Green Macaws

Family

Alexandre's birthday is coming up on the 22nd. He'll be 9. This is the first year I've been here for it since 2006 so I'll be hoping to get over there in Brussels for the party. Who can resist jelly? I've twisted his Dad's arm so that we can spend some time on a portrait shoot for all his three boys. Haven't done his for a while. Any excuse to drag some lights out. I'll persuade Dhar to check out the Strobist site first, and buy the stand/shoot thru umbrella and hotshoe adapter from Speed Graphic. They always give a great service.

This Time Last Year

I'm up at 5.30am to catch the dawn but it is very misty on the Rio San Juan. After breakfast we pile on a boat, the San Miguel, to take us back upstream to a tributary called the Rio Santa Cruz. Unfortunately our canoes did not arrive on the freighter last night from San Carlos so Carolyn and Manuel run around all morning to beg and borrow some local canoes. Some of them are in the local wooden style with heavy paddles!


As we set off Manuel notices a flock of Green Macaws and we take a detour to watch them. These are rare and we are lucky to see them.


The Sam Miguel took us up the Santa Cruz and then a small way up the Rio Romero. From here we paddled upstream as far as we could before turning around and paddling back to the mouth at the Rio San Juan. Here everybody piled back into the San Miguel for the ride back down to El Castillo. I decided to paddle home, which took about an hour. I paddled over the famous Diablo Rapids too.

In the evening we had camaronnes again. A type of large freshwater shrimp. Delicious.

This Time in 2007

I was in San Jose, Costa Rica, and had already done one canoeing trip for Battenkill. But Carolyn had been having trouble with her back and had decided to have surgery. Today I visited her in hospital. She was a couple of days in hospital, and then a week resting before returning to Solentiname to recuperate. The upshot was that Carlos and I had to guide two further trips on our own. You'll be hearing more about our misadventures in time.

Gallery

Must confess to not having done much today. I aim to finish the price list today so that I can get on with marketing to fellow travellers from Baja and Copper Canyon.