A walk in the clouds - Costa Rica Day 3

The previous post on this series is here..

On Day 3, we started from the Arenal Paraiso resort to the Arenal Volcano National park. We were part of a 15 people group, 8 in our group, a family of three from Los Gatos and a family of four from New Jersey.. the entire group was Desi! 

We had a great tour guide from Desafio who gave us the first sloth sighting.. It was right there and we didn't see it at first. It doesn't move much, which is the specialty! This was shot with the 70-200mm with a 2x extender using San's head as the tripod.

Later we learned that there was a sloth sleeping on the heater in Arenal Paraiso resort in one of the rooms and had not moved for two days!

We were completely soaked as we walked on the hanging bridges. Some of these are suspension bridges which makes taking photos and videos challenging. I almost lost the phone at one point! The views are spectacular..

San spotted an ant eater walking past which was amazing. We also saw a lot of sleeping butterflies, tarantulas, spiders inside their holes and other insect species as well as some really pretty birds that I cannot name. 

One thing Costa Rica is famous for is the hummingbird species. I saw a lot of different ones with purple and green hues that we don't normally see in the west coast, but could not capture them in the rain. 

The highlight of this walk was the Arenal falls within the park.

Then we went on a short drive to the 1968 volcano tour. We get to climb a vista point which commemorates the destruction from 1968 eruption all the way to 2010 when they lost two villages and 80 people. There is no activity other than hot springs now, but the desolation is there as well as the new plants that have already grown in 9 years! Life finds a way!

After this we were treated to a really nice Lunch in Fortuna town at Desafio's local kitchen. It was spacious, well done and the banana chips were out of the world. I ate probably 1/2 kg of chips in one hour there and took some to go in my hand and the guide annouced that the next stop was the La Fortuna falls, where we could go down and take a dip in the falls if it was allowed. 

I was kind of pissed that with a full stomach, it is hard to take a dip in cold water.. but did it anyways.

The area directly below the falls was off limits as the current was too strong, but they let us in the area 100 feet from the base. It was chilly, but once I got in, had no mind to come out of the water. It was refreshing. The only thing that would have made this better was if we did the falls first and ate afterwards. A good hot cocoa (they have really good hot cocoa in Costa Rica) after that dip would have been great!

We were then off to the resort. It was going to be our last chance to sit in the hot springs again and so we did. Then a dinner where we watched the guy pour fire on to a volcano cake! It was interesting.. it was lights out fast as we had a very busy day 4 planned.

A short video of day 3..

A tip to people who go to the hot springs.. go to the one at the very top. It is the hottest. The water just keeps flowing from pool to pool and the lower the pool, colder it gets. 

Would definitely recommend the Arenal Paraiso as a place to stay in Arenal. It is farthest from the town, but you don't even have to leave the premises. The hot spring is right there, the food is great. San and Padma picked a winner with this one! I jokingly called it "namma malai adivaaraththu chinna kudisai" (our small hut in the base of the mountain).. 

Have two more days to finish the posts...

Hakone Gardens

We have lived in the bay area for almost 20 years and have known of the existence of Hakone Gardens the entire time. Somehow the motivation to visit this place was not there before. Maybe it was folks telling us it is too small or the ticket price doesn't jusitfy it compared to Filoli etc.. Whatever it be, this is one of those places we simply forgot to visit. (Winchester Mystery house and Hearst castle are two other places we still have not visited).

Given this was a quiet thanksgiving weekend to be spent locally, we decided to visit. We actually had a great time. The weather was perfect and the fall colors made for great photos! 

We did not do a "tea ceremony" but spent 3 hours there and were smiling through and through cracking jokes with family. 

The place is small but amazingly beautiful. Every stone is placed perfectly. 

Here is a slideshow of the pictures in vertical format..

and one in horizontal format..

Strongly recommend this place for timepass if you are in the bay area and have only a few hours. Nice and quiet with some beautiful views of the entire bay area as you walk around the hill on the garden!

Split panel canvas

Over the years we have printed many of the photographs as canvases. Recently I have seen a lot of my friends have these "split panel" canvas. They look great and have a natural shadowning effect and your eye is drawn to it. 

Except for one friend who printed his own picture, most of them get stock photos printed. Then Facebook suggested (why I do not know) a split photograph of Ganesha and Buddha to be purchased from a nichecanvas company. Both me and San went through some of those designs and were amazed by the quality of the images. 

Then I told San "I like this, but would rather have one of my own photographs printed like this". She said "show it to me on how it will look before we order".

That is a challenge to put it in perspective because the image size and how big it is on the wall, the image color  and how it goes the paint on your wall and the effect of the fixed lighting (we are not going to repaint or redo lighting for this canvas!) are not easy to visualize for everyone.

Kept searching for split canvas prints and could not find anything for a few days where you could take your own photograph and do a 5 panel split. Costco does a 4 panel as do at least three other companies. Most folks do rectangular shapes split with the perfect rectangle. Some do a 4 panel stagger (two up and two down, but all four panels are the same size). 

Elephantstock gave me an option to customize it and clinch the deal with the family because I could show them how it would actually look on the wall. I could upload different photos and show which one would look great. Fortunately the background wall color on their default was close to our wall and they had it above a dining table too!

The trial photo as visualized on Elephantstock website..

and the real deal on our wall..

Everyone in the house has given it a two thumbs up as it adds a lot of vibrant color to the room. 

Someday we would be able to upload a picture of our own living room into a software, add the photograph and visualize it as a split panel with different sizes and then order it. That day will also come soon. At the end of the day there are many families where the photographer does not have the only or final say in the printing process.. especially when he lives with three women. so the burden is on the canvas printing company to "help" sell the idea!

ps. the original photograph was from Joshua National park visit during Labor day 2012. It was 3 photographs merged to create a HDR image.