Aug 31 we left for a ten day trip to San Francisco. We saw as much of the SF area as possible, visited Alcatraz, drove the Golden Gate bridge, visited Napa and then headed south to Monterey.
From Monterey we drove south along the Big Sur to Cambria where Charl and Rina (our friends living in Clovis) met us and arranged a family house to sleep over.
The following day after some birding drives we headed inland towards Fresno/Clovis to Charl and Rina's house where we stayed over. We left early morning the following day for Yosemite park and was pleasantly surprised by so few people, the Rim Fire had some good for us after all I think.
Yosemite was everything we expected and more. The scenery is absolutely fantastic and more than made up for the obvious lack of birds. I expected much better birding but with so few tree species one can understand why.
Leaving Yosemite we returned to Clovis and stayed with our friends again. A really good "braai" saw to a lovely evening!
Charl and Rina drove us to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks on the Sunday for us to see the giant Sequoia trees, the biggest living things on earth. This was simply spectacular, it was like looking at six or seven Baobab trees stacked on each other to form one giant tree. Here the birding was much better….maybe because we had a local guide with us… hê hê hê hê!
Returning once more to Clovis, we returned to San Francisco the following morning to fly back home.
Overall the trip was lovely. Total new bird count for me was 37 and quite a few more for Shirlene.
The rental car was a Chev Cruz and I was duly impressed, powerful, good driving car and very economical, having used $62 of fuel for 970 miles.
I have to thank Charl and Rina for all they have done to make this trip special for us, can't wait to treat them when thay visit us next!
Please make sure to read the photo captions, it's half the story.
Returning from the annual work trip to South Africa my flight connected in Washington DC.
I decided to take a four day stopover to see whatever I could of DC, especially the Smithsonian museums as I have been a member since 1986!
I booked at the Channel Inn Hotel for the time as the rate was reasonable and it is within walking distance from the mall. The "mall" is the local nickname for the huge strip from Capitol Hill west to the Potomac river. The hotel was an excellent choice with very good service, food and location.
Arriving late on a rainy afternoon I only spent some time strolling around the channel area, finding a local restaurant/pub to have dinner and went to bed early to be ready for the following morning.
The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect all the time. Cool to hot with some clouds but perfect for the ± 47km of walking I did in the four days. Although DC is hardly a bird watchers paradise I did carry binoculars all the time and managed to find 11 lifers.
Overall it was great and I enjoyed every minute. It was an amazing experience to see the thousands of mostly local people (I saw relatively few foreign tourists) enjoying and honouring their history, art, culture etc. I can recommend this experience to everybody.
Things I did not enjoy were few: The price of beer - around $9.50, the seemingly total disrespect of school kids towards anybody older than themselves, and the taxi to get back to the airport at $80!
South Africa April 2013
The annual work trip to South Africa from April 1 to May 7 turned out to be a lovely time with some nice surprises.
I left San José on April 1, connected in Mexico City and Washington DC. From there to SA via Frankfurt. The return trip was the same with a connection in Munich. I have to mention here that unexpected to me, of all the flights the two outstanding ones were the two legs with SAA! Everything was super good, from the boarding to the food, something happened!
In SA I stays with Elaine as I do every year - a great thank you to her!
During the stay with her we were chatting about the old days and friends and decided to try to contact some. This started with me having made contact with Deon van der Walt some time before on FB. One thing led to the other and we had some amazing reunions with Deon at Elaine's house and then with Geoff and Gisi at their new house in Howick, with their kids Clive and Niki there as well! This was so cool to see them and catch up, in Deon's case after nearly forty years and Geoff & Gisi after some ten years.
Other interesting bits was to get to see the Mandela sculpture near Howick and the waterfall after 36 years!
The work I did during the time was all on time and without problems and I enjoyed the stay and meeting up with all the friends I could.
Nicaragua, Dec. 2012
For the traditional December break we decided to drive up to Nicaragua. While planning the trip Shirlene's mother decided to join us as she has the time now after retiring from work. Dec. 27 we left from our house and drove up to La Cruz, a quint little town close to the border (Peñas Blanca) where we would cross into Nicaragua. We decided to sleep in La Cruz to get an early start at the border post, not knowing how busy it will be.
Dec 28 we arrived at the border post at about 5h30 to find a substantial number of people already there! This reminded me very much of crossing at Beitbridge to Zim, just not the chaos and noise. Immigration was a fast smooth cruise...but the time it took to get the car papers done, a complete opposite! Two and a half hours later we were through ...and the qeue was gone - so much for going early!
From the border we drove up to our first destination, Granada but stopped for breakfast at a little town called Rivas. Rivas is a lakeside town and nothing worth mentioning, except that the breakfast was expensive. On to Granada. The main roads in Nicaragua are amazing, perfectly built and maintained and then as a bonus, very little traffic. Wherever we went this was the case, and driving was a pleasure with a general speed limit of 80km/h.
Granada was a very pleasant surprise. One of the historical capitals of Nicaragua it has a very european touristy feel, very clean and seemingly organised and of course the old, older and ancient buildings are making it super nice. I could live there! We enjoyed two days in Granada doing whatever you can do there and still we missed some things, giving us reason to go back some time.
From Granada to Masaya, a city halfway to Managua. Now I have to explain, Masaya is only 45 km from Granada but the difference is indescribable. It is something like a cross between the current Polokwane in S.A. and Maun in Bots. Hot, dusty, dirty, overcrowded, noisy and you don't feel at ease there. BIG mistake in the planning, we should have skipped it....so I will skip it now.
Stopping at the Masaya volcano national park was nice. It is interesting to see the area, ancient lava flows and strange vegetation that grows there. The area is rather dry and this was also the dry time of the year, so it appears really arid. Plumeria (Frangipani) is native to Central America but I was amazed to see huge trees growing on the ancient lava beds and seemingly not on the normal soil. At the crater rim the sulphur smell is so heavy that it is hard to breathe. There we met a local tour guide who told us about a good birding spot on the way to Managua. After the volcano visit we drove to this private reserve (Montinelli) for some birding and it turned out very nice, even in the middle of the day, with the Painted Bunting as the birding highlight of the trip for us.
We arrived in Managua late afternoon - and again, were totally amazed by the roads and the very modern city, however, just another city, nothing special about it. The small well run boutique hotel in a very quiet area we booked here was just perfect. Walking distance to the main shopping area as well as the Intercontinental Hotel where we would celebrate the New Year. The dinner on the 31st and following party was superb.
The following day we drove north to another historical capital, the city of Leon, 93 km north of Managua. Again perfect roads running straight for long distances through a countryside of low acasia trees, huge sorghum and sugar cane fields and few people, much like driving north through Botswana.
Leon was a bit of a disappointment, run down, not pretty and quite obviously a very poor area. Some beautiful churches (many in need of some work) and not much else.
Heading back home and to our last stop, two days at San Juan del Sur, apparently the most popular seaside resort town in Nicaragua. Small town made up of the tourism area and a fishing harbour...nada mas. A very typical beach resort town with lots of local and foreign tourists, lots of sun & heat, lots of cold beer...very few birds...
We headed back home and arrived safe on the afternoon of the 4th.
At a glance:
Fuel is about 10% cheaper than CR
Beer (Toña) is a VERY good beer going at 1/2 price from CR ($1 per beer)
Food is cheap and good
Hotel prices are fair, but be careful of the standard.
Tourism infrastructure is basically just starting up so it could be difficult to find a good map, info etc.
Language is Spanish, it will be very difficult to get by without.
The trip? a big yes and for sure we will visit again, specially Granada.
