Guest Post: Leaves & Lizards Impressions
May 31st, 2010
Don, Marg, Rob and Jesse
We’re pleased to feature another guest post by our friendly neighborhood Canadian, Don Zwicker. Don and his wife Margaret came with Jesse and I to scout locations for the Arenal Eco Adventure after our Edge of the World Workshop in Mal Pais, Costa Rica in March. Here are some of his thoughts about the Arenal Volcano area… All photos in this post ©Don Zwicker
Arenal from Leaves & Lizards.
Last March I joined Rob Knight and Jesse Brown from Digital Photography Adventures to scout out an amazing photo shooting location in Costa Rica.
We drove up to Fortuna/Monterrey after a Photo Workshop week on the beach at the south tip of the Nicoya peninsula. Costa Rica has a very wide and diverse climate from the Pacific beaches, inland through farming country and some dry plains, up into the high country of the Cloud Forest and active volcanoes.
Our cabin at Leaves & Lizards
The Leaves & Lizards Volcano Cabin Retreat is a collection of eight cabins built on ridges looking out over the Costa Rican jungle with the active Arenal volcano in view. Sitting on the covered decks made you feel like you were in a tree house.
The first morning we were there it was like being at Disney Land for photographers. I didn’t need an alarm clock to get up at sunrise. I was already awake thinking of which lens to use and where to set up at to capture the wide variety of bird life all around. Funny thing was that when I got up at sunrise I found Rob Knight was already up too.
We were only at L&L for a couple of days but here are some of the things I recall as highlights.
- Humming birds all over the place
- The Volcano in the near distance was way cool
- The variety of different animals and critters to discover, exotic snakes, tree frogs, birds…did I mention there are lots of birds?
- The afternoon at the Tico farm and fishing
- The Eco Termales hot springs
- The Proyecto ASIS wild life rescue sanctuary
- Arenal Hanging suspension bridges
- Zip lining
- The food at L&L and meeting other guests
- Spending the day with our guide Enrique, and learning about the area and what grows, crawls and flies over it.
- The Volcano at night is like standing at a fire works display, if you are lucky to catch it on a clear night.
- The Volcano during the day is cool too if the cloud cover revels the peak
- Learning about the Costa Rican culture.
- The coffee.
Central American Coral Snake
The time spent at Leaves & Lizards has only piqued my interest in what is around the area for truly special photo ops. I expect everyone who attends the Arenal Eco Adventure workshop will come away not only with better understanding of photography in general, but some amazing “prize” photos to bring home with you.
L&L is one of those places where you will find a way of returning to, whether you realize it at the time or not.
Don Zwicker
This post was submitted by Don Zwicker.
