Photos from Costa Rica trip: Peace Lodge, Arenal, and MA
 

Hi everyone,

I have finally joined the wonderful world of online photo sharing. I just finished organizing and captioning the pictures from my CR trip last December. If anyone would like to check them out, they can be found here:

http://cmerrell.smugmug.com/

Feel free to check out any of the galleries that strike your fancy!

Hi Cmerrel,
Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

I especially appreciate the fact that you took the time and effort to provide excellent captions and explanations.

Pura vida,
raquel

Wow cm -- You got some really fantastic photos! You are so good to us to include all the captions too, that will be really nice for you to look back on years down the road. I really need to take the time to do that. I can tell by your general love of the surroundings and wildlife that you are going to have a hayday at BDC (even though you already have so many terrific wildlife pictures). I'm really excited for December to come for you.

p.s. I think I'm still a little kid inside, I had to giggle at the male Howler comment/photo. ;) I ended up with a couple of those as well.

I loved your pictures!! Thanks for posting them.

Hi, cm - excellent photos - thanks for sharing! I haven't figured out the logistics of posting pics yet. Kudos to you! LOL about the howler!

Hey guys,

Thanks for the nice comments! Not everyone likes spending time looking at other people's travel photos, but I actually really enjoy it. It sparks the imagination and provides ideas and inspiration for places I would like to visit.

Can't wait for BdC, HVC; I'm on a mission to get some spider monkey, scarlet macaw and toucan photos!

VG, there are a number of free websites that are pretty easy to post pictures to. Kodak and Webshots are two that come to mind. Smugmug is a subcription site that charges about $40 per year, but I really like it. You get virtually unlimited storage space and don't have to worry about any advertisement banners showing up on your pages. You also get several background options to help customize the look of your photo galleries. I bet you've got some great CR pics, so get to posting! We want to see them! ;-)

Gotta love those male Howlers, hangin' out there for all the world to see, lol! :-d

c, I just uploaded my pictures from iPhoto to the Kodak Gallery, but I don't know how to do the sharing thing so people can view them. Can you do it so they only view a certain album?

I am like you - I always look at everyone's pictures and love to look at them. Gives me great ideas of new places to go and lets me enjoy looking at and remembering the places we've been.

V, I think you have to invite people to view your gallery via the site, and I believe the invitation only takes the viewer to the gallery you specify (which is not to say they wouldn't be able to possibly navigate to your other galleries). Since Kodak is a free site, I don't think they have additional bells and whistles that would allow you to do things like password protect certain galleries. Not entirely sure about that, though.

Shillmac uses the Kodak galleries, so she may have some better info for you.

If you would like to practice sending out an invite, you can direct one to my email: [email protected]

I'd like to see your photos anyway!

The website should have some option when you are logged in to your account that allows you to share or send out invitations to your gallery. There should also be some sort of online help menu either at the top or bottom of the webpage if its not apparent how you're supposed to go about sending your gallery link to people.

Hope that helps...

Thanks for the nice pics ,I enjoyed all of them.

Percy

vgirl -- Suzie2 posted something earlier about how to show albums. She said she e-mailed the invite to herself, and then pasted the link she received into the Fodors thread. Then anyone can click that link to see the photo album. That way you don't have to send out individual invites. I just read this recently and haven't tried it myself, but it's worth a shot!

cm - You WILL get those great shots! We were walking down a trail one day and came upon a Toucan just about 15' from us. It then proceeded to climb up the tree and start throwing nuts at us! I swear! One day, I sat for at least an hour watching a group of them in the Tropical Garden, but you will see them on the main grounds as well. The Macaws are also beautiful and no shortage of Spiders, that's for sure!

The story of the mama and baby monkey was so sweet. :)

The photos are excellent, Cam--nice photography. I enjoyed them all. Especially the howler--what a hilarious photo! Thanks for posting them for us to look at.

I plan to get back in there and check out the Sanibel/Captiva photos later--we're heading that way for a few days next month.

Really loved your pics! Although there is a downside - makes me really wish I was there! Love the howler photo like everyone else, and the baby one was too cute. The capuchins always remind me of some cranky old man yelling at you to get off his yard or something, they always look worked up about something.

I've been looking to switch from Kodak (nice but tired of having to send out invites) to something similiar, maybe yours smugmug or flickr. Of course I also want to focus on taking better pics too, lol. One thing I learned in CR - always have the camera right next to you where ever you are, especially at BdC. You are going to take sooooo many pics there :)

tully, it's so true - I kept my camera with me the entire trip - even just sitting on the front porch, and we got some amazing shots. Of course, I was always trying to snap the macaws as they flew by! Thanks, everyone for the info. on the photos - think I'm going to explore moving beyond the Kodak gallery to make it easier.

c, we didn't see any toucans for several days and then Carlos spotted one for us. After that, we literally saw more than we could count - the Tropical Garden is the key!

cmerrell - I agree, your photos are great. Now maybe I don't need to post mine after all; for Arenal and Cano Negro, I can just say "see cmerrell's photos." However, it did seem that we were fortunate to have more sunny weather in Arenal at the end of July/first of August. Maybe we were lucky enough to catch some of the "little summer" -- El Veranillo -- weather that we heard occurs in CR during that time period.

My wife asked what kind of camera you were using? Look forward to the trip report on your return visit.

Your pictures are great! And the captions are great too! I can't wait to go back...thanks so much for posting!

Thanks for the additional positive comments, everyone! I'm really glad you enjoyed the photos! It was a nice trip down memory lane while getting them all arranged and labeled.

Shillmac, please do help yourself to the Sanibel set. As I recall, you have some family who like to spend a lot of time there. I'm glad you'll be checking it out for yourself. Its definitely a nice area to spend a few days.

Have you been down to Sanibel/Captiva, tully? I hear you about wanting to brush up on the photographic skills! There's a camera shop here in town that offers digital photography workshops. It's on my to-do list to fit in before December arrives. I definitely want to be ready for the BdC photo-ops!

My camera is nothing fancy, MRand. I have the Canon Powershot A510 which is a few years old. It's only 3.2 megapixels (newer versions are beefier). It's definitely more of a beginner-level camera, but does have several options for manual settings (most of which I have not figured out yet, lol). It also supports some additional lenses, which appealed to me. And no... you are not off the hook for sharing your own photos! ;-) Either is volcanogirl...

The baby howler monkey story is one of my favorites from our trip, Hip. It was a special highlight in a week full of highlights. The icing on the cake is that my brother was able to catch most of it with the video camera!

Do you have a new trip in the works, ShellD?

cmerrell - I'm hoping to go back this spring. This time taking our kids. The plan is Arenal, Peace Lodge and Manual Antonio. We'll probably go the first week of July and hope for the best with the rain! I can't take them out of school for the length of time that I'd want to go (10 days) and school holiday's don't seem to work with my schedule. Hopefully we can work it into our :) I guess somehow it will work!

Oops - that last line above should say "Hopefully we can work it into our budget!" :) Somehow I left that word out - I guess it's a sign that I just shouldn't worry about it!!

Sounds like a terrific adventure in the making, ShellD! Several people here travel in the June/July timeframe (shillmac being one of them), so I bet you'll be okay. As for the budget... there's never a surplus of money, is there? And yet when it comes to travel, I somehow manage to juggle the finances and make it work! ;-)

Great Pix! They made me wanna be there right now.