to Achuapa - a poor community in Northern Nicraragua. I will spend 6 days there before being picked up and heading to climb up Casita (a volcano ) with X-ray 1 then onto Miraflor - another community, but just for the day, before heading back down and arriving back at field base on the Wednesday the 17th of November. Hopefully I will have my laptop tomorrow, but worst case when I get back. Communication will be much easier then!

Some videos

2010-11-04T05:06:00.000+13:00

All available in 720p Hi Def. Sorry for my shaky hands...

Achievements to date

2010-10-24T05:18:00.000+13:00

My arms are quit tanned, though this makes the rest of me look even MORE pale than usual. Working on it.
I have bought a lens - coming from the UK with some arrangements with: BNZ (changing my billing address), Vanessa (briefly in the UK then coming back here) and Amazon UK (place where I buys my stuff)
Laptop should be fixed and in my hands by the end of next week
Survived a night of being on Radio duty
Learnt how to (badly) handwash clothing
Can drive Manual
Cooked a Stroganoff by making it up at the supermarket (which everyone liked)
No blisters on my 4 days of trekking
Learning to cope with slow computers
Learning to be patient

Change to the times of some of my movements

2010-10-23T08:21:00.000+13:00

I'm leaving a day earlier than originally planned - Sunday the 24th instead of Monday the 25th.

24 October

Meet Alpha 2 at Purisil

25 October

La Cangreja National Park with Alpha 3

26 October - 27 October

Camaronal (Turtle conservation project) with Alpha 5

28 October

Dragon Base with Alpha 2!

29 October

Climb Dragon with Alpha 2

30 October - 31 October

San Lucas Island with Alpha 4

1 November

Playa Palo Seco - the finish line for Alpha 2

2 November - ~6 November

Field Base

Random night

2010-10-22T09:02:00.000+13:00

Well

2010-10-22T08:36:00.000+13:00

So I'm back from four days of trekking with not quite the outcome that I expected.

They were four hard days - every one of them (see http://raleighcostarica.blogspot.com/2010/10/phase-1-begins-on-road-with-alpha-2-and.html). The first day was dissapointing for being unable to cross the river so early on, the second for the difficulties in finding a new route and the amount of boring road walking we did, the third for the foot pain and the fourth for the massive amounts of hills we climbed and the huge double back we had to make.

But the hardest thing for me was the guilt I felt for leaving with the food drop. We'd been through so much and there was still a couple of really hard hours to go (huge hill and added weight of the new food) and it really felt like I was taking the easy way out and abandoning them.

I can't believe how much I enjoyed it - I really can understand why people do it and I can only imagine the feeling of satisfaction and achievement they will feel walking down onto the beach on the Pacific coast after 19 days. They are a great bunch - though my usual cynical eyes didn't think so immediately. After just a couple of days they had all showed their metal and I couldn't believe what they were putting up with without so much as a murmour.

When I showered that night it felt like I was washing it all away (holy hell did I stink), but also more than that, everything felt different and lighter. Walking and talking and thinking gives you a lot of time to think and I have a few more ideas about my life that I want to explore when I get home. When I finish Raleigh I want it to be the start of the best part of my life, not the end.

The next morning was really beautiful and it dawned on me that I'm only 1 month in and already have had the most amazing time of my life. I

Can't wait for whatever comes next!

Where I will be until the 5th of November

2010-10-16T10:30:00.000+13:00

16 October - 19 October
On Trek up Volcan Turrialba with Alpha 2

20 October - 24 October
Fieldbase

25 October
La Cangreja National Park with Alpha 3

26 October - 27 October
Camaronal (Turtle conservation project) with Alpha 4

28 October
Dragon Base with Alpha 2 again

29 October
Climb Dragon with Alpha 2

30 October - 31 October
San Lucas Island with Alpha 5

1 November
Playa Palo Seco with Alpha 2

2 November - 5 November
Back at Field Base

October suddenly looks like a very strange word, but google assures me that have spelt it correctly...

Phase 1 begins

2010-10-16T07:19:00.000+13:00

Tomorrow I am off climing Volcan Turrialba for 4 long days. The first three days are the ascent - around 2500m, followed by an 18km downhill day before I meet up with the first food drop and am whisked away to Fieldbase for 1000 hours of sleep. I'm packing as light as possible and will be getting some help with adjusting my bag to keep the weight in the right place - on my hips (which is quite hard when you don't have any) and off my shoulders.

Volcan Turrialba is the smoking volcano visible in one of my earlier pictures(between the rows of sugar cane). We climb right up to the summit through primeval jungle with lots of wildlife about. I meet up again with this trek a couple of weeks later to do another summit - the Dragon, this time sans backpack as it is a day trip up and down (we can drive fairly close to it).

So tomorrow morning I'm off very first thing, to return late on Tuesday the 19th and will be around fieldbase for a couple of days before heading off on a roadtrip of Costa Rica to visit the other three projects. Not sure on dates at the moment but will update when I know.

Computer wise - the motherboard has failed and a new one is on its way from wherever - 9-10 days as of tuesday I think, then a day to fix, puts it at around the 26th of October if all goes well. Hopefully if we are on the road then we can swing by San Jose to pick it up!

Lens wise... it's very hard to sort. No one sells anything Nikon in Costa Rica, and if I'm not careful I will be hit with a massive import duty when I buy something. Add to that the difficulties of actually paying - no one will take a visa issued in NZ with a delivery address in Costa Rica which means that I need to try use a bank/Western Union here to wire money directly from my Visa to their account or call BNZ internationally as they don't have any facility to do it online (at least as far as I can see). One of the semi-permanents here is heading back to London for a couple of weeks which could be useful though... But then my current lens actually still works - it just doesnt zoom by twiting it - I need to manually pull it out and push it in again.

Here are misc photos as I've been a bit slack. Still quite hard without a decent computer.

If the colours are all wrong then tough - can't see shit on this screen. Everything is a weird shade of green....

Blarg

2010-10-14T14:40:00.000+13:00

Helloo

Venturers arrived a couple of days ago - I drove to San Jose to pick some up and dropped off my laptop at the same time. Still waiting to hear what the issue is there. Will chase them up tomorrow as they were supposed to get hold of me on Tuesday.....

This morning the zoom mechanism on my main lens has gotten itself busted. I suspect some grit got into there. The whole thing kind of jammed up and the flash wasnt working properly with it. I've spent a lot of today pricing up replacements and researching etc, walking to Turrialba to try the two (utterly useless) camera shops and trying to find stores in San Jose. Fortunately Julian, the big country manager person knows a photography instructor and gave her a call and got a number for a store that sells lenses and could possibly fix my current one.

The prices of photgraphic equipment here is, I understand, quite unreasonable, so I initially placed an order with B&H in the states, but they are not happy that my Visa billing address is in a country different to my shipping address, so require the money wired. BNZ seemed to require me to go into a branch or spend half an hour on the phone to them at international rates for that to happen. Add to that the potential for a huge duty tax should I actually manage to get anything delivered and it's all a bit hard.

I gave it a good twist just before, doing all sorts of terrible things to the remaining mecahnics, but now at least I can manually pull and push the front of the lens to get the zoom working. Will still replace it if the price is reasonable, but wll do for now. I just dont trust it to last!

On more 'why I'm actually here' news: I'm off on Saturday morning for 3-4 days of trekking up Volcan Turrialba before being back at Field base for a few days. Then I'm off for about 10 days making my way around Costa Rica visiting the various project sites. I very strongly doubt I will be around then - but if I have my laptop I can probably get some wifi somewhere so who knows!

But yes, the Venturers are here - it has been super busy but tonight they are at jungle camp and it is beautifully quiet here <3.

Pizza time (even though I already had dinner and a chocolate....

Scottish Night

2010-10-10T10:19:00.000+13:00

Last night was the last chance for a few drinks before the Venturers arrive - it's dry here when the kiddies are around. So Scottish night it was, with Mohjitos, dressing up and scottish dancing.

Alpha 1 (Nicaragua road trip buddies)

My awesome dancing skills

And amazing tan lines

Random grasshopper on my desk this morning

Nicaragua roadtrip

2010-10-09T11:15:00.002+13:00

So my laptop is stuffed.

I've found a Lenovo certified place in San Jose (thanks to the very kind Roberto, who is Costa Rican). I had the option of going up to San Jose today by bus or waiting until Monday when I would get a ride up with the people picking up the venturers. Talking to the shop it could take two weeks to get sorted, but I can make do until then. Better than not having anything I guess! All under warranty too..

This trip is teaching me to be patient!.

So anyway, my trip (Update! I've managed to get Lightroom running (very slowly) on one of the PCs here so it's slow going and hard work bu I've now updated the phots to semi deent levels.).

Quite a long update sorry!.

I was swanning about on Sunday expecting to have 5 or 6 days of leisure, before the driver assigned to the Nicaraguan drive fell ill. I had about an hour to pack and get ready and then we were off! The group I was driving was heading up to the North of Nicaragua to do some recognisance for the Maribios Trek (Alpha 1, if you have a look at the http://raleighcostarica.blogspot.com post detailing the alpha groups).

So we headed out at about three PM. The important factor here is that we do not drive in the dark (the roads and drivers here are pretty terrible). It gets dark at about 5:30 generally, light from about 5 - that means about 12 and a half hours a day for moving about, getting things done and finding something to sleep. So anyway, our first stop was just north of San Jose, but we only got as far as the airport. We found a nice little hotel with a good room and three little poodles for the night. Cold water though! Dinner that night was recommended by our host - a 'great Italian place' s couple of blocks down. The setting was lovely - a nice little restaurant 1 story up looking out over the not lovely area (which really worked for me somehow). Everyone else foolishly ordered Pizza (I've probably not mentioned yet that Central American cheese is ...... really terrible). The pizza were rated somewhere between awful and 'I prefer that one' - That was about the nicest anyone got. 2/5. I thought I was being clever ordering the 'Frank Sinatra' burger, which was fine, but not exactly great. The fries were really nice though. And the setting was lovely - a bit surreal sitting in a rather nice restaurant overlooking some pretty manky places with it pouring with rain outside and eating awful Italian food - it was actually pretty nice.

Next morning was a 4am wake up (as would be the case every day) to be on the road by first light (5am). We were headed north for the border and as far north as we could get on the Inter Americana. We got as far as San Ramone in Costa Rica before we hit traffic - a dead stop because of the road being closed due to a land slide.

About an hour later we were on our way through the mountains and we stopped for a loo break and breakfast(beans, rice, eggs and coffee, a recurring theme) at Soda El Cruce which was ... fine.

We eventually hit the border, about 2 hours behind schedule (also a recurring theme - you learn to expect it. Did I mention my patience being slowly improved?).

A quick note on the Inter Americana - it is full of massive trucks and very very very few passing lanes. This means that you will often be driving along and see your lane being blocked by trucks hurtling your way at ~100kph. The best policy is generally to slow down, as they don't usually care too much about having enough space to pass safely. You also need to pass a lot of trucks yourself - 20kph is just not going to allow you to get anywhere within the times you need to. The good news is that my gear changes are pretty damned good now!

The border was fine - a ton of paper work and no real structure with everything happening at the pace at which everyone is accustomed. We had a checklist of things that needed completing and a fluent Spanish speaker which both helped greatly. The crossing took about 2 hours and we were once again on our way - in Nicaragua! After a few kms of flat grassy land you come alongside the giant lake (you will see it on the map). IN the middle are two MASSIVE very volcano shaped volcanos. We pulled up alongside a wind farm with the volcanos in the distance and ate our tinned beans for lunch. Magic.

We kept of driving north, got off the Inter Americana and cut across, south of Managua (the capital) before rejoining the Inter Americana continuing north towards Estele.

Due to delays and the fact that the times provided are fairly optimistic we never got quiet as far as Estele and had to stop somewhere randomly as it had gotten quite gloomy. The area we were in was absolutely beautiful though, and the sunset was just amazing. We found a hotel in a little town which was very basic, but also very cheap and was quite frankly good enough. We cooked dinner (macaroni cheese.. kind of) on our Trangier (special camping stove thing) as there were no food places nearby and had an early night.

The next morning we headed out a few minutes before sunrise as we had a lot to do - meet some people, look at some rivers, plan some parts of the trek, etc, etc. We needed to head from Estele west to El Sauce so headed across the most direct route. About half an hour in we came to a halt - big backup of trucks. Walked up to the front and there was a big section of road that was in a terrible state with a truck stuck, blocking half the road. The ruts were very deep and there were a lot of big trucks that were going to cross before we would. Along with that was absolute chaos - people just do whatever they want here, and several trucks (BIG trucks) got stuck/made it that much worse,so after some discussion and a call or two to field base we decided to turn back. The major issue was that we knew the normal route was out of service - similar issue.

Breakfast and coffee

The only other route was a complete unknown, but it was our only choice! In the end it was quite lovely. We eventually made it to El Sauce to meet up with someone who will give all the venturers somewhere to sleep for the night when the trek passes through.

After that it was off to look at a river crossing - the last time they tried it was too fast and deep to cross. This meant doubling back 7km - something that we wish to avoid!

The road to the river was decent, until one point. We got out and had a look and there seemed to bea good route through, so off we went. We got about 2m in before I got us well stuck. Long story short, one big rock at the front, one big rock behind the front right wheel, both left wheels having no traction as the chassis had bottomed out on the rock hard clay (which was full of rocks). 2 Hours (and some chunks of fingernails) later I dug us out (with the kind assistance of some local men). I was literally head to toe in mud, but it was gratifying because I managed to get us out at least. We decided that we could not get to the river crossing, so turned around, the other driver driving.

600m down the road and a stall in some mud meant we were stuck, again, barely 10 minutes after we got it out of the first one. We dug and dug some more, but everyone was tired and my fingers could take no more, so we left it for the night, planning on getting a vehicle the next morning.

We set up the tents, ate some beans, cleaned up our wounds as best we could and sat lying under the stars (it was very dark out there) and watching the fireflys flutter about - I couldn't really have been happier. At one point a man wandered by, had a poke around the car and announced that he would be back in an hour to get us out. We didn't complain, and after some more star gazing (I saw a shooting star, but no satellites) he turned up with his younger friend (who I was informed was quite cute) and they hooked up a hand winch to a tree and spun the shit out of the tires until we dug ourselves out.

Hallelujah, we could rest easy that night. It was bloody hot though when I tried to get to sleep and the ground was very hard and bumpy - I probably slept about 2 hours that night.

The next morning I got a sleep in till 5am as the 3 non drivers decided that they would walk the 3km to the river crossing while we packed up the tents and got everything into the car. It was a beautiful morning in the fog and dappled light, watching the cowboys wander on by on their way to wherever.

At this point we had 2 days to get back to field base. This meant a drive as far south as possible, but not after checking out another river crossing nearby.

Making breakfast...

The state of my hands - can't really see, but bth were quite battered. I also have bruises everywhere.

No dramas there, and we were soon heading south again, homeward bound. Our target was a beach resort about an hour north of the border. It was again a beautiful drive, this time driving past Managua and stopping at the car wash to get the land rover cleaned up.

Spot the volcanos

The service station also sold ice creams and 3L bottles of fresca, which I can assure you we all enjoyed. It was VERY hot. Behind the service station was a massive volcanic crater/lake with hundreds of vultures circling and riding the thermals on - I wish the light was better but it was quite amazing to say the least. Once we were all cleaned up we carried on on our way.

We never got to our beach resort, instead opting to stop on the lake side - a decent hotel near the water.

I spent about an hour in the shower, washing myself, my shoes and other various things that had gotten muddy. We had dinner at perhaps the diviest place I've ever eaten. As you walk in there are bare lights hanging with literally thousands of little bugs (miggies) flying around them. Not just that, but all over the ceilings and in large piles on the floor below. I can't say it really bothered me though... I guess after a few days in Nicaragua my standards had lowered and after only a little complaining we found a nice dark corner and got some beers and ordered.I had fried chicken and fries (safe option!). Someone else ordered something random from the menu and when it arrived the looks on everyone's faces and the silence it brought was worth a million dollars and will be something I remember for the rest of my life. Ask me when you see me in person and I might be able to explain. We then headed off to bed - up again at 4.

After packing the car and doing the usual checks I noticed that the power steering fluid was empty. The day before it was full. I topped it off and we headed out to the lake shore to watch the sun rise from behind the volcanos. The whole thing was a bit surreal and quite amazing. I then realised that what I thought was rain out on the lake was actually water being whipped up by at least 8 tornados spinning about, with one particularly well formed funnel. It's pretty hard to describe the scene, but I guess you can imagine that it was quite special.

On the road again, we bolted for the border - we needed to be back in Turrialba before dark and our schedule had about an hour and a half of leeway in it, but from previous experience knew to expect delays. We got to the border just before it opened, so stopped for the usual beans and coffee (and some Oreos, as it was the medic's (Cat) birthday) before getting through in under an hour. While waiting around, the group noticed some liquid under the car, and I confirmed that we were indeed leaking power steering fluid. I figured that at one point (when I was not driving :P ) I though the front left wheel had bottomed out, but now suspect that the power steering fluid sump got smashed a bit. We managed to use some rag and a lot of tape to at least slow it down, then bolted the 70km to the next big town where we were told it would take a day to fix. We decided that the leaking had slowed enough, bought another bottle of fluid and would check every hour and top it up. And we were off - the final stretch. I got us as far as San Jose after after getting stuck in traffic at San Ramone again (road works this time) for about an hourand we had lunch and stretched out legs at the arestaurant by the airport. We didn't really have the time, but I was stuffed and I think everyone needed a break. We hit San Jose at peak hour, and after getting a bit lost figured it out and made our way home, winding our way into filed base with the windows down, the theme song from Top Gun blazing and with stupid grins on our faces - just as it had gotten dark. Hi fives all round and straight to dinner.

Quite a trip!

So...

2010-10-04T08:22:00.002+13:00

Going to Nicaragua... back in 5 days

What next?

2010-10-04T03:06:00.002+13:00

Today the PPVs - Project Planning Visits begin - those in Nicaragua head off after lunch today and Costa Rican based PMs leave tomorrow morning. I was scheduled for the new and unnamed Costa Rican trek PPV starting tomorrow morning. I am, right at the start of Phase 1 (16 October), going to be doing that exact part of the trek with the PMs and venturers, so I am pulling out of the PPV to give my (very sore) knees and back a chance to recover. I am hoping to go along on a different PPV if possible, otherwise I will take it easy here and do whatever needs doing and perhaps some radio training.

So.. my schedule will be as follows:

Today through until Thursday I will be at field base (Will update if I am off on a PPV)
After that I am a bit fuzzy until the 16th. I will be around a bit, but the venturers arrive on the 10th and there are more jungle camps and other bits that need doing.
October 16th I am out on trek and I am back on the 20th until the 24th
On the 25th I'm road tripping around Costa Rica and I'm back on the 2nd of November at some point for probably 6-8 days until Phase 2 starts.

After that I have no idea!

Group photo! (Click for larger)

Big Update!

2010-10-03T17:12:00.002+13:00

This is what being lazy/ busy does... quite a backlog.

This week has basically involved getting ready for and going to camp/jungle camp and tonight was Phase 1 project allocation (Lots of energy and excitement pending the announcements!)

Wednesday we spent having various medical lessons.

Dr. Phil teaching us about health and hygene

Basic emergency medical care (I murdered a tomato with a needle)

Our able instructor

Sprains and strains

Game where everyone lined up in alphabetical order in a circle, and at their turn ran into the middle, performed an action and shouted their name at the top of their lungs. It didn't help me and I'm still a bit traumatized :p

Tips on packing your rucksack

Thursday morning we packed up and headed out for 3 days of hiking and camping with full (20+kg) backpacks.

Pre-trek instructions

Romeo 2

Romeo something else

Cows on the wing...

It's not even hard yet!

Giles, our mighty mountain warrior

Bridge safety lesson

Walking towards our camp site

No pictures of the camp site that night, as we had to set up coms in the dark and rain (which didnt work anyway!). The field had 2 horses, and a million frogs. The trees around the field were full of fireflies/firebeetles which flickered on and off which was lovely to watch as I relived my bladder. We had a hell of a time getting our coms up - we could hear everyone else on the radio but no one would respond to us. We moved the antenna (not a small job) but it got dark and started pissing down and we had to give up when the throw rope got caught in the tree. Satphone to the rescue.

Leaving from camp the next morning:

On the way to the river crossing

At the river for river crossing training

And the dam control being opened at a high rate... time to go....

To the next river

Jungle camp!

Euan's bed before it collapsed

Dinner

There were a LOT of bugs an jungle camp. Giant crickets, terrifying ants, very large spiders. All in abundance. Mosquito nets and being off the ground <3

Heading home!

...Disaster!

Yay!

Sorry for so many photos! Quite tired now. Can't think of anything else to say.

Pictures not words

2010-09-30T04:38:00.000+13:00

Busy the last few days, lots going on, lots more to come. Photos tell the story....

Waiting for the PMs at the British School in San Jose

Our sleeping arrangements

PMs packing up the next morning for the bus ride to Turrialba Field Base

First group breakfast

Lunch

Art class (Painting our mess tins)

My Tin (on the right)

Swim test

Learning how to use the radio (In the rain)

Nothing much to report

2010-09-28T06:04:00.002+13:00

Yesterday was off-road driving - proper off-road. Took the Land Rover through some boggy and very bumpy and steep terrain which was thoroughly enjoyable and something I look forward to doing again!

While out driving I saw a 'Jesus Lizard', no idea what the proper name is, but it's the lizards that run on their back legs across water. The one I saw was pretty small - it literally was skipping across the water filled tire ruts in the road, but cool nonetheless. I'm told there are much larger ones around to be seen. The driver after me saw a 2m long green tree snake in pretty much the same spot...

After that it was off to the field to practise towing/being towed which was interesting in itself, and has a distinct possibility of being needed in future!

Today is the last day of just the advanced field base group - we have some PMs arriving this afternoon on their on accord and we will be picking up a bunch more from the airport tonight and staying in San Jose overnight before making our way back tomorrow for the PM induction week.

I will be giving tours, helping with lunch dinner etc and taking photos of all the PMs tomorrow when we are back, then after that is swimming(!). Wednesday is various training bits, Thursday we head out for jungle camp, Friday is jungle camp, Saturday we are home again for some more training and then on Sunday/Monday after that the PMs are off on their project planning visits - they travel to the actual sites they will be working at, be it in the north of Nicaragua or the beaches of Costa Rica.

Since this is a photo blog, I took some rubbish photos of today's scenery and weather (hot!). I hope you appreciate them, because I was attacked by ants taking them. They are small ants, but they are angry.

Irazú Volcano and Costa Rican Countryside

2010-09-26T09:27:00.002+13:00

Today was a day off for us, so it was an early start this morning for the drive to Irazú Volcano. I drove the Land Rover up which was an good practise - a lot of trouble getting from 2nd to 3rd going up hills - I kept ending up in 5th which was the opposite of helpful and would lose all my momentum and needed to drop back down to 2nd and grind away to get the revs back up. Eventually figured it out though and the rest of the ride was pretty smooth I think, considering it being the 2nd hour I've spent driving a manual car in my life :P

The whole drive there was about an hour and a half, climbing about 2500m from the field base and through some amazing countryside and country roads (and 'roads'). I was a passenger on the way back which gave a good chance to take some photos of the area (where possible!)

We were promised an amazing vista when we were at the top, and we got something that I am pretty unaccustomed to in Costa Rica.

The cold.

(apologies in advance for some bad ones - wet camera = misty and poorly focused images)

This is looking down into the main crater. Below is a beautiful emerald lake and specatular vistas... allegedly...

Thankfully, there was a cafe where we bought some coffee to warm our hands up. I've started drinking a bit here - Costa Rican coffee is supposed to be amazing, so I'm having it black and unsweetened and it's slowly growing on me, I guess.

Upon leaving the cafe we stumbled upon a (quite tame/greedy) Coati - kind of racoon sized mammal thing. Very photogenic (ie comes up to you sniffing for food)

Fairly Odd Parents on tv...

Drivers for the way back down to field base - Hilux
(Driver: Maryann, front passenger: Carl, in the rear is Marcus and Alex (not visible)

Land Rover (which I took back down - should I be concerned?)
(Driver: Emma, front passenger: Ross (Country director and driving insructor/hand waver). I'm in the back.

For more details on who these people are (and everything else going on on expedition), see http://raleighcostarica.blogspot.com/2010/09/elves-at-fieldbase.html

And now some scenery - hard to get between all the trees!

Volcan Tarrialba

I'm now waiting for the banana cake to come out of the oven. I'm on cleaning roster today so should probably go do that...

Update

2010-09-25T11:46:00.000+12:00

Every day starts off with a meeting, which itself starts off with a game of some sort. Today was 'Two truths and a lie', yesterday was something random that is too much effort to explain.

Today was quietish, me and Alex are responsible for lunch and dinner, so that took up a few hours getting sorted and shopping at Maxi Bodega (Bodega seems to be a generic term for 'store room' or 'shop' or something like that). After lunch was a wee break, then off for an hour of driving in the landrover. Only stalled.... 4 times which I don't think is tooooo bad, considering the whole... never driven a manual car thing. It's a monster of a clutch though, and I was trying to be gentle but it didnt always go that well! The roads were pretty busy, but I guess I've been driving long enough to not be too too flustered by the traffic and slight manic-ness of town driving.

Tomorrow we are off to a volcano about 2 hours away. Each of the four drivers will get half an hour each on the way there or the way back. Supposed to be spectacular up there, so I will do the advanced field base group portrait up there.

I don't think I've posted it before, but this is what the office looks like...

And 'in motion'

As promised

2010-09-23T07:05:00.000+12:00

Breakfast

Where we sleep

View of the back side of the house, with volcano in sight

Where everyone else will sleep...

The office

Turrialba

2010-09-22T12:18:00.000+12:00

My destination!

Up this morning at about 2.. then 4.. then 5.. then the trains started again so got up before the rush to shower (which I only just beat!). Then killed 3 or so hours until we departed. Everyone else seemed super keen for the bus, which was fine because it meant that I was in the 4x4 which meant no taxi rides and a shorter trip (and getting to know the head admin girls).

I'm sitting at my desk now, all set up and comfy after pancakes for breakfast, a guide of the field base, a lovely swim at the resort nearby and now helping out to cook some dinner (between writing this). I've taken a few photos, but I will upload them along with some of the fieldbase itself (and its environs) once I take them in the nice light of tomorrow morning!

Now it's all about planning with the communications officer (who writes the magazine and blog) of what photos I need to be taking at the various project sites (all of which I will visit) in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I will most likely be driving (to get me there to take the photos and to do food drop offs etc for the trekking groups), which means 4wd training and lots of time to see the country on roughly my own schedule!

Rough tasks I have for the next couple of weeks are to take a lot of photos, plan my shots for the project sites, plan some group shots (3 sets), sort out how I will create slideshows (I need to make about 7 in total, also need to decide on music <3) and have a good look through the previous magazines to see what has worked and what hasn't.

Also, today I saw: Hummingbirds, weird toucan like birds with smaller bills, lots of unidentifiable birds and some circling vultures.

I should be around for the next couple of weeks at least, and then for the roughly 20 days after that be mostly away, then back for another 3 days, then away for another 20, then 3, then 20. I might be back at other random times if I'm passing by (eg north to south), but I will let everyone know once I have the final schedule of where I need to be.

Looking to be pretty awesome though - it's a great group of people so far (the Project Managers arrive next week, then the week after that the actual venturers arrive) and I'm looking forward to it all a lot now!

More tomorrow, assuming I don't get bogged under (including photos of the most bizarre bug I've ever seen or possibly heard of)

San Jose take two

2010-09-21T07:32:00.000+12:00

Buddied up with my two dorm mates and headed back into San Jose to try and change some travelers cheques (to no success) - ended up walking around some of the more.. off the path areas which was nice as it was a bit easier with three of us.

What you are looking at here are some tiles that used to form the top of a barrier, but have since been concreted over for whatever reason, which then has broken up. Odd.

There are payphones everywhere, always full of people.

Outside the central market - fresh squeezed lemon juice

Inside a fresh fruit market

Real clouds!

I arrived in Costa Rica expecting to be overwhelmed with beautiful curvy women, but for the most part curvy just means... tubby ... and a bit ugly. There are exceptions but no more than anywhere else. The mannequins in the stores are all...locally proportioned, and have the arses facing the street.

So no travelers cheques means I can't change any money until I get to field base - hopefully the expedition group is sorting out paying for tonight.. if not :p

Still not sleeping terribly well, wake up at 5 or 6 after 8-9 hours still quite tired but unable to get back to sleep. Hopefully my body clock will catch up again pretty soon.

San Jose

2010-09-20T08:21:00.000+12:00

Off for my short itinerary of things to see in San Jose

Pedestrian arcade running perpendicular to the main streets

Plaza de La Democracia - The square outside the National Museum (The yellow building).

"Costa Ricans take pride in the National Theater, which is considered to be the most impressive building in San José. In the 1890's, the ruling coffee barons voted for a tax on coffee exports in order to fund the construction of the theater, and European artisans were imported to design the building.

Completed in 1897, the building features a classical Renaissance columned façade topped by statues symbolizing Dance, Music, and Fame. Inside, the pink marble foyer features allegorical figures of Comedy and Tragedy, and painted murals depicting themes in Costa Rican life."

Eventually ended up at what was the main shopping high street (I gather). A few nice cafes and a ton of Surf Shops (clothing stores) and flashy shoe shops. Everyone seems to have nice shoes. And everyone (the well dressed ones anyway) has flash shoes.

Kept on wandering...

Found a tidy litte park, Jardin de Paz

Across the road to Parque Espana

Mosaic Bridge

Just before home again

Observations: Pretty third world, but some people seem to have money, lots of US fast food chains, people loitering, but generally happy and pleasant.

Breakfast

2010-09-20T04:08:00.000+12:00

Wope up at about 5am this morning, dozed around a bit but only got up properly at about 8:30. There was a ...thing on the wall next to my bed. It's about 6-7mm long and slightly...fuzzy. I thought it was just a mark on the wall or a moth, but as I looked in the gloom and through my grotty eyes I realised there was something sticking out the end of it and it was wiggling about, a little tentacle thing groping around.. and then it goes back in.... and comes out the other end for more groping/climbing. I watched in horror for about half an hour before I blew it onto the floor and out of my consciousness. I'm probably going to need to harden up a bit...

Went for a walk to the supermarket for some fresh fruit and bread. Things learnt: Bananas are cheap (4 for US40c) and delicious, apples are huge and delicious, but expensive (about US85c each), bread is cheap and delicious, yoghurt is very expensive.

View of the main street (I am on the Pan American highway, I think). That is a train track in the middle of the road.

Breakfast

Where I am eating my breakfast. The window behind the car is my dorm room. The building is an old villa/mansion.

There are I think 5 guests, but I've only seen 1 of them - who shares my room (who had too much to drink last night and perhaps, in hindsight, would not have appreciated my undoing of velcro, ruffling of bags and general clamoring about since 5am).

Plans for today involve dithering about doing nothing, going for a swim perhaps and then if the weather stays nice heading into the town proper to sightsee a bit.

I'm hoping it clouds over and doesn't rain - the sun is very very hot (27 high 18 low today)

San Jose - first take

2010-09-19T12:39:00.000+12:00

So after an infinity of flights and airports I was finally making my way to San Jose. Flew in over Cuba and a lot of small pretty islands before coming in over I assume Nicaragua and then the gradually more hilly/mountainous Costa Rica before coming in to land in San Jose with mountains in view on either side.

San Jose has a great airport, doesn't look like much from the runway, but inside it is very clean, modern and quiet (when I arrived anyway). Short queues, well organised, out in a flash. Hostel pickup took ages though.

The drive to the airport was nice, pumping out Creedence Clearwater Revival as we passed by slummy (yet strangely attractive) housing areas and other main streets. Interested to see what the town center will be like. Picture to follow tomorrow or the day after.

Weather isn't perfect, raining.. pouring for the period where I needed to get from the van to the hostel entrance.

Went to the supermarket, saw some Goth girls on the way (generally a sign of civilised society). The supermarket is very western looking inside - same sorts of foods etc. Seemed quite pricey at first glance though.

KFC for dinner >_>

Time for hundreds of hours of sleep now.

Amurica

2010-09-18T23:50:00.000+12:00

Brief stop in LA

But not brief enough...

Charlotte Airport

Real food!!!

London wrap-up

2010-09-17T05:02:00.000+12:00

This is a catch up post, seeing as I haven't really given any text alongside the images in my previous posts. If you're looking for the 'nice' photos check the previous blog entries at http://davidjroos.blogspot.com

Tuesday 7 September

Arrived in London ever so slightly short on sleep at 7:30am, decided to stick it out as long as possible. I stayed up by exploring Putney (where I am staying) a bit - lots of little side streets with rows of (attractive) house upon house. It all has the quaint factor, but still a bit too snug for my liking. Worth the trade off for decent public transport though, perhaps.

Crossed the Thames to a park near Putney bridge with an old church and some flower gardens, nothing spectacular but it was nice a cool walk along the Thames and the air seemed fresh. There was a little cafe alongside the church that the pidgeons seemed to like.

Another suburb opposite Putney was fairly similar, but a bit more upper class (the houses looked the same, but there were flasher cars). On one street almost every single house was being worked on, gutted etc - an up and coming suburb it seems.

Alongside the nice houses were a few giant buildings with quite classical and attractive architecture with their own private gardens, not sure what they were, but plonked right in the middle of it all, where I imagine at some point was a park/square, was a block of awful old council flats which was horribly out of place but typically English.

Then home for a nap.

Wednesday 8 September

Got my Osyter card/weekly pass sorted which makes getting around much easier, then headed in to the British Museum. I can't say I have any deep interest in most history - my main reason for visiting was the roof in the main atrium of the building.

Beside that it did have some interesting exhibits including lots of Egyptian, Iranian, Chinese, Japanese, India (who seemed to be obsessed with breasts) and a lot else that I can't remember.

My favourite part though was the lovely old ladies manning the 'touch' exhibits - little booths where you can walk up and touch a bunch of old stuff (not the ladies) such as, my favourite, 2500 year old Greek silver coins, old Japanese oblong coins with string holes, a bizarre Nigerian currency made of case iron, kind of a very long T shape with a lump at the botton, and strings of sea shells. Other booths I found had old pottery, functional brass things, personal religious knicknacks and a 150,000 year old cutting tool (which was a bit small for my hand).

The reading room itself was just a random collection of books, notes and specimens, with one in particular catching my eye - a Hoopoe.

Also, don't sit on anything, even if it looks safe to - alarms WILL go off. Apparently.

Outside the museum is the Kew Garden, who's current theme was 'Southern Africa'

Then headed out through Soho down towards Piccadilly Circus (I think, I was just meandering). Soho wasn't as nice as I expected - I was expected weird alternative-ness but just found pretension and wankery. Maybe it was just me, but I came out with a generally negative feeling on the whole place which was a tad disappointing as that was one place I was looking forward to seeing the most.

Anyway, Piccadilly Circus. As you would expect it to be.

Continued meandering, ended up on The Mall towards Admiralty Arch.

And then onto Trafalgar Square which was crowded, so I left. Headed back towards the British Museum via Camden and saw this on the way:

And then this (Umbrella and walking stick maker and a comic book store next door to each other)

After museum-ing it up some more I went home for more sleeps.

But not before I went to Spur in at the Southside Mall in Wandsworth Town Center (15 minute walk from Putney). Yum.

Thursday 9 September

After realising that London wasn't actually particularly very interesting on its own, I resolved to see the rest of the Museums, which was great really. First up: The Natural History Museum, which had Dinosaurs. Need I say more? It's like whoever wrote the books I read as a child just wandered around this museum and converted it into book form. Specific examples:

Anyway, the rest was less impressive, though I enjoyed seeing the Dodos and the very faded Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), but not so much the dismembered birds and cabinet of possibly hundreds of stuffed hummingbirds. The geological history part was... flashy with its escalator leading up 3 or 4 stories into a giant globe, but still dull - not much to be done about that I suppose.

The building itself though was absolutely beautiful, inside and out. I've posted heaps previously so won't bother with any more here.

Oh also, do you remember Ida'?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinius_masillae

Also the Mammoths were cool.

Friday 10 September

More museums today.

Science Museum: horribly disappointing (and poorly laid out). Expecting too much perhaps, or maybe I'm just getting too old to enjoy this sort of thing.

Here is a photo of a photo of my eye:

Albert Memorial outside the Royal Albert Hall

Hyde park

Serpentine Gallery. Wanky.

Paddington. Boring. Couldnt find Paddington Bear (Sorry Anya). Will bring a map next time. had BK though, so that is a plus I guess?

Went home to drop my bag off (Out for dinner tonight)

Then to Victoria and Alfred (or Albert?) Gallery. This was a cool place with too much to describe, but highlights were the wrought iron, Beatrix Potter and photography exhibits, along with the awesome and massive copies of plaster cast columns, doorways etc etc.

Friday night was Brick Lane for a drink at a cool local bar which played really awesome jazzy...stuff, then a curry after being harassed by thousands of very enthusiastic Indian men trying to give us a deal. It was pretty good and we negotiated some free poppadoms. Also quite spicy, but mine was relatively mild. That will teach me to steal food from other people's plates.

Saturday 11 September - Sunday 12 September

Lyon! The previous photos pretty much tell you what it's like. Very pretty, very quaint, very old, very french. Delicious pastries, cheap bike hire, compact city. Very very pretty. Ate so much bread.

The city itself is flanked by a plateau on two sides, the eastern bit contains the basilica (Flash interior of the church posted previously) and the roman auditorium ruins. Getting up was up a beautiful street with views over the whole city - half way up the church bells started ringing and it was quite marvelous. On the northern side was a hill that led up to another suburb really, but the way up was through a interesting area with tons of graffiti and odd stores.

At the top was an amazing view (huge pity about the horrible mid day light. Did I also mention that it was hot and I was wearing jeans?) and a huge market and a random procession. No idea why.

Dinner on Saturday was a three course meal, a lovely salad, pork things with a delicious potato side and then an apple tart and chocolate brownie (shared). The apple tart was amazing, kind of like a sweet pizza base with dried apple slices on it with some sort of glazing. I would like to try make it myself next year!

Lyon also has a really lovely big park to the north - inside it is a free (non-creepy) Zoo! Nearby was a huge slab of ice which, in the heat, was amazing.

Anyway, all worth seeing, and so easy to see with tons of hotels right in the middle of it (Though, if you don't mind riding bikes you can get a hotel anywhere really).

Monday 13 September
Monday morning I arrived back in London. Technically Sunday night, but didnt actually get home and to bed till 2am. I slept in late and took the day off to try and recover (keeping in mind that I am still horribly jet-lagged)

Tuesday 14 September
Battersea <3. For obvious reasons to anyone who know anything about Music *cough*. After that was The Millenium Bridge which was pretty cool and St Paul's cathedral and Patternoster square for lunch. Back across the bridge I went to the Tate Modern gallery which contained generally large piles of excrement. We're all entitled opinions are we not? Next stop Tower bridge... or... well, I can see it from here.. I'll just go home and sleep some more.

Wednesday 152 September

Buckingham Palace. Full of people. I don't see the attraction - there are much better sights in London that boring old Buckingham Palace. I feel that it's only famous now because it's famous, or at least that is why people go there. It's the Paris Hilton of London attractions. Do you really think you're going to see the Queen? Really?

Anyway. Westminster Abby is a beautiful building, but like St Paul's expect me to pay to see the inside of it. For what reason I do not know, and for better or worse I will never know how they look inside. I'm not cheap, I'd just rather have the (at least) three meals that entry to each would have cost me.

Westminster Palace was lovely looking, and I enjoyed the security guards with MP5 semi automatic rifles. Not sure if that was normal levels of security or if it was Pope related.

Finally, back to Trafalgar square and the National Gallery. There was a weird robot in the square, no idea what it was there to do.

The gallery was good, not interested in the mostly dull portraits or the excessive amount of religious iconography, but there were some beautiful landscapes and I managed to find the lady in the red dress that I remembered seeing when I was there in 2000. I get the feeling art and history are not really my interests, as hard as I try to pretend that I am civilised.

Thursday 16 September
Sat on my arse all day, taking it easy, packing and writing this!

Where to from here? Finish packing tonight, then eggs and bacon on English Muffins (don't worry mum, also broccoli).

I have a 9:55am flight from Heathrow tomorrow morning to LAX. There I have about 9 hours to kill. I'm still undecided what to do, but if I can find a power point I will spend most of the day watching movies/tv shows on my laptop or reading my long book (which is amazing - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand). If I am able to check my luggage in early I will take a half hour walk to in-n-out burger just near the airport for lunch, and then im guessing McDonalds or whatever else is cheap in Terminal 1 for dinner once I've checked in and waiting. Then it is on to Charlotte North Carolina where I have just enough time to change flights and then finally to San Jose. I don't know how many hours it will take and I don't want to. I will have two days at my Hostel in San Jose before I meet up with Raleigh, one of which will be spent sleeping and the other exploring a bit. A bit over seeing cities to be honest. Anyway, we head to Field Base at Turribala early on the 21st. After that I have no idea, but I will get in touch as soon as is possible - I'm sure I can sneak 2 minutes on the internet.

I will be online at the Hostel in San Jose on the late afternoon of their 18th, which I guess makes it morning-lunch in NZ (They are GMT -6 hours), putting them 6 hours ahead on the previous day, aka 18 hours behind)

Until then!

Westminster

2010-09-16T02:04:00.000+12:00

Battersea and Bankside

2010-09-15T04:13:00.000+12:00

Battersea power station

Millennium Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral

The only thing in Tate Modern worth looking at. Thumbs down to 'Modern Art'

Lyon

2010-09-13T23:40:00.000+12:00

Updated blog template because the other one was too laggy for me = annoyance.

London Natural History Museum

2010-09-10T04:55:00.000+12:00

London Miscellaneous

2010-09-09T19:13:00.001+12:00

Putney and Fulham

2010-09-08T08:02:00.003+12:00

Ugh... airports

2010-09-07T21:22:00.001+12:00

Auckland

Sydney

Bangkok

40 sleepless hours later.... going for a walk.

Tropical

2010-08-17T20:05:00.001+12:00

Snow

2010-08-14T09:28:00.000+12:00

Yudanaka Onsen

2010-08-01T16:39:00.003+12:00

Auckland at night, again.

Shore Amp 2009

2009-12-12T10:08:00.006+13:00

They grow up so fast

CBD/high Street

2009-12-06T16:25:00.000+13:00

Waiting waiting

Wandering around downtown in crappy light

Lunch for Leukemia

2009-12-03T22:50:00.000+13:00

When you don't have anything new to photograph

A shot from the Lunch for Leukemia event I took photos for (for free!) a while back

Old is best

Auckland City

2009-11-22T16:53:00.003+13:00

Fun things to do at night

Mr Saxby and myself had a wander round the viaduct. Pointing and laughing at drunk people dancing to terrible terrible music was almost as much fun as taking the photos. 10 points to the girl out taking photos alone.

Almost too right

Totally not jealous

Te Aroha

2009-11-22T16:26:00.000+13:00

Visiting

Bridge to downtown Te Aroha

Te Aroha Domain

Western Springs

2009-11-22T16:07:00.008+13:00

Cheering up

To Western Springs with Countesscupcake