Location: 10.59061°N, 85.67067°W; Alt: 29.3m
	Photo Date: 26 May, 2008
	ISO: 100
	Aperture/Shutter: F/5.6, 20/1"
	Focal Length: 42mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: Guanacaste, Costa Rica - 2008

El Cangrejo - The Crab.
(Gecarcinus Quadratus)

This particular one is a juvenile land crab, excessively common in Costa Rica, known as the Halloween Crab (aka. Mouthless or Harlequin Land Crab). As nocturnal critters, they primarily spend their days in burrows up to 1.5m deep, venturing out at night for food and other usual crab endeavours.
Being primarily herbivorous and subsisting largely on leaf litter and young plants, these crabs generally live in forests as opposed to beaches, but will return to the ocean to breed.
Remarkably, they can even climb trees!
Costa Rica, with it's plentiful rainforests astride long stretching beaches and bays seems a perfect home for these little dudes.

This particular specimen was waiting for me near my room late one eveniing (about midnight local time), eager for his photo op. Although territorial amongst other crabs, his obvious concern for my presence kept him perfectly still for the 20 seconds needed for this shot.

Location: 44.0202°N, -77.8025W; Alt: ???m (estimate)
	Photo Date: 1 June, 2008
	ISO: 200
	Aperture/Shutter: F/4.5, 1/40
	Focal Length: 14mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: Guanacaste, Costa Rica - 2008

Ah, finally. A return home to dry out for a bit ... both in a humidity and alcohol terms.
Apparently there is a reason they refer to the region as a 'Rainforest'.
Despite being rained on for all but one day (ranging from a tropical storm to light misting), the trip was fantastic and incredibly enlightening.
I'm sure it's going to take a while to organize and geocode all the pics, but I'll work my way through it as I can.
Here, you can see my exit papers (you have to pay $26 USD to leave Costa Rica ... I wonder what happens if you want to stay instead?), slightly modified for privacy reasons, and my new favourite novelty: Cuba Libre in a can!
This stuff was everywhere you'd normally buy pop and you could more or less live on it the same way. Grocery stores, gas stations, vending machines.
Pura Vida!
Standing in line for Costa Rica customs, sucking back my last can of Cuba Libre, I was forced to reflect on our own archaic liquor laws. At 40°C, it might be nice to have a Rum and Coke to quash a bit of that heat at the Toronto Zoo, Canada's Wonderland, or hell, even my own front lawn.

Location: 10.58861°N, 85.67015°W; Alt: ???m
	Photo Date: 26 May, 2008
	ISO: 100
	Aperture/Shutter: F/7.1, 1/320"
	Focal Length: 30mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: Guanacaste, Costa Rica - 2008

Day 2 - Still wet!
As you can see from the sizable rain drops on the leaves, not to mention puddles, it's rained all night and most of the morning (this was about 9am local time).
Our initial plans for White Water Rafting where postponed as a sizeable number of turtles had apparently come ashore the previous night and our guide suggested that we check that out instead. Unfortunately with the stormy weather and rough waters, they where pushed back out to sea almost as quickly as they arrived and that excursion didn't quite materialize. Determined not to be discouraged by poor weather (my old Fuji camera did not capture grey skies very well), I set off to be the consumate tourist and photograph anything and everything around the resort. There was a surprising amount of light still making it to ground level, even with heavy clouds and dispite the poor conditions the pictures still turned out reasonably well.

Behind the Lens Details
Olympus has released a recent update to the firmware for the E-510, the second since I bought the camera (and two more then Fuji ever released for the S5100 in the 5 years or so I was using it), so I began experimenting with some of the processing settings... since ... the update erased all my settings.
Ahem.
Initially, I was more inclined to do total processing through Photoshop, however I was very impressed with these shots as they came out of the camera ... which means a shorter period of harrassment from my co-travellers to get the pictures on CD. It does of course mean more fiddling with settings to maximize the effects, depending on lighting and such (the system has 4 different quick select settings for the processing engine).
With less then 5 or 10 seconds to compose, adjust and shoot/reshoot most of my pictures, it's a cautious balance. I suppose the price you pay for a more sophisitcated camera is less 'on the fly' opportunities. I see now why landscape photographers have one amazing camera and all the toys while sport photographers carry several ok cameras at once (with great lenses).
It's all a question of time.

Location: 10.58852°N, -85.66990°W; Alt: 8.8m
	Photo Date: 25 May, 2008
	ISO: 100
	Aperture/Shutter: F/6.3, 1/100"
	Focal Length: 14mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: Guanacaste, Costa Rica - 2008

Costa Rican Twilight, the beautiful Bahía de Culebra and the end of my first day in Costa Rica. After 12 hours of transit, I was just about beat, but still managed to get my butt to the buffet after this (and somehow martyring myself to 3 or 4 plates of food).
This fantastic view kept bringing me down to the beach in all sorts of weather (mostly the wet varieties) and all times of day. The near glass beach and calm waters betrayed me into a fall sense of security, those clouds where getting ready to drop Tropical Storm Alma right on top of us for the next 3 days.
But what a view!

Location: 10.59957°N, -85.53825°W; Alt: ???m
	Photo Date: 1 June, 2008
	ISO: 200
	Aperture/Shutter: F/4.5, 1/40"
	Focal Length: 14mm
	Camera: Olympus Evolt E-510
Category: Guanacaste, Costa Rica - 2008

Ah, finally. A return home to dry out for a bit ... both in a humidity and alcohol terms.
Apparently there is a reason they refer to the region as a 'Rainforest'.
Despite being rained on for all but one day (ranging from a tropical storm to light misting), the trip was fantastic and incredibly enlightening.
I'm sure it's going to take a while to organize and geocode all the pics, but I'll work my way through it as I can.
Here, you can see my exit papers (you have to pay $26 USD to leave Costa Rica ... I wonder what happens if you want to stay instead?), slightly modified for privacy reasons, and my new favourite novelty: Cuba Libre in a can!
This stuff was everywhere you'd normally buy pop and you could more or less live on it the same way. Grocery stores, gas stations, vending machines.

Pura Vida!

Standing in line for Costa Rica customs, sucking back my last can of Cuba Libre, I was forced to reflect on our own archaic liquor laws. At 40°C, it might be nice to have a Rum and Coke to quash a bit of that heat at the Toronto Zoo, Canada's Wonderland, or hell, even my own front lawn.
I thought we where supposed to be a free and liberal society?
Why are we still being oppressed by outdated puritan conceptualizations?
There's a big difference between having a refreshing imbibement to being a raging, delirious, drunkard and the later will continue to be such regardless of where you let them disgrace themselves (and forcing them out into the public may allow them to be helped some). </end_rant>

All in all, I must say that the trip was an excellent success and can't wait to get the shots up! Summer is always busy, but I'll try to feed as I can.

By the time this get's out, I'll be on a plane to Costa Rica!!!

After 3 dull hours in an airport and another 5 excruciating hours waiting for the plane to land, I'll be sunning it up on the Pacific. Which of course means all new pics, once I start to get them processed. Something I expect will take a considerable period of time, but I'll try to trickle them out as I can ... assuming I don't get swallowed by a volcano, that is.

"The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time." - Colette

See you in June!

Location: 44.0202°N, -77.8025°W; Alt: ???m (estimate)
	Photo Date: 11 June, 2005
	ISO: 200
	Aperture/Shutter: F/7, 1/320
	Focal Length: 6mm
	Camera: Fuji S5000
Category: Landscape Pics

Salem, Ontario

Along with the bits of personal debris, tools and other signs of day to day activity left behind are a number of trucks, most lined up neatly in a row, awaiting a delivery that will never be ordered. This outcast, however, stood watch over the site from a rise on the rim of the pit itself.