The Drake Passage: keeping Antarctica pristine
To get to Antarctica by boat, you have to cross some of the roughest seas in the world and that’s the way it should be.
On September 6th 1577 Sir Francis Drake had just cleared the Strait of Magellan on his second circumnavigation of the globe.
He was blown south of Cape Horn by a storm into the area where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans met.
This turbulent stretch of sea was a new discovery and proved that Tierra del Fuego was not connected to the southern landmass as previously thought.
The passage was named after Drake and has since earned a reputation among travellers and explorers as being one of the world’s toughest stretches of water.
We often get asked about seasickness. Even if it is a very calm crossing, the roll of the boat will be an unfamiliar feeling at first.
You are likely to feel nauseous for a couple of hours but you should then get your sea legs and be fine for the rest of the trip.
There is no particular time of year when the sea is calmer. It is widely thought that the end of the season in March is the roughest time as winds are typically stronger.
But March 2009 saw the calmest crossing the crew had experienced in years and they temporarily renamed it Drake Lake.
Either way crossing the Drake Passage is part of the adventure of visiting Antarctica.
At Pura we are strongly of the opinion that flying to Antarctica is not acceptable as it will quickly lead to unsustainable increases in visitor numbers.
The boat crossing maintains the White Continent for those dedicated enough to make the crossing.
You can see the current sea conditions by looking at this wave map of the southern oceans.
Or you can read about our Antarctic cruises.
A hummingbird feeding
I’m a sucker for hummingbirds. Not something we have in the UK, they are such wonderfully pretty creatures and a sure sign that you are somewhere exotic.
The numbers involved are incredible. It does depend on the species but hummingbirds flap their wings anywhere from 700-5400 times a minute. That’s anywhere from 12 – 90 times a second. It’s mindboggling. Their wings actually beat in a figure of 8 shape – something you can actually just about make out in this photo.
The noise their wingbeats generate is quite something too.
This particular chap lives in the gardens of the Finca Rosa Blanca hotel near San Jose. The hotel is a wonderfully comfortable, quirky place with extensive gardens and a coffee plantation thrown in for good measure.
I got up in the morning and saw a hummingbird dart from plant to plant and decided that I wanted to get a picture. It wasn’t long before I realised that you can’t take a photo of a hummingbird by following it, they are just too fast.
What you have to do is pick a flower, focus the camera on it and sit still, hoping that the bird eventually chooses to come and taste that particular plant.
It was 10am when I sat down on the grass, camera poised and ready to shoot. Every 10 minutes or so the hummingbird would dart down, do the rounds of the flowers and head back into the undergrowth. It never came near my chosen flower.
By 10.45 I was getting a little numb. By 11 I was thinking that I would have to give up on my attempt. By 11.15 I was getting delirious. Then, at 11.25, down it swooped to my flower and I got the shot.
It took 1.5 hours to take this photo, it was worth every minute.
Find out more about our Costa Rica holidays.
A canopy walkway peeking through the trees at Arenal
To me, this photo epitomizes real Costa Rica. I say “real” because in the last few years there has been an influx of both tourists and ex-pats who have undeniably left their mark on both the landscape and culture. There is no escaping the fact that in the large tourist areas, it’s as easy to get a Big Mac now as a traditional gallo pinto.
With an established infrastructure, friendly locals, some very chi-chi hotels and an array of adventurous pastimes, Costa Rica’s popularity is, of course, understandable. Being able to hop into a hire car and head off on a whim is obviously very tempting. Supping a rum-laced cocktail in your own private Jacuzzi, watching incandescent lava trails snake down Arenal volcano, is positively irresistible.
And that’s even before you’ve had your fourth drenching of the week on the way to work, umbrella akimbo, rushing for the number 28 bus.
But in spite of all that, the frills and creature comfort are not really what Costa Rica is about, at its heart. Head off the tourist trail and you are in a world of wildlife-rich jungle, rolling hillsides dotted with bubbling mud pots and cloudforests straight from a Peter Jackson film.
Even at Arenal, where the famous volcano has prompted a smattering of new hotels to cope with rising visitor numbers, it is possible to find some peace. This photo was taken from the Hanging Bridges, a series of discreet canopy walkways hidden between the trees.
Behind me was an equally stunning view across the valley to the mighty volcano, smoking moodily in the afternoon light. The only noise was the occasional squawk of a toucan, or a belch from the volcano itself.
So, perhaps one of the best things about Costa Rica is that you can have both. Spend the day rafting down a jungle river, then enjoy a freshly prepared, three-course meal by candlelight at a remote lodge huddled between the trees.
Or explore the forested trails of Corcovado – the “most biologically intense place on earth” according to National Geographic, before picking up a pot of freshly caught shrimp from a beachside soda in Dominical and settling down on the golden sands.
Even if you do get caught in a downpour (Costa Rica is green for a reason, you know), it will certainly be more palatable with that rum cocktail to hand.
You can experience both sides of Costa Rica on our Costa Rica Self drive holiday.
Read about our Costa Rica holidays or read our guide to Costa Rica.