Circumnavigating San Fernando

This Time in 2007

Get up early for a dawn shoot on the beach. This is the best time of day as it gets far too hot to do anything later and by the time evening comes the heat has made you completely enervated.

Lee and I go for a walk before breakfast along the lake-shore trail. We say hello to several people as we go and meet Serena and Scott who are here from the USA and running English Language Classes. They are staying in a ramshackle place on the beach but seem to be enjoying themselves. We return to the Albergue in time for breakfast with Jim. We have heard that Carlos has managed to cross into Nicaragua but was forced to spend the night in San Carlos. We hope to see him later.

After breakfast Lee and I take a canoe out and decide to circumnavigate San Fernando. It took us about 2 and a quarter hours. The water was a bit choppy off the north coast and it seemed to take an age to cross the bay opposite La Venada. We see plenty of bird life but not may islanders except for the occasional woman doing the laundry. They have scrubbing stations set into the lake for this.

In the afternoon I made some butterfly lures from the netting I'd bought and filled them with fruit scraps left-over from breakfast. They worked too as they attracted several Caligos and a Archaeoprepona over the next few days.

Later Lee and I walked down to the museum and art gallery for a look around. Many years ago Ernesto Cardinal had introduced the islanders to prinitivist painting and many families still had a tradition of painting. Many also continued with the balsa wood carving introduced at the same time.

Returning to the Albergue we lazed around in the hammocks waiting for the day to cool off. Eventually I decided to go for another paddle around the small island opposite and stayed out until almost dark watching the sun go down. When I got back I found that Carlos had finally managed to cadge a ride from San Carlos.

After dinner we spent the evening drinking beer and discussing plans for tomorrow.

This Time Last Year

A rest day with a few odd jobs to do. Meet the new guests at the San Gildar Hotel in the evening. Take some panorama shots from the Pico Blanco Hotel.

Rio Papaturro, Nicaragua

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Originally uploaded by stevenhouse

Gallery

Spent a lot of time today converting all the calendars to start from March 09. These are all stored on Lulu, but I shant be using them next year. The calendar design software sucks and I really can't be bothered to go into the details. "The Lulu Studio™ is a revolutionary web application that makes creating your calendar as easy as point and click. There's no software to download and you can use it through your browser." Thats what they say. And this is the future of software. I despair.

Family

Heard from Kristian today who has just got back from spring training in Majorca. He's cycling for Rapha Condor Recycling

This time last year

Manuel and I are up are 5.20am to tandem the canoe with three of our guests in kayaks as we paddle up the Rio Papaturro. We don't see a lot of wildlife at this time and paddle right up to the Costa Rican border which is marked by a log across the river.

This route is used by illegal immigrants going into Costa Rica for work - usually picking in the plantations. There is an Army Outpost next to the Reserve but they don't seem interested in much.

After breakfast I take another group up the river. This time I share a sit-up double kayak with Pat. It's not very comfortable. We see some White-Faced Capuchin monkeys and a Slaty-tailed Trogon (a bird).


After that we pile into Juans boat and cruise slowly downstream towards Lake Nicaragua. It's warmer now and we see plenty of river birds.

Our crossing of the lake is calm and we tour around the back of Mancarroncita Island before stopping for lunch on a premonitory of Mancarron Island. the family that entertains us all have built a shaded picnic area for us. The food is fabulous. We see a Ctenosaur in a tree - this is a type of black iguana.

Afterwards we walk over the hill, past a fabulous look-out, down to a local school. From here the boat picks us up and we cruise around to Mancarron Pueblo. This is the small village which is the main place on the island. Our guests go shopping for T-shirts and balsa carvings whilst I have a beer.

It's then back in the boat for a short ride to San Fernando and the usual evening procedure. That is dinner and hanging about. Manuel and I have been bounced from our nice room to the back cupboard!

Kick-Off

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Finally got around to sending pdf portfolios to Copper Canyon and Baja today. These were both places I visited in Mexico last year. I had a reply from Doug at Paraiso del Oso These were the outfitters who organised out 10 day trek around the Copper Canyon and the small towns of Batopilas and Urique. Highly recommended. They do Horse Treks too.

Doug told me that times were hard as people weren't travelling. The economic slide was one factor but a certain amount of political turmoil in Mexico was dissuading many too.

Two books arrived today. This one The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers and this one The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers

As you can see they are both by Scott Kelby. He has a wittering and irritating style, but he tells you the business. I am a member of NAPP and as such am entitled to a discount on these books. But it's no cheaper as they wack a huge shipping cost to post them to Europe. Looks like I'll only be a member for a year at this rate.

I shall be moving my photographic workflow to a Lightroom basis instead of Bridge. I'm using CS4 now and a bit miffed that some functionality has been lost. For example I used to be able to upload to Flickr and Smugmug directly from Bridge. Now I can't. That's called progress and, of course, you don't get told whats missing ... only whats new. Great. I shall start this Lightroom thing when I can get a new external hard-drive. Can't get enough of these.

Also a CD arrived (how old-fashioned). Vampire Weekend - an outfit from New York. Liked it straight off the bat. Light jangly guitars with a West African sound.

This Time Last Year




I was in Nicaragua, staying at Daniels and Marie's place on San Fernando Island in the Solentiname Archipelago.

I got up early to walk down the trail, past the petroglyphs, and up to the overlook. They've built some new stuff since I was here last year. the petroglyphs used to be in the middle of a field and hard to find. Now they have a new trail to them and a shelter over them and a bench. The outlook also has a shelter and bench. very nice.

Family

Heard yesterday that I am a Great-Uncle. My niece Jodanna has a baby Henry Graham. I had a mail from my mother with photos ... except the photos were missing! Also had some photos of snow in the village at home. Our snow came and went yesterday!