Back In Canada

I am back from Costa Rica.  I left Canada on the 16^th of January for Costa Rica and I returned on the 25^th of July.  I flew through Houston into Toronto and cleared security sometime just before midnight.

Back in the Royal City, as it’s called. It’s not a huge sprawling metropolis, but compared with Nosara, it might as well be.

One of the biggest changes coming back, is that I am no longer living in Ottawa.  Frankly I have no reason too.  I went there for university and I finished that shortly before leaving.   I will be going back to school in January at Loyalist College for Photojournalism, but until then I will be in Guelph.  Hopefully I will be able to find some work in photography while I’m here otherwise… waiting tables?

Needless to say emails are going out today and tomorrow, to let people know, I’m here and I can do photography.

However, this post is going to recap my final days in Costa Rica.

I was at the Caribbean!

Does a picture of a Caribbean beach get more stereotypical?

I mentioned the hostel I was staying in my last post, as a somewhat unique place, and not for good reasons necessarily.  One of the drawbacks was that the beach in front of the hostel was rocky and kind of sucked.  However, I had been told that about a 20 minute walk away was a nice sand beach, and there was so I spent a few hours there.

A sand crab; these guys were all over but really skiddish, as soon as you stood up they would hide back in their holes.

There was also a small island off the coast that reminded me Jurassic Park…

I’m pretty certain that’s Ilsa Sorna. I also had the opportunity to talk to some Tico’s who had seen Jurassic Park, they didn’t like that San Jose was portrayed as a small beachside town, when it’s a) huge, b) several hours from the nearest beach and c) surrounded by mountains…

More interesting than another white sand beach (I know I was spoiled) were the jungle paths.  The jungle basically pushed right up to the beach and there were some cool paths to some deserted places I went along.

One of those paths led up to a cliff with a sheer drop 50m into the ocean.  It was a dramatic place to sit and read for a while, although one that required caution while climbing around.

Nice spot to sit and read for a little while.

On the 24^th I packed up my stuff and set out into the rain. It had been pouring that morning but had slowed to a light drizzle around 10am when I left.  I boarded a bus to San Jose and 5 hours later I was back in the big city.

I made my way 20 blocks across town with my backpack and found myself back at Galileo Hostel, the place where this had all began, so to speak.  I stayed there for two nights when I first arrived and had nothing but nice memories of the place.  Sure enough the experience was about the same this time around.

Self-portrait in the same place where I wrote my first blog entry in Costa Rica some six-months ago.

I spent the evening at the hostel bar, chatting with other people staying there.  It was a little strange.  As the night wore on, I was tired and wanted to sleep, but at the same time sleeping meant I would wake up, and waking up meant it would be over.  I didn’t want it to be over.

The next morning while waiting to depart for the airport I took some pictures of a map they had spread out on a table at the hostel.

Just a few small points on a map…

I decided to do an overhead shot and then I put the map photo into Photoshop and used the paint tool to circle all the places I was, and the roads I traveled to get there.

Magenta is where I went, circles are places I stayed.

Considering I was just there to be in Nosara I think I got some pretty decent travelling around in as well.

Three hours later I was in the air to Houston, Texas.

My final glimpse of San Jose and one of the last moments on Costa Rica soil just before take off.

Here is a short video I took out the airplane window of our take off, and my final glimpses of Costa Rica.  I think the best part is the commentary from the four-year old sitting next to me.

I’m gonna miss Costa Rica.  In my list of places to visit in my life, frankly Costa Rica wasn’t on it.  I only went because the Voice of Nosara offered me an amazing opportunity.  As I look back over previous travels though there seems to be a pattern of ending up in places I never intended to visit, which I then grow to love.

I hope I’ll be able to return someday soon.  Financially speaking I should be able to, it’s almost cheaper to fly to San Jose from Toronto than it is to fly to Vancouver.  And now West Jet is flying regularly to Liberia, Guanacaste.

Until then it’s time to hit the ground running.  Photojournalism is an intensely competitive industry and I’m going into Loyalist with experience and a competitive advantage, the next two years are going to be fun.

Paz Siempre,

Adam Dietrich

P.S. To the regular blog followers who I haven’t met, glad you’ve enjoyed reading, hopefully I will be able to keep this interesting as time goes forward.

P.P.S To those at Voice of Nosara and the people of Nosara in general, thank you very much for everything over the six-months.  Thank you very much.