Whatever I like in this space, it's my profile.
Walking on the beaches of Costa Rica, you find all kinds of beautiful shells washed out on the shores by the strong waves. I really enjoyed examining the tiny details that make each shell so unique. I took some close ups of some of them. These close ups came out pretty good considering that it's from a point and shoot camera rather than an SLR. These shells were from a combination of the beaches of Tamarindo and Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica.
Peninsula Valdes is famous for it's diverse wild life throughout the year. At different times of the year, there are different animals that can be seen there. Usually, from October till March, it's Penguins and Orcas and from June to mid-December it's whale watching season. At the time I went, it was time for the Southern Right Whales. These whales travel the whole way from the Atlantic to come to Peninsula Valdes to mate and give Birth to their pups and teach them the basics before heading back to the Atlantic.
The guide was telling us that at the time we were there, there was probably some 1500-2000 whales that had converged to Peninsula Valdes. In the tour, we first stopped at a Rock Beach. On that beach, you can see whales from the shore itself. The guide was explaining that the whales prefer these rock beaches to come and teach their babies the ways of life as there are less chances to get stranded on the Rock beaches than on Sand Beaches.
After the rock beach, we headed to Puerto Pyramides to board our whale watching boat. It was incredible to see their majestic huge creatures so close and personal. We saw quite a few whales and they seem very playful and playing around with each other. It's always so awesome to see these marvelous feats of nature up close - these whales can grow up to 18.5 metres and 130 tons !!! Interesting fact from wikipedia - "The testicles of right whales are likely to be the largest of any animal, each weighing around 500 kg (1,100 lb). " I guess that might be where the term "you got big balls" might have come from :)
Other inhabitants of Peninsula Valdes include sea lions, elephant seals, armadillos, pink flamingos, guanacos, maras and gray foxes which we saw along the way.
NOTE : Not all these pictures in this gallery are my pictures, but they are pictures taken during my boat trip. We had an official photographer on the boat who took pictures while we were watching and I bought a CD containing al the pictures he took at the end... so they are my pictures in a way as I paid for them.. but just not taken by me :)
Iguazu Falls is one of the great natural wonders of nature and is at the northern tip of Argentina and shares its water with Brazil and Paraguay too. I visited the falls only on the Argentinean side and it was an awesome powerful spectacle of nature ! The Iguzau natural park is huge and I got to see the falls from different angles. The best view though was from Devil's throat. Another great thing was the constant rainbow over the fall, probably due to all the mist rising up and the sunshine that day.
Wikipedia says - "They are taller than Niagara Falls, and twice as wide, for which Eleanor Roosevelt is said to have exclaimed on her first sight of the Falls: "Poor Niagara!" !" I so agree - I've been to both and indeed upon seeing Iguazu, Niagara looks like a poor man's waterfall :)
Last week, I worked till very late at night around 4:00a.m, then at 8:30a.m had to go drive my mom to school. After I dropped her, before I go back to sleep, I thought I'd go to the beach and have a good swim and then come back home to crash. I decided to go to a beach in the West Coast of Mauritius - La Preneuse Beach. Its not very crowded there and excellent calm water for swimming. Enjoy the pics !
