The life and times of Chris Jones

On Sunday I returned from Cuba with a whole ton of photos (449 to be precise), memories and high blood alcohol content. Two weeks in the Sun and warm climate of Eastern Cuba, in the state of Holguin. The hotel we stayed at was the Sol Rio de Luna y Mares, an all inclusive resort near the town of Guardacalava with all the free food and drink you can drink. We flew with Thomson Airways on two of their old First Choice liveried 767s. Luckily, on the way, the plane was at a plane stand and not at your standard jetway, so it was a bus to the plane and going up the stairs, which I much prefer to walking down a steel tube. Holguin’s airport had no jetways at all, so the same experience was had, as can be seen in the below photo!

I, of course bought some consumable souvenirs for the journey back!

This includes five 9 inch Cohiba cigars produced in Holguin at the factory we visited (No photos allowed so the camera was left on the bus!), some smaller “cigarellos”, which are cigarette sized cigars, and finally a bottle of Havana Club Special Blend Rum. This was most good! We visited the factory on a large tour, that included a steam train ride on “the second oldest train in Cuba”, and going up a large mountain to get a view of Holguin city. All in all this tour alone was pretty awesome. A free meal was thrown in too, as well as some Cuban dancing and music!

Our hotel had it’s own beach. It was shared with another resort that was merged into ours in 2002, so all the more for us. There was also a separate “no children allowed” luxury hotel that had access to our beach, but they seemed to lack our beach facilities, which included free usage of small catamarans. This hotel was described by ours as “The best Hotel in Cuba”. Our hotel was owned 100% by a Spanish company, but as Cuba does not usually allow large private business, they have to share the profit 50/50 with the Cuban Government. I was surprised to learn that tourism is not the largest source of income for Cuba itself, but the export of it’s ample Doctors to Venezuela in return for oil is!

I drove a speedboat, twice. While it cost some extra cash, I enjoyed it so much the first time the second. Another motivator was that I didn’t get any photos of myself driving one the first time so I insisted we go again!

I also got several short videos on the D5000, which I am still in the process of uploading. I want to preserve a high a resolution of my photos as possible, so I have uploaded at the full photo size, usually around somewhere between 3MB and 7MB, now, times this by 473! I have been uploading during off peak times when bandwidth is truly unlimited for me (no silly usage clauses you get with the major ISPs). In short, the videos come later. They’ll be on Flickr as all but two are under the 90 sec limit.

All in all, I had an excellent time, but like all holidays, it had to end sometime and I came back home! Anyway, it is nearing the time of the necessary photo montage of some of the more interesting parts of the holiday. This time, however, there will be a small twist; I shall include a bit more than the usual four!

So, as can be seen, an excellent time was had!

Just a quick blog post from another country, which I do believe I have never done before.

Even though it’s the rainy season here I have yet to see any rain, although though massive behemoth T-Storm clouds can be seen every so often in the distance.

So the weather is good, the women are good looking and the beer is free!

See you in a few weeks with a tan and a boat load of photos!

We climbed another mountain on Sunday. This time it was the turn of Glyder Fach; second highest of the Glyderau, second to Glyder Fawr. That was just next door, but we descended once we reached the top of Fach. The wat up was exhausting, as the Glyderau are rather rocky, and it was steeper than sections on Snowdon and Cadair Idris. We eventually reached a flattish area near the top which was very boggy and filled with sinkholes! One last rocky climb over giant rocks got us to the top. However to get to the actual summit, a massive rock pile needed to be climbed. Eventually I made it up, but one of the others had to leave my D40 on a rock near the bottom to climb up! After sliding down rocks and stepping over deep gaps in this big pile, we could turn our attention to leaving. Before we left, I attempted to take a group photo, but couldn’t find a person to take one, so tried putting the timer on. Unfortunately the rock I put the camera on was not that flat, so it missed most of ourselves off it!

On the way down, we followed what I thought was a path, until half way down a treacherous and steep rocky descent when we stop to let the girls catch up (catch down?) with us, I took a look at the map that had been in my bag. Horror struck my face.  I realised it was not a path that we had followed, but a boundary between some local authorities! After carefully negotiating our way down this near vertical side of the mountain using sheep paths and small areas of grass, we made it to a “cwm”, which we walked down. We followed a boggy riverbed to an actual river, and then followed that to the car.

Unfortunately, while we made it down with only immense aches and pains, a couple saw me flaunting a map before the descent and decided to follow us! They had no idea we had gone completely the wrong way and blindly followed us. Along one of the more hairy sections, where the only places to put your feet was a wet stone or grass, we saw the woman break down and burst into tears! Not good times.

This wasn’t the only problem. The boggy area evidently becomes a dangerous torrent in times of heavy rain. Not that there was any water, but the deep, concealed holes it had scoured out remained, and there was an instance of someone falling in a particularly deep one, jarring their leg! I managed to slip off a rock and, while not falling over, I jarred my back in a way that putting too much weight on it caused shooting pain up my spine.

Despite these hazards, the lower part was the worse as it was thick with mountain bracken which scratches your legs. In this area though we came across a waterfall, which we used to refill our water bottles, and/or wet ourselves in! However I had used non waterproof sun lotion, so it worked itself into a soapy mixture which was pure white. Not good!

The rock descent really took it’s toll on me; my legs are torn to ribbons in the number of deep cuts present! Combined with the sunburn they received followed by the minor scratches from the bracken, and they are sore all over. At least I’m not limping like the others!

After this was over, we retreated to the Saracens Head hotel in Beddgelert for a pub dinner and a pint. I myself had a Welsh Beef stake and chips, and a pint of Bulmers Pear Cider in the absence of the normal stuff. Well deserved after that climb!

Now, enjoy a 720p HD video of the entire ordeal! The D5000 seems to be alright with the quality of these things, just need to use a tripod! Or as orudge suggests, Steadicam!

Yes yes yes, I know it’s only been two years and five months since I bought the D40, but I have upgraded to the D5000! The kit I purchased came from Jessops, and had a new 70-300mm Tamron macro lens thrown in. But, it is a most awesome camera and I enjoyed today’s quick trip to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, followed by a quick trip up the Vale of Llangollen along the narrow and bendy Rhewl road, and then back along the Worlds End Pass road. The camera is as easy to use as the D40, just about the same weight, yet comes with a whole slew of new features that boggle the mind, such as on the go retouching (including a handy perspective feature which tries to straighten out any non straight buildings due to lens angles); as well as HD movies, and a swivel screen that, with live view, allows you to reach over obstacles and see what you’re looking at.

The movies are okay, but ‘ve got to figure out where the mic is so I can shelter it from wind with my hand. As it’s mono there’s no noise cancellation, and the slightest breeze becomes a mighty hurricane.

The two new lenses are most awesome. One is a VR version of the same 18-55mm I already possess, and the other is a telephoto macro that can zoom further than the 55-200mm, and also pick out finer details on Macro mode. The two photos here are made using the Tamron lens. Hopefully the 70mm will also be more adaptable for indoor use, as currently I need to switch between the two. However I suppose I could sell my VR 18-55 and VR 55-200 and simply purchase the 18-200mm. This would leave me with the two best lenses, although the larger the lens, the heavy the camera for normal use. This should now be less of a problem, as I have a new bag with the kit. It fits all three lenses, and all the accessories I possess, such as the remote, and the crazy USB it uses. On that note, the camera interfaces with Windows 7 quite well, having come out over a year ago, the Nikon devs would have had time to work on it – The icon on the taskbar is an image of the camera, and mousing over shows battery time, and a button to go straight to the photo folder. Most usefull.

As can be seen above, that’s everything the kit included. It was £689 from Jessops including the postage, but this comes down with the £200+ from the D40 I’m going to be selling, and the £50 cashback from Nikon. I could potentially get £300 off it in total. I leave you with the video test. I apologise for the sound, but there was a slight breeze!