So a few months ago I mentioned a great view of the coast near Montezuma. I even showed the little path that led the way to it. Well now the little path looks like this:
It was just a tiny path that looked like this smaller image, but now it’s clearly a driveway.
I heard the land sold for $500,000! If this has anything to do with my earlier post, someone owes me a finder’s fee or a commission!!!
My point is, if you haven’t gone up to see this view yet, hike on up there before it’s a house and you can’t get out there to see the views.
It’s a little out of focus the first few seconds, but then it gets better. The other odd flashes are bugs flying into the light on the camera (which is my iPhone 4).
If you know the correct name for this crab or the little sand crabs, please leave a comment!
So I had to show my Mom how to operate my digital SLR for this one. It came out pretty good. This is at the lower falls in Montezuma, Costa Rica.
I thought the colors stayed pretty good for converting this to an animated GIF, if you click the image for a larger version it looks pretty good too. I used GIFQuickMaker, which I got from the MacApp store.
Yeah, I know I’ve shown you high-def video of a similar thing not so long ago (but I’m in Montezuma again, so I’m doing it again), but I’m playing with the photos and animation software so you get it again.
I’ve got several clips of fire dancing for you! I’m in Montezuma and they did it tonight at a recycling festival. I haven’t seen it for a while, so I was pretty excited about it! I think the second one came out better since it’s tall so it’s a better zoomed in shot.
The following one was shot tall and I think the lighting came out much better, but maybe it’s my imagination (or maybe I shot that part at the beginning when the flamers were higher?)
When you hit play, the movie will enlarge and fill the vertical box.
Since I shot it sideways (in 720p) I was happy to see YouTube put it up in 1080p (even though it’s not that wide) and then later on I see they upgraded it to 4k!
After I move down here the first thing I’m going to do is learn how to do this! I mean it’s the first thing I do after I learn Spanish…
They’re both in HD so your best bet is to enlarge them and play them full screen.
I got some other traveler I’d been talking with to use my camera to video me jumping in at the upper falls in Montezuma. I’m guessing this is 30 feet(?) up, I worked out the people behind me are about 40 feet up (did some GPS based calculations a few trips ago), so maybe a little higher than 30 feet.
The water really hurt my face when I went in the water. I guess my head is tilted a little forward but I’ve jumped from the higher spot (where you can see the people) a few times before and never noticed anything. But then I can see it took me longer to come up than from the higher spot (which makes no sense either).
He tracked me pretty good for a fast as I was going and he’s way zoomed in, here’s some other video of the upper waterfalls in Montezuma.
This isn’t the most exciting photo of the upper falls
but you can see the whole falls and the ledge where I jumped from
(the ledge on the right that looks even with the top of waterfall).
Someone else in his group got a picture of me with the SLR, but she never e-mailed it to me, which isn’t a huge surprise, but since I actually got him jumping in on hidef video I thought they’d at least e-mail for that…
So the my blog host was acting up a few days ago, but it made me look around a little bit. Tried (again) to speed things up and make the pages load a little faster; I tried some stuff a month ago, but it might have slowed it down (but then I’ve been posting a lot more photos, so who knows?). I think it’s faster, but who knows.
Sunset from Montezuma Beach
So I removed some of the things from the sidebar, I never got the feeling a few of the things were being used. I changed the banner (it’s a snippet from the above photo) and shifted it way up, I don’t know why I never thought of moving it up before. It’s another sunset picture, but it fit well (with the title and search box), so it’s not a drastic change.
Okay, so maybe it’s not a super big secret, but it’s a really nice view; two views actually. When walking back down the hill from the upper waterfalls you walk right past it (see the end for specific details on finding it).
Looking south-west down the coast.
Before turning right to get the above view, you could have continued straight and to the left a little (through the brush) and you can see north-east up the coast. From the spot you’re at, you won’t even see Montezuma, you’ll be looking right over it.
Click for full screen or go watch the video on YouTube in HD.
So as you come down the big hill, either from the upper waterfalls or from the Mariposario Butterfly Gardens, after you pass the private bridge to the really big house (you can’t miss it), keep your eyes to the right shoulder and about 50 yards (or 50 meters) past the bridge you’ll see the grass on the incline is a little worn (see picture) climb up there and head left.
When you get near the end on the right you’ll see south-west down the coast, towards Cabuya and Cabo Blanco; if you veer towards the left you’ll see north-east. It’s a really nice view in either direction! The north-east view is a little hidden, but just take a minute and you’ll find it.
There used to be fencing there so watch out for barbed wire. And keep in mind, it’s not a public park, so tread carefully…
UPDATE! This isn’t such a secret now and it looks like someone is going to start building (April 2011).
