Interesting post from a Bigfoot user

Ross Singer makes some interesting observations over on his blog about his experiences with the Talis Platform.

Sunset

More pictures

Some wildlife:

Pesky ´gators

I´ve discovered that we also have to contend with alligators whilst we surf. We´re really close to an river estuary, and when tide is high (and food in the river low) the gators will swim out to sea to look for snacks. Great.

Apparently they don´t like waves much, (so are unlikely to be out with the surfers) but it´s still one more thing to look out for, along with sharks, jelly fish, stingrays (remember Steve Irwin?) and rocks, of which I fell foul yesterday and opened up my knee!

Sunburn

I have nasty sunburn – ouch! So, instead of surfing yesterday, we decided to rent an infeasibly small 4×4 and drive at quite frankly ridiculous speeds across dirt and rock roads and go for a bit of an explore.

We soon encountered a random retired french-canadian sailor who now owns a beach hut bar-cafe on the beach. Having initially enquired as to whether or not we could purchase a bottle of water (being around noon), we were told we could only have rum. We managed to barter him down to a couple of beers.

Following a brief off-road safari in the national park, we were back on the dirt roads. Costa Rican driving is interesting (perhaps not quite as interesting as driving in Mexico). For example, if there is someone in front of you, and you´re both waiting to overtake a wood truck/tractor/fire engine, quite often the car in front will overtake, and then stay on the left (i.e. wrong) hand side of the road, and wave you to overtake him on the inside. And quite often when there is clearly someone coming the other way. It´s also not unusual for people to drive on the wrong side of the road for no good reason at all.

The other thing that gets me is the travelling dogs. The amount I´ve seen, all tiny, running down the side of the road, or over bridges, when there´s clearly been no habitation for a good few kms, is incredible. It´s like they´re on a mission. You´ll beep the horn, they´ll look over their shoulders, and then move to the side like slow moving traffic. It´s like the blummin´ littlest hobo society or something…

First surf lesson

The first surf lesson went pretty well – managed to stand up on my first attempt – which is more than can be said for Roann! Swapped to a shorter board which is harder to stand on but better for control – tomorrow I will be learning how to catch a wave as it breaks rather than surfing in white water.

Some of the waves are truely massive – todays were quite small apparently - some are still around 2-3 meters over the normal level of water as they approach you. Diving under them (even with a board attached to your leg) is pretty straight forward though.

However major sun burn has become a factor – my forehead is roasting!

Some more photos from San Hose

A moderately disturbing photo of the pope with some sea lions…

A very, very large tropical tree:

Something random:

Found the Ghosh

Whilst emailing from within my lodgings this very afternoon, I encountered this fellow:

Costa Rica photos part #1

I´ve been in Costa Rica for about 12 hours and thought I would start a blog and upload some photos whilst I wait for my travelling companion (the infamous Roaan Ghosh) to arrive. Here´s five I took this morning in San Hose…

We´re off to the Dominical on the Pacific Coast to start our surfing tomorrow, hopefully we´ll have some internet access there so I can keep posting!