Recently I was in Costa Rica. I had hoped to do a bit of hiking there but that didn't happen for a few reasons. The places I was in didn't really have good hiking, trails were muddy and overgrown or were in the process of being developed. As I was figuring out a plan, I badly pulled a muscle in my left hip running on the beach. I didn't attempt to run or hike after that and spent the rest of the holiday in recovery.
Photography
As a result, I did get to spend more time taking photographs of the amazing wildlife in Costa Rica. Photography has always been something I've enjoyed, but I found wildlife photography especially fun. There's the challenge of finding the animal or plant you want to photograph, then framing the shot, hoping the light is to your advantage, getting the right gear in place. After all that, you might get a great photo, you might not.
We ended up with over 3,500 photographs and culled it down to 130 that we'll keep in our album. Here's some of my favourites, but there are so many more good ones:
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Canon EOS Rebel T7 • Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM
ISO: 3200 • Aperture: 6.3 • Shutter speed: 1/500
Canon EOS Rebel T7 • Canon EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
ISO: 320 • Aperture: 5.6 • Shutter speed: 1/200
Frog spawn on a leaf
Canon EOS 90D • Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro
ISO: 100 • Aperture: 3.5 • Shutter speed: 1/250
Caiman
Canon EOS 90D • Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM
ISO: 1000 • Aperture: 6.3 • Shutter speed: 1/1000
Howler Monkey
Canon EOS 90D • Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM
ISO: 2000 • Aperture: 5.6 • Shutter speed: 1/800
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This is a hobby that combines hiking and spending time outside, so expect to see more.
Running in Costa Rica
I did some running in Costa Rica, but it wasn't easy. We spent a few days in San Jose and struggled with vast number of cars, uneven sidewalks, and little safe pedestrian infrastructure. One morning to get my distance in, I ran at 4am and also found that red lights are pretty much optional it seems at that time. It's worth noting that a 4am run in San Jose is not a thing everyone can do with some degree of personal safety, I do recognize the white male privilege there.
Running in foreign cities can be fun, it's a great way just to explore and run at random, discover new places, and change up the routine. Unfortunately for me in Costa Rica I found safe places hard, so I ran around and around the pedestrian area in downtown San Jose, or a park.
But Costa Rica did give me another challenge, the heat (25c at 6am was common) and humidity. Coming from Vancouver, that's not something I'm used to and it totally sapped me, making runs harder. Even though I'd run early, stay in the shade, hydrate, etc, it was hard.
Lack of safe running places meant I ended up running on the beach at Manuel Antonio, and that was when it wrong and I badly pulled my piriformis muscle:
But it was pretty.
Surfing at Tamarindo
I would have â¤ī¸ to have spent my time in Tamarindo surfing, it's a super friendly beach that's great to learn how to surf. However hopping up onto a board and balancing riding a wave was not going to work with my pulled piriformis. So I bought a little body board and played in the small waves. Amsuingly enough on Strava, it looks something like this:
Piriformis
Thanks to some help from an awesome RMT and physio, my muscle seems so much better and I'm back to running and hiking. Fingers crossed for the next big set of hikes coming up, starting in February 2026 đ¤.
