costa rican adventure

ON THE ROAD AGAIN


hi folks:

i am about to travel! my ultimate destination is costa rica. since
airplane tickets from newark to san jose are half the price of
tickets from rochester to san jose, this trip begins with a drive
down to princeton. there, i can park my car in martin's driveway and
take the train to newark. from the newark station there is a 5 minute
tram ride to the airport. it is very convenient.

another good thing is that i will be able to join in on a martin
bendersky chinese meal. the occasion for this meal is to lament the
departure of elizabeth to the vanderbilt nursing school in
nashville, tennessee. at the moment, nashville is a disaster zone
because of a recent flood.

the nashville flood disaster is overshadowed by the oil spill in the
gulf of mexico.

the initial cause of this spill was the lack of oversight of the oil
business by its well paid lackeys, bush and cheney. this is one
aspect of the decline of the government oversight and of regulation.
i predict that ronald reagan will live in infamy as the president who
began this destruction of the nation by letting loose the demons of
laisse faire.

by the way, have you noticed that this spill is likely to cost the
nation more than the events of the so-called 9-11? in china
executives who caused a disaster like this would be executed. not
here! here they get to keep their profits.


there are many ironies inherent in this oil spill. first and
foremost is that the politicians and many of the people of the gulf
region have made a faustian bargain with the oil devil. they have
sold off some quality of their environment for temporary wealth in
the form of jobs and higher prices for oil stocks. it may be a long
time before the beaches, the fishery, and the tourist industry
recover . local seafood is likely to become a rare item in new orleans.

the exact definition of fascism is controversial but consider the
definition given by franklin roosevelt in 1942:

" The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if
the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it
becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its
essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or by any other controlling private
power."

the smell of fascism is in the deference shown today by almost all
gulf coast senators. observe their gentle, almost apologetic,
criticism of the drilling policies of the oil companies. it is still
"drill, baby, drill" with that bunch.

the major announcement tonight is that several inches of thick oil
has hit the wetlands at the mouth of the mississippi river in
louisiana. where it hits it will be absorded and kill all life.


fascism shines out in an incident involving cbs reporters. the
reporters were filming an oil soaked louisiana beach when they were
confronted by bp workmen accompanied by the coast guard. the
reporters were ordered to leave or to be arrested.




the decline of journalism is shown by the fact that the reporters
leave immediately. you would think that reporters for cbs, with the
tradition of edward r. murrow, would not leave an important news
story without a show of resistance!

only greenpeace seems to have the courage to defy the bp workers who
want to keep the images of destruction from the public.


it is sad that the american people are so stupid. the most stupid
and badly educated part of the country is in the southern states.
there are a few southern islands of civilization. new orleans comes
to mind. and there are many northern islands of civilization such as
princeton, cambridge, hyde park and parts of manhattan.

unfortunately, alabama also comes to mind. alabama is a state which
has always been renowned for bad education and stupidity. even the
injection of german rocket scientists did not change that. perhaps
it is no surprise that ex-nazis would find a comfortable new life in
alabama.

my father began life in a rural bavarian village. he came to this
country because of the economic collapse of germany in the 1920s. he
went to night school to learn english. in world war two he was
drafted into the american army and sent for training in the american
south. he, a former bavarian peasant, was shocked by the illiteracy
he saw in mississippi and lousiana. unfortunately that illiteracy
has far too much influence today on american life.

illiteracy is not confined to the south. it shows itself in all the
elections which are won by the "family values" crowd. these
hypocrits ignore the real economic issues while they preach a sexual
morality. they clothe this morality in a christianity which
conveniently forgets the fact that the core values of major religions
do not center on sexual behavior. hardly a day goes by when one of
these false paragons of virtue is not revealed to have yielded to
precisely the lusts they publicly deplore!


but i should return to my main topic, namely, preparation for travel.

i am running around trying to get a million things done before i
leave. i hope i succeed. the world sometimes conspires against
me. like it is doing now!

the bank bastards cancelled my credit card by mistake when i told
their automated late night phone service my travel plans. they sent
me a replacement card with a new number by regular snail mail. i
leave rochester in two days and this destructive mistake is still not
completely straightened out.

after indulging in some stern talk with only a slightly raised voice,
i have been sent yet another credit card, this one to be delivered
by express ups.

the bank genie has sent both pins via snail mail. one pin has
arrived. but it is not the pin for the card that i have
activated. it is for the other one.
so i decided to activate that one. i was assured by the local bank
people that i could do so. i would then have two active cards. that
should work.

but when i tried to activate the other card, i i was informed that
it was cancelled. i should receive the pin for the active card
today. finally everything should work. but never underestimate the
stupidity of the american banking system!

in the words of albert einstein: " the lord god himself cannot
defeat stupidity!".
i prefer the rhythm of the original german: "gegen die dummheit kann
der herrgott selbst nicht kampfen!"

in fact, the pin did finally arrive. it was identical to the
previous one. and it worked at the bank atm! the problem is finally
over. i was able to be cheerful to the bank teller, the one who
looks like virginia madsen.

actually, i was not totally desperate. i always had my morgan
stanley card as a backup.

speaking of morgan stanley smith barney, my financial advisor kathryn
owellen just quit to follow a more satisfying career. she has taken
a job as an operating room nurse. such nurses lead a more
interesting and less harassed life than nurses in a ward. i think
they receive a level of respect close to that received by the nurses
in intensive care. and it is interesting to see insides of people
opened up on a regular basis!

kathryn paints a very negative picture of the financial services
industry. there is great pressure to focus only on large accounts,
that is, those with over a million dollars in assets. since i divide
my wealth into three piles, the tiaa-cref pile, the vanguard pile,
and the morgan stanley pile, i am not in that group. nonetheless, i
think they want to keep my account.

at the moment, i have no inclination to switch. it seems to be a
common situation that one finds a good financial advisor working at
a lousy even sleezy, firm . one puts up with it. perhaps all
financial firms are sleezy!

morgan stanley tried to assign a new financial advisor to me. there
was no consultation between us, they made their decision
unilaterally. the first i knew of this was when a certain ms. cook
sent me an email saying that i should call her "at my connivance" to
discuss my account. i replied to her by pointing out the
implications of the verb "to connive."

i asked kathryn to recommend another better educated choice for
financial advisor. she did so. i hand delivered a letter to morgan
stanley requesting this choice. the choice is at least a college
graduate, albeit a male graduate of roberts wesleyan college.
roberts wesleyan is a christian university whose motto is "education
for character." in the absence of a college with the motto
"education for literacy," i will ignore the unfortunate religious
implications of his alma mater. i hope he will be at least a
literate christian.

ms cook seemed to me to be a yacht club version of sarah palin. i
know nothing about her religious views but her lack of education was
apparent from her email to me. the internet contained no information
about her education but it contained plenty of information about
yacht races she had entered. her website said that they specialized
in servicing affluent clients. it all reeked of shallow
republicanism! i knew i wanted to stay far away from that!

i had to run around to get a hepetitus A boost shot, to get some
immodium and the antibiotic cipro, and to begin to take anti-malaria
pills.

my local rite-aid pharmacy was out of the preferred anti-malaria
pills. i had to go to the wegmans pharmacy to get them. goodness,
the wegmans pharmacy is run like an assembly line! i much prefer my
local rite-aid with the friendly keri as my drug source.

by the way, the local rite-aid has, including my old figure skating
buddy keri, at least 4 good figure skaters as pharmacists.
that is a good thing. it would be even better if they would work in
skating outfits!

i told keri i would never desert her for wegmans. it would take
nicole kidman at walgreens to cause me to desert keri.

i cannot resist repeating something keri told me. one of my favorite
rochester skaters is lee ann miller. lee ann is a wonderful ice
dancer, one of the few of that breed that i admire. i have often
told lee ann that her elegant skating reminds me of the skating of
the olympic competitor karyn kadavy. through keri, lee ann gave me a
photo of her and karyn together. lee ann is a truly accomplished
skater. in my opinion, lee ann and keri are the two best adult
figure skaters in rochester.

lee ann was skating down in delaware. the coach was none other than
oksana baiul. oksana noticed that lee ann did some footwork very
well. oksana said to her: '"you do that move perfectly. but you are
ice dancer. it is to be expected."

best wishes,

joe n


DINNER IN PRINCETON


hello from princeton, where i spent my formative years as a young mathematician:

my dreams have just been crushed by the princeton university book store. years ago, before the store moved to its new location on nassau street, i remember seeing bill singer's book there. bill's book dealt with something called steenrod operations in spectral sequences. it was an advanced mathematics mongraph with a restricted audience. i was very envious of the fact that bill had his book on display at the site of our mathematical youth. . now that i too have written a book, advanced and technical like his, i had hoped to see mine there too. unfortunately, the culture and economics of bookselling have changed dramatically in the last few years. the availability of books on the internet, while is on the whole a very good thing, has made bookstores far less profitable.

in consequence, the book store had never heard of my new book! once upon a time they had stocked every new book by a major publisher. even or especially advanced mathematics books! it was part of being a first class university book store.

my publisher is cambridge university press, founded by henry the eigth, the very same fellow who would periodically chop off the heads of his wives and who would break with rome over this and other issues. this makes cambridge is the fifth oldest private company of any kind in the whole world. you can't find a more distinguished academic publisher!

the university store informed me that they now carry only math books which are actually used in princeton classes or are written by princeton professors. when i asked about the absence of my book, the lady said: "we do have to stay in business, you know."

on a more pleasant note, we have just finished eating a truly remarkable meal! i have mentioned that martin bendersky was going to cook a chinese meal to lament the departure of elizabeth harris to nursing school in nashville. he has done so. i will just summarize this wonderful meal.

we started with manhattan cocktails. i had forgotten how good a well done manhattan could be! since martin wanted elizabeth and he to achieve the status of being most enebriated at the dinner party, i received the smallest portions. since i realized that there was more to come, i did not complain too much. just a little.

i was soon comforted by the excellent vodka gimlets which were prepared by rose meyers. these were superb lemony concoctions!

finally the actual meal began! elizabeth and i performed as galley slaves wrapping chopped beef and chopped chicken in parchment. martin had prepared the chopped beef with an oyster sauce. he prepared the chopped chicken with garlic sauce and a bit of halopenyo pepper. all of this martin deep fried in oil. the beef was superb, fantastic until you tasted the chicken. the chicken was the first of many items which were simply unforgetably good. it had a perfect level of spiciness. the meal was off to a great beginning!

next course was eggplant flavored with more halopenyo and a delicious mushroom soy sauce. it was simply the best eggplant i have ever tasted! the mushroom soy was a real revelation, a thick soy sauce with a delicious tinge of mushroom. once again the level of spiciness was perfect.

elizabeth made a delicious watercress salad adorned with orange slices and flowers. the chef had changed for a moment but there was absolutely no dropoff in quality!

martin next gave us salmon prepared according to his original recipe. it was marinated in some form of teriyaki sauce, smoked over high heat and lapsong souchong tea for an hour, and coated with sesame seeds. the result was a very moist salmon, delicately tea flavored. it was simply the best salmon i have ever tasted!

the meal finished with a dessert of rhubarb crisp with vanilla and strawberry ice cream. very nice. all through the meal we enjoyed the cosmopolitan cocktails which rose prepared and refilled.

in summary this was one of the best meals i have ever had. at the conclusion, i told martin that it was so good that i would not have minded at all if i had had to pay le bernardin prices for it. le bernardin is one of the great restaurants in manhattan. this meal was that good! and martin is that good a cook. i think that even eric rippert, the chef at le bernardin, would have loved this meal.

today, the next day, we will go out to a jim kweskin jug band concert and eat at a place called "mother's." i am told that mother's is very good. but it will not, cannot, compete with martin's feast.

PRINCETON TO COSTA RICA

i start writing in princeton and i wind up in costa rica.

in princeton:

martin, rose, and i went to stockton on the delaware river to hear a concert. when i first met alison beall, i was younger and even more naive than i am now. alison introduced me to the music of two musicians. one was the singing of janis joplin and the other was the jug band music of jim kweskin and goeff muldaur. the concert this night was performed in an old mill by kweskin and muldaur armed only with guitars. their jug player had died. there was no jug band anymore. muldaur commented: the jug band player is dead, yet carl rove still lives." it was followed by a shrug indicating the incomprehensibilty of the universe.

the audience for this old folk music consisted entirely of white people well past middle age. the folk music was eclectic. it comes from the old left and includes labor songs and mississippi delta music. that folk song generation had an appreciation for black music which was not reciprocated by a corresponding appreciation by black people of white folk music.

i met up with jacques and his girlfriend paula. paula works in the library in a new building adjacent to fine hall. this building was designed by frank gerry. it is an ugly monstronsity on the outside but quite beautiful on the inside. the reading room is a gorgeous space surrounded outside the windows by tall trees.

paula then took us on a tour of her building. the highlight for me was the fact that it connects to the same fine hall library that existed in my day. i was able to see that my ph. d. thesis was still there. inside the cover was a list of people who had taken it out. the list was empty! four people had taken out sylvan cappel's thesis. i was crushed! but martin told me that perhaps they had changed to electronic record keeping. in this case, someone may have taken it out. it makes sense since more than four people must have taken out sylvan's thesis in the course of 40 years.

we walked by a princeton eating club with a large cannon outside. if i remember correctly this place has some history for me. it is the very first place where i met a
woman named alison. alison evolved into the "swamp woman."

to costa rica:

hello from alajuelo, costa rica:

monday, at noon, martin drove jacques and me to the train station at princeton junction. in less than an hour, we were transported to the newark airport. we caught an early train and we arrived a full three hours prior to our international flight. there was ample time to resolve any travel hiccups. but everything proceeded without a hitch. we boarded the flight to san jose, costa rica. it was surprising to me that nothing went wrong before or during the flight.

the airline dinner was a salad and a choice between a cheeseburger and a chicken burrito. they ran out of the chicken burrito. so i exchanged half of my cheeseburger for half of jacques’ chicken burrito.

the quality of these entres was comparable to what you would get from burger king or macdonalds. both entres were considerably improved by the addition of the accompanying packet of hot sauce. such is the state of airline cuisine on international flights! of course, the situation is better than domestic flights where you are lucky to get a little bag of pretzels.

it is ironic that the complementary continental airlines mazazine celebrates the skill of their head chef. i guess he confines his skill to first class and to business class meals.

we arrived at the san jose airport. since jacques had filled out his custom form in pencil, he was ordered to redo it in pen. i would think that it should be sufficient that he merely sign it in ink. he should not have to redo the whole form.

then, i suppose in order to be sure that we were not bringing bombs into the country, we had to go through yet another x-ray security check. as i made that comment, jacques told me to please shut up lest we awaken the local guardians who might regard us as potential terrorists.

we passed through customs without incident and were met by bob and jim.

bob is jan’s husband. faithful readers may recall bob from last years trip to argentina and chile.

jim is a new character. he is jan’s remarkable 90 year old uncle. he lives in alajuelo just 10 minutes from the san jose airport. he lives in a large walled compound with local housecleaning and groundskeeping help. the compound has a main residence, many outbuildings, mango trees, and a large pond filled with muscovy ducks. it is an impressive spread of 12 and a half acres. it was chosen by his late wife who passed away after spending only a year there.

10 years ago, the compound was in the relatively undeveloped suburb that was alajuelo. development has come and now it is surrounded by industry. nonetheless, it is a secluded quiet rural island with chickens and ducks. this walled estate does not advertise its presence. the walls are topped with barbed wire, the more vicious razor wire evidently not being necessary. but the main house is surrounded by motion detectors.

the compound is an island of tranquility in a sea of development. this development has multiplied the value of the property. someday, jim’s children will realize a tidy profit from the sale of it to a developer.
in the meantime, there is no good place to walk to in the neighborhood. still, one has a very pleasant rural 12 and a half acres, complete with a large pond.

fortunately, it is close to the airport and jim likes to travel.

the compound used to be rented out to the peace corps. jacques and i were put in a pleasant cottage which was once the abode of peace corps instructors. it is very nice.

but, since this is the tropics, it is subject to ant infestation. shortly after we arrived, the ants swarmed. some of the ants were winged. experts in ant behavior may be able to explain this as some form of mating activity. i believe that males fertilize new queens. the males then die and the queens fly away to found new colonies. but i may be confused. perhaps bees do this. shouldn’t all insect matriarchies behave in basically the same way?

in insect species, dominant females tend to be larger than the males. after mating, the males either die automatically or are killed and eaten by the females. in this way valuable protein is not wasted and is passed on to the young. in the human species, dominant females are often smaller and shorter than the males. this is just one of the ways that humans differ from insects.

the next morning i awoke at 6am to find jim swimming in the covered pool. he said that he swims every third morning. jim lost a leg to cancer at the age of 36. at 90, this does not slow him down much. he just takes off his prothesis and swims.

among jim’s list of life accomplishments are:

1) he was a ace fighter pilot flying off aircraft carriers in world war two. he shot down at least 6 zeros in the pacific theater.

2) he became a test pilot and one of the first to test jet fighters. there is a picture of him being awarded the jimmy doolittle medal for contributions to aircraft development. the presenter is none other than jimmy doolittle himself.

3) later still, he invented the system of booms which are being used today to contain oil spills. yes, they are being used right now in the gulf of mexico.

that is not a bad list. a self censored edition of jim’s autobiography is available from amazon.
it is called “a 20th century american guy." jim has an alert entrepenurial mind and a financially comfortable life. after sailing the caribbean with his late wife, he choose costa rica to retire to, built a housing complex in a town not far from here, and then purchased this compound. now here he is.

in the first uncensored edition of his autobiography, jim freely expressed his views on the state of world politics in general and of united states politics in general. some of jim’s friends are retired admirals. they advised him not to write that stuff for public consumption. the result is that the last chapter of the first edition of jim’s autobiography has been eliminated. it is no longer available outside of a small circle.

jim has a disillusioned view of the current state of the world. he regards most politicians, especially american ones, as corrupt when compared to those of his youth. he firmly believes that the world is in the grips of a conspiracy led by the illuminati.

substitute the words “the rich and powerful” for “illuminati” and i can have no argument with jim. i differ only in that i believe that the corrupt events of the world are the natural evolution of the capitalist system. systems are unstable and they can get out of balance. our american one has done just that.

i see no evidence of the existence of any organized system of conspiracy by illuminati. that does not mean that an effective unorganized one does not exist. but then that it just the law of the jungle.

our first breakfast in costa rice was pleasant. i made some good strong costa rican coffee, bob made his usual egg omelette and fried potatoes, rather light on the potatoes for bob, and jacques scavenged some delicious mangos off the grounds.

after breakfast, we took off on an attempt to visit a hydroelectric plant. bob is part owner of a dam on the kentucky river. he has an interest in such things. jacques and i were just along for lunch and the ride.

on narrow roads we drove up into the cloud forests, through lush green trees with surprising little undergrowth. we passed the occasional waterfall. we arrived for lunch in a small mountain town. there was a cafe which served an excellent grilled trout. not bad at all.

we continued on to the hydroelectric plant where we were denied entry. the guard said that we needed to get permission which he had no authority to give. only his chief had that authority. the chief was at another hydroelectric plant which was 16 kilometers away over winding mountain roads. there was no cell phone communication between the two sites.

we resolved to drive to the other plant and to get permission from the chief to view that one. somehow we missed it.

we saw a sign which indicated a road back to our starting point. we would make a loop around one of costa rica’s volcanoes.

we took the road back. we were to discover that, while it always remained passable, much of it had been severely damaged by rockslides caused by a recent major earthquake. two months ago it had been completely impassable. whole villages were destroyed. now large parts of it were being regraded. there were delays and many construction vehicles. later we were told that we had traversed the worst road in costa rica. if that is so, then the situation is actually bearable.

we were lured on by the fact that the road never became bad enough to induce us to begin the long process of reversing our route. we went up and down steep ravines in the side of the volcano. the surface of the road alternated between dirt and half destroyed pavement. there were rather safe dropoffs to the side and once in a while we had to ford a stream. but we continued on.

our return to civilization was marked by a farm selling cheese. jan bought two pounds of something resembling american farmers cheese. it was a large block of not bad cheese.

finally we did what mathematicians might call a random walk through the town of alajuelo. we drove our car via a mildly zig-zag route relying on directions from people on the street. we even paid a drunken fellow an american dollar for information.

eventually, we arrived back at uncle jim’s compound. and the evening rain has begun. the rainy season has begun. it is predicted that it will rain every day for at least a week. so far, the rain seems to come only in the evening. this makes for cool sleeping and the potential for dry active days.

we concluded the day with a dinner of grilled octopus at a local restaurant. mine was a bit bland. this is a characteristic of costa rican food. it is not mexico here. but jacques had the grilled octopus a la mexicana and the chile pepper sauce made that much better.

this morning it is still raining.

hasta la vista,

joe n


THE CARRIBEAN COAST IN COSTA RICA



jan has chided me for not attributing to her the idea that “the rich and powerful” was a good substitute for the idea of “the illuminati.” she is correct. i did borrow this from her. it seems like such an apt substitute, conveying the idea of dark forces at work without requiring the existence of an organized conspiracy. as a well brought up academic, i should be scrupulous about giving proper credit. after all, academics are not natural thieves of ideas such as politicians are. but many academics do easily forget where they learned something and so degenerate into thieves of ideas

we have departed san jose with the goal of the small rafting town of turrialba. but we do not intend to raft. the rainy season has just begun and there is not enough water in the rivers. besides, the cost of a raft trip is approximately 100 dollars a day! i forget, but these seem to be near colorado river prices.

instead of navigating rock infested rivers, we tested ourselves with the task of navigating through the center of san jose en route to tarrialba. we were advised to avoid the ring road around the capital and to plunge right into and out of the center. perhaps this was the right thing to do. but it did not seem so in the confusion of the actual doing of it. costa ricans do not believe much in signs.

costa rican directions seem to often consist of telling you that you can’t miss the way. just go straight for an unspecified distance. then it is easy if you just do one turn. of course, this turn is usually completely unmarked.

nonetheless, we succeeded by asking directions several times in passing through san jose and several small towns. we found ourselves at last in front of our hotel in the small town of turrialba.

our hotel interamerica is a haven for rafters. it not being rafting season we seemed to be the only guests. nonetheless we were not alone. the proprietor was a lady from the bronx. she had married a costa rican. he seemed elsewhere all the time. she had three dogs and a little boy of about 2 years of age. to help her she had a sister in law and a mother in law.

in different ways, the dogs and the boy were fascinated by us. one of the dogs was the main dog nuisance. the others dogs had fuller lives and were only mildly starved for attention. a sharp “no!” was sufficient to divert them.

if you were wearing shorts, the nuisance dog would lick your shins. i suppose it was for the salt. if you were wearing long pants he would growl and grab your pants with his teeth. i believe he did this just for the fun of it.

the little boy was another major nuisance. he had an annoying ability to turn up whereever you were. if you wanted to connect to the internet he would come over and stare at you, sometimes whirling a small bola that he kept with him. if you went over to the other side of the room to get away from him, he would drag his teenage cousin over to play nearby to you. he was a master of distraction!

at dinner, the little boy had a ritual of watching television. he was a devoted fan of barney the dinosaur and of cartoons. his mother required that the television be tuned to his programs with a volume high enough to be heard across the lounge. the little fellow would sit and stare at the televison while food was being shoveled into his mouth. he was usually silent. the noise came from the television.

once the little boy tried to climb out the fence on the second floor balcony. unfortunately, his mother stopped him.

i cannot convey the full extent of how annoying that little boy was! perhaps it was the sullen stare with which he demanded attention. his only acknowledgment of an expression of interest was to continue his silent stare.

the mother seemed to be worn out. the little boy seemed to rule her life. but she coped. perhaps she was not different from most mothers. i wonder where the father was.

the tired mom cheerfully gave us directions to the biggest waterful in the area. “drive until you reach the big tree and turn left.” these were surprisingly good directions. but we still did not find the waterfall. we did find a coffee plantation and a small town which housed its workers. it had also become a bedroom community for turrialba. it was surprising to see such a well tended town up in the hills.

throughout the countryside there were signs of prosperity. for the most part the houses were at least as well tended as those in appalachia. many were beautiful homes in scenic locations.
the people did not seem poorly fed. in particular the young ladies looked like they would be at home on a north american university campus, they were well dressed and fit.

in the towns the schools often disgorged young students in clean uniforms. they behaved and looked like students from a catholic elementary school, happy to be free from disapline but still controlled by it.

the next day we went to see the only site of precolumbian ruins in all of costa rica. it is a national monument. it is very reminiscent in size and scale to sites of the mound builders which are found in ohio. these ruins not on the scale of what you would see in mexico or peru. still it is interesting. a model shows a medium sized town with thatched conical structures. even today this construction provides well ventilated shelter in the central american gulf.

it is just a short walk through the jungle down to a clearing with the remains of stone mounds and an aqueduct. in the mountains, hikes gain and loose altitude. much perspiration makes for sweat soaked clothes which need to be washed and dried.

it is surprising that they are building up this archeological site with no obvious plans for a parking area. cars and buses just park on the side on the road.

on the way back we stopped at a little road side stand to buy cold soft drinks. the attendent was totally blind in one eye and almost so in the other. when we told him what we wanted, he went to the refrigerator and pulled out bottles until we said that he had the right one. the amounts were small enough that only one paper bill was needed. he could feel the bill and also the necessary coins. hence, he was totally competant to handle this business.

on this trip we saw the impressive plume of the turriabla volcano. a year ago this volcano had erupted. since the winds had blown the ash to san jose away from turrialba, the local residents were not even aware of the eruption. finally they were alerted by phone calls from worried friends and relatives asking whether they were being evacuated. things quieted down without evacuation. today, a constant plume of smoke is still rising from the volcano. it looks like nature’s imitation of a coal fired industrial plant.

we ended our stay in turrialba with a walk to the local botanical garden. on the way we stopped at a chinese restaurant for lunch. i had a plate of rice and garlic shrimp, a sort of rice with scampi.
it was nice. shrimp is one of the things they do very well down here.

i hope oil wells never come to costa rica. since costa rica is quite conscious of the dependency of its economy on eco-tourism, perhaps costa ricans be wiser than the people on the gulf coast of the united states. they may continue to have an abundance of local seafood.

at the botanical garden we took a tour which included some sampling of fruit.
the botanical highlights were the beautifully smelling passion flower and its grenadia fruit. this grenadia consists of edible seeds in a citrus like liquid. it is encased in a flexible skin. you pop it open and enjoy a devinely refreshing taste. it is really wonderful.

papadimas, which are a sort of moist rose hip, are available a our local wegmans. it was another delight. i shall eat more of them from now on.

unfortunately, the durian at the garden was not in season. i would have liked to try a small sample of this fruit, beloved by some and hated by others.

anthony bourdain likes durian. on separate occasions he has compared durian to

1) really strong french cheese and also to

2) french kissing your grandmother’s corpse.

in southeast asia it is regarded as a delicacy. nevertheless, its smell causes it to be forbidden to be taken into a fine hotel room.

our guide was engaging and very thorough. but there was too much standing still. listening to him, my back began to develop a spasm. at the end i needed to sit down. i was quite tired.

to make matters worse, a small but intensely black spot appeared in my field of vision. i have had floaters before. this was different and a little frightening. fortunately the black spots disappeared on the walk back to the hotel. and my back felt much better.

i learned in turrialba is that costa rica has very good pineapple.
one dinner consisted of an excellent hawaian pizza, ham and pineapple with cheese. the cold pineapple refrescos were always excellent.

i could not find cartons of pineapple juice at the supermarket. the closest i could come was a mixed fruit juice of mango, pineapple, and papaya. this was not bad. i bought a carton for breakfast and added cartons of orange juice and of mango juice. i would be well hydrated in the future. and i learned that the refrigerated juices were far superior to the long lived packaged ones.

my food choices remained diverse because of the presence of jacques. he shared with me a predinner snack of some blood sausage he bought at the supermarket. it was nearly identical to the german versions of my youth. quite tasty. i must admit that the thought of unrefrigerated blood sausage in the tropics gave me pause.

then jacques ordered a tongue in some sauce for dinner. i got to share this too. again, quite tasty.

we departed turriabla for the carribean coast and the more intense tropics. on this coast there was a strong carribean influence. this means more black people and more interesting and spicier food, especially seafood with a spicy tomato and pineapple sauce and jerk chicken.

up until the 1940s, black people were barred from the highlands of central costa rica. prejudice has many forms.

once we were out of the mountains, the roads became straighter and quicker to drive. they remained almost completely unmarked. but we reached our goal of the seaside town of puerto vielo and our hostel pigalu. the hostel is a new lovely quiet place run by a young german couple. it is the best hostel that jan has ever found for us. it is a place filled mostly with young adults, slightly past college age. there were many more young ladies than young men. but i was told that the percentages of sexes oscillates.

the few young men are coupled up with the women. they are therefore sufficiently controlled and civilized. it makes for the complete opposite of the girls gone wild scene in cancun! it is sedate during the day and silent at night. perfect!

this is remarkable since puerto vielo is known as a party town. but the late night noise is far away from where we sleep. there is a place here called “rocking j’s” which has lovely mosaic floors, a first floor devoted to bars and hammocks, and a tent city on the second floor. if you want it, this is an excellent approximation to the girls and boys gone wild scene.

puerto vielo is the surfing capital of costa rica. even though it is the start of the raining season, the days are hot and humid with plenty of sunlight and no rain. once it rained hard in the middle of the night.

puerto vielo is hot, a nice place to snorkel and swim in the ocean. jacques and i took a long walk to the white sand beach. jacques stopped to snorkel at some coral while i enjoyed watching a young lady with superb body. she was waiting to scuba. the young lady was tall and trim, a solid whip cord of a body, perfect, a shorter, younger. and blond nicole kidman. she was not the only example of that type here. jacques’ room was adjacent to another.

i did not bathe or swim this at this site. my old sandals had failed. their glue had lost its power to bind. they just decomposed. i will apply super glue upon my return. for now, i had no immersible footwear. coral cuts tender feet. so i had to wait, guarding jacques’ valuables and admiring the eye candy.

finally we reached the beach of white sand. it was worth the wait, a long reach of shallow water with light surf. it was relaxing not battering.

the black sand beach of the previous day was also very nice. it was much closer, but you had to remember to clean off the black sand before returning to your room. otherwise, the floors were messed up.

the culinary situation in puerto vielo is mixed. the first night we had some lovely indonesian peanut coconut shrimp over rice. rice cooked in coconut milk is a good thing.

the refrescos (cold juice drinks) are always excellent, watermelon and pineapple became my favorites.

marlin is available but is often overcooked. it was good in ceviche and also in a fish taco.

but the marlin filet had the same dry firm leathery texture that i have always associated with overcooked swordfish, sort of a beef like substance without the taste. i do not like it.

jacques is determined to take control of the fish situation. he will cook us all a fish dinner. he has purhased some coconut milk to add a nice taste. he added potatoes for bob. the resulting mixture was excellent. it was improved by the addition of a green halopeno hot sauce. jan made a cucumber, tomato, and avocado salad. i had to cut and squeeze an infinity of limes to add to her salad. she demanded it. the result had a bit too much lime but still it turned out well.

jan also has a theory that there is something called a layered salad which should not be tossed. i had never heard of such a thing. she used this theory as an excuse that the lime juice also be added in evenly distributed layers. i just squeeze it on at random.

jan and bob had done a tour of a chocolate plantation that day. they came back with samples of chocolate. this chocolate has no cocoa butter and therefore will not melt. it is ideal for a tropical climate. although not up to the level of a fine french chocolate, it still tastes good. the cinnamon they and the mexicans sometimes add to it is a good thing.

we cooked early. hence, we did not have to compete for kitchen space with the dinner crowd. as we were finishing our meal, the kitchen filled up with a large number of women preparing salads. i noticed two hot dogs. there was a lone man preparing guacomole.

my first real bird encounter was six black vultures on the shore. they were not as revolting as vultures usually are.

i have joined with jan, bob, and jacques to take a 5am guided birding tour. i have friends, bill singer comes to mind, who would never let me forget it if i came to costa rica without making an effort to see some birds. but i will never be a true birder. they just don’t fascinate me the way they do some people. perhaps because of that, i am bad at seeing them. yet, i would like to see some of the larger flashy birds.

with the possible exception of mosquitos, humans make a greater impression on me than is made by other creatures. often that means that i hate humans more. after all, it is humans who are in the process of destroying the ecosystem of the gulf of mexico. the sealife and birds are completely innocent in this matter.

in any just society, there would be severe punishment for the criminals of bp and for the politicians who have enabled them. total confiscation of their assets and long criminal sentences would be a good start. i have no interest in their rehabilitation or in retaliation. what they have done cannot be undone. but a sufficiently harsh example might prevent it from ever happening again.

surely the destruction of a whole ecosystem is worse than the wanton killing of a single or even a large number of human beings. even the bombing of dresden or of hiroshima have their defenders.so does the incident on 9/11. but all are close to murder or at least manslaughter and deserving of harsh punishment.

at 5 pm this morning we went on a guided birding tour. i felt a little bit guilty at the hubbub we caused at that hour.

it seems to me that it is a universal principle that the noise which is created by oneself is never percieved to be sufficient to irritate others. later that day we observed young men on jet skis applying this principle by noisily buzzing the public beach. “one’s own shit does not stink.”

i am a lousy birder. still i saw a black vulture, an egret, a macau, the sky was dense with parrots and parakeets, and various wrens and tanagers flitted below the canopy.

i saw an impressive toucan fly by. with that big toucan beak, it is hard to understand how he can achieve sufficient counterweight for level flight.

my eyes just don't pick up animals quickly. by the time i focus they are gone. oy vay!

our birding guide abel bustamante believed in anthromorphic descriptions of bird behavior. his performances of male bird courtship were fine kabuki theatre. he acted out a senior male bird recruiting younger males to help him show off for the ladies. since i do not believe the senior male shared the female with his younger acolytes, i wonder what was in it for the young studs. perhaps it is sheer hero worship. i am reminded of the character sebastian in “suddenly last summer.” he too used attractive younger bait to attract sexual partners. but remember that he gets torn apart and eaten at the end.

abel was a fellow with a keen eye. most of the birds were small and quick, a density of wrens and tanagers. i could see them flash by but i found it difficult to see them when they had landed. this was not helped by the inferior quality of my binoculars. most of the time, abel had to point show me a picture of the bird after it had landed. for a clear look i had to use artificial aids.

all around we heard the calls of howler monkeys. since i tired and left early, i did not see one at that time. but the others did.

i did see a three toed sloth doing what sloths do, that is, moving slowly in the trees. abel explained that they spend all of one day per week to descend for the release of bodily functions. it is a slow trip. they do this so that they will not stink up where they are. jaguars or boa constrictors would find them. that would be the end of the sloth.

at the end i asked abel what he thought of george bush and of barack obama. he thought that obama, while flawed, was a great improvement over bush. bush is not appreciated in many places outside of texas or chile. bush reminds the chileans of their old leader pinochet. i congratulated abel on his perceptiveness.

when we returned to the hostel, jacques sauteed some fish with pineapple and avocado on the side. the fish had a firm white flesh. since jacques does not overcook fish, it was superb with some green halopenyo sauce and some soy sauce, the best fish on the coast yet.

later we bought some grilled chicken and pork from a roadside stand. it came on a stick with a nice carribean sauce. after this appetizer i had a nice dinner of jerk chicken. this dinner was accompanied by a diablo, a delicious spicy drink made from beets, ginger, peppers, and parsley.
jacques ordered some smoked king mackeral. it was ok but not moist and succulent enough for my tastes. perhaps fish in the tropics requires overcooking to prevent or hide spoilage.

the next day we rented a boat and a guide to go snorkeling on a reef in the carribean. i made two mistakes. one, i did not get a snorkel which had a one way valve so that it was easy to blow the water out. two, i had forgotten that i had only snorkeled with the help of a life preserver. the life preserver is not necessary to keep you afloat. your body will do that. but it can be used to keep your head above water while you take the snorkel out of your mouth and clear it of water. lacking this, i had much trouble breathing. when my mask fogged up and i could not see the boat, i felt a panic at being out there in the middle of the sea in water far deeper than my height. luckily my smiling guide soon appeared and asked if i needed any help. he offered me the use of a life preserver but i was by that time discouraged. the easy breathing of air in the boat seemed quite attractive. i sat out the remainder of the snorkel session and enjoyed some freshly cut pineapple. it was not a total loss, on shore i got to see howler monkeys and another sloth.

lunch was fish carribean style. i asked that they not overcook it and, amazingly, they did not.






we left our snorkeling to journey to tortuguero, famous as a nesting site for green turtles. but this is not when they do it. still we may see some. there is no road access to tortuguero. the only access to it is by river boat or by airplane.



we wanted to catch an early river boat to tortuguero. hence we had booked a night in a town near the start of the river cruise. our hotel wilson was certainly in an unattractive and potentially dangerous neighborhood. but there was a safe car park and the rooms, though drab, were not filthy. we slept there one night and i woke up to discover that there was no cold water for the shower. no matter, the important thing was to get clean and be on our way.

we caught the 7am boat down the river to tortuguero. it was a scene out of the african queen. i felt like the character played by marlon brando in the film apocalyse now.

we journeyed down the river. i saw an egret. hard to miss. but i missed the caiman and the iguana that the others saw. i do have a terrible eye for animal or bird sightings!

we arrived without incident in tortuguero and went to our hotel on the beach. it was quite hot and humid during the day but the evening wind has made it quite cool and comfortable.

we took a swim before i noted that the guide book said the swimming was prohibited. in the rivers because of currents and crocodiles. in the sea because of sharks. these sharks were nasty bull sharks, the kind that likes to eat a chunk of human flesh. nonetheless many people swim here.

we went to dinner at miss junie’s place. miss junie took over the place from her mother miss sabella. “miss” is an honorific, applied to carribean ladies of sufficient age and accomplishment.
mother and daughter had earned their “miss” by being the best cooks in tortuguero. we had a delicious “rondon” soup made of fish, casaba, and plaintain. very carribean. we also had shrimp cooked in butter and ginger. these were more like crawfish than shrimp. they were very good.

miss junie and miss sabella have played a role in cuban history. fidel castro trained his revolutionaries in the jungles of tortuguero. they ate at the restaurant many times. after the cuban revolution the anti-casto forces trained in the same jungles. they also ate at the restaurant.

the next day we woke up at 5am to go on our guided boat tour. our guide had a sharp eye for caimans and tiger herons. these very different species share the trait of lurking in wait until somthing tasty can be snapped up. the caimans do it with only their eyes and snout above water and the tiger herons do it by just standing on a half submerged log.

we were also entertained by howler monkeys and spider monkeys. the howler monkeys defend their territory with a sucked in roar. the spider monkeys with a high thin bark.

our guide impressed us with his ability to paddle a large heavy canoe with 4 tourists in it. the people staying at the lodges roared by in power boats in the main channel and saw nothing.

tomorrow we will leave “the heart of darkness” by going up river back to our car. then we will drive to jan’s uncle jim’s place, do laundry, and stay the night. we will have said goodby to the carribean coast. we are going to visit the volcano and the pacific coast. it is a good time to end this message.

goodby for now,

joe n

THE VOLCANO ARENAL



today is the day we leave tortuguero. last night, jan and bob stayed up to try for an unlikely turtle egg laying sighting. jacques and i decided to rest content with the video we had seen. it turned out that we had both made the right decision.

jan and bob went off to a distant beach. before midnight, they saw a single large leatherback turtle lay her eggs, cover them, and crawl back into the sea. they were very lucky.
leatherbacks are very rare now, almost extinct, and this is not their usual time to lay eggs. the largest of the sea turtles, the leatherbacks migrate between costa rica and new england waters. they eat vegetation and jelly fish. jelly fish are similar to the plastic bags we get from markets. an intestinal tract blocked with plastic bags will kill the turtle. sad that human products are now so toxic to many life forms which are far older than we are. turtles predate the dinosaurs.

if i had gone to the beach for the small chance of seeing a turtle, i might not have been able to walk back. my back was acting up. by midnight it was causing much pain. i had taken two aspirin. no effect.

jan and bob arrived back with news of their triumph. jan gave me four ibuprophen tablets. for back pain, ibuprophen is a miracle drug. almost immediately the pain lessened. this morning i awoke confident that i could carry my backpack to the dock for departure up river.

morning activity on the beach was grackles heading south on the land and pelicans heading north over the water. a man was fishing. his technique was to whirl a weighted line over his head, throw it out into the sea, and pull it back. it bore a small resemblence to the technique of trolley fishing. in that case one attached a trolley to the anchored line and waited. it was a technique used by my parents on the shores of lake michigan in chicago. their intended prey was usually lake perch, sometimes herring in season.

the carriblean fisherman was seeking to catch some small bottom feeder with barbels. presumeably it was a tasty fish. instead he caught a large skate. he must have thought that there were better fish in the sea. he carefully released it and threw it back into the surf.

a short round black woman named miss miriam made the best and most carribean meal that we had, a superb dish of langostinos in garlic and butter. she served it with a side of plantains and a sauce of white vinegar, pureed carrots, and hot pepper. the langostinos were messy. messy food is often very good. and, now i finally understand why some people, for example, michelle ravenel, love plantains. those you get here are sweet and good.

the showers here are unnerving to people from north america. the water is not heated until it reaches the shower head. there are wires to the shower head which power a rather effective heater. there must be a considerable electric current going to that shower head. the proximity of water, electricity, and barefeet makes me nervous. it must be against the local codes in the united states.

we got the river boat back at the tortuguero dock. i had some coconut milk. the vendor had a chest filled with coconuts on ice. he selected one and used a machete to chop a hole in it. insert a straw and you have a refreshing drink.

we journeyed upriver to where we had left our car. we passed many egrets and left behind the lowland jungle.

jan and bob once again demonstrated their remarkable ability to find the way with only minimal information. we had few signs but still managed to bypass san jose, reaching our haven of uncle jim’s place in alajeula. we had been in the tropical lowlands for a week. it was well past time to do laundry.

i have failed to mention one of the most remarkable and ubiquitous of costa rican creatures.
in the mountain rain forests, in the lowland jungles, at jim’s place among the fallen mangos, you will see them marching along a well trodden trail carrying overhead a green sail many times their size. they have cut pieces of leaves and are taking them back to their underground gardens. the leaves are food for the fungus which nourishes these hard workers. i refer of course to the leaf cutter ants.

here at jim’s place the various buildings are connected by elevated concrete walkways. it rains a lot here. these walkways are necessary to keep one’s feet dry and mud free. sometimes one will see a lone confused leaf cutter ant on the walkway carrying his leaf.

this morning i scavenged the mangos which fall from jim’s trees. they are champagne mangos, hard to get in the united states, and make an excellent breakfast. usually jacques is the scavenger. this morning he slept late.

we went to the town of santa barbara to see the housing development created by jim. it is a bit of southern california with better views. in the distance are the mountains and a view of the central valley. it is surrounded by coffee fields and banana trees. it has trees with tasty tangerines and interesting totally edible lemons. it is a gated community inhabited by well off costa ricans and americans.

we drove to the volcano arenal. i type this from a backpacker's hostel in the shadow of the volcano. it has just had a minor. eruption. we saw a dark plume coming out of the top. five seconds later we heard the boom of the eruption. there are some rocks falling down the sides. we are assured that there is no danger now.

our hostel has internet. i can read all about the insanity that is the united states.

a school in prescott, arizona has decided to paint out the few hispanic and black faces in its mural. i suppose that is punishment for the fact that the country now has a half black president and a new hispanic supreme court justice.

the bp oil slick has begun to coat and kill the animals of the gulf. the death list includes brown pelicans, white egrets (which are no longer white!), sea turtles (which survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but perhaps not this!), jelly fish (food for turtles), porpoises (a fellow mammal), red fish (good with cajun spices), sharks (retaliation for jaws), shrimp (potential new orleans barbecue), crabs, and oysters (woe to the acme oyster bar). this is what it means to destroy a whole ecosystem.

poor new orleans may have to get its seafood from far away. the crabs caught in the ganges river do not die from consuming the flesh of human corpses. they fatten and make excellent chili crab. the catfish in the vietnamese and chinese rice paddies do not die from consuming human waste. they fatten and make excellent steamed fish with soy sauce.

one estimate is that no one will be able to stop the spill until christmas. long before that the oil will have its chance to go around the florida peninsula and slime the whole atlantic coast. yet there are some who still believe that it should be a high priority to cap the liability of bp, that at most bp should lose some small percentage of its profits. should not true capitalism imply that this failure should bankrupt the company, its executives, and its stockholders? that at least would be the true faith.

our backpacker’s hostel, the essense arenal, is operated by two young expatriates from california. it has many amenities. it is high on a hill overlooking the arenal volcano and lake arenal. it also has a nice deep small pool.

essense arenal has an enthusiastic and excellent chef. he believes in participatory cooking. he made a nice brocolli soup. on a powerful professional gas stove, fully comparable to martin bendersky’s julia child model, he taught us to make our own crepes for an apple dessert. it is simple stuff but it is fun.

we sat around the table and sometimes the volcano would make a boom. but we did not see the red glow of lava. the volcano would continue to boom intermittedly throughout the night. it does not acknowledge trivialities like night and weather. it also ignores weather like the hard rain of the night.

i went to sleep and awoke to the calls of howler monkeys. they of course do observe night and day.

my compadres have hiked up to a meadow where a czech expatriot lives a primitive life. once again my back is causing me pain. i used ibuprophen to pass the night. i have decided that the walk would be bad for my back. jacques’ theory is that sitting and relaxing is bad for an ailing back. he has experience with his back but he is wrong about my back.

even though it is a bit early, i think i will send this out now.

goodby for now from the volcano arenal,

joe n

ARENAL AND THE PACIFIC

hello all:

i remained at the hostel to give my back a rest. since inactivity can only last so long and in order to test my back, i took a short 2 kilometer walk through the jungle. i descended on some switchbacks past the unseen howler monkeys, crossed two streams, went up and through a meadow occupied by a small horse, and encountered many busy trails of leaf cutter ants. i could not resist the experiment of dragging my foot across their trail. this interruption of the scent trail had the result of creating an enormous traffic jam. confused leaf cutters milled around in a large clump. finally some of the bolder ones reestablished the trail. i begged their forgiveness and resisted the temptation to remove a twig they were using as a bridge to their entrance to the underground.

i returned to the essence arenal hostel, had a coca cola, and took a swim in the pool. there was a nice view of the volcano but no eruptions and no hoped for view of red hot lava. you cannot have everything.

i sat talking to the chef issac weliver. isaac was from crawfordsville, indiana and had gone to the cordon bleu cooking school in chicago. he had come down here where his first job at a larger local hotel involved the slaughter of animals, pigs for example. after a short 2 week interlude at a pizza joint, isaac moved to this smaller place of perhaps 8 rooms where he runs the restaurant. in order to provide gourmet food at reasonable prices, the decision was made to be vegetarian, eggs and cheese included. everything comes locally or from the central valley, tomatoes, avocados, eggs, cheese, beautiful onions, egg plant, brocolli, et al.

isaac likes the slower pace and opportunity for more creativity. within the limits of availability, he has total control of a vegetarian menu.

isaac is happy here, happy to be away from the republican craziness and corruption that currently infects the united states, happy to have the opportunity to get a different view of current events and history than is available in the united states. the last straw for him was the reelection of george w. bush.

today’s lunch was a wonderful club sandwich with fried eggs as a substitute for bacon. the mayonaisse was homemade with the addition of chipotle. it was accompanied by a delicious potato salad made with cilantro flavored mayonaisse. isaac says that he loves cilantro but that europeans often don’t like it.

high above here is the self sustaining home of the czech expatriot tomas. among other things he grows hearts of palm up there. he says, “once you get it started, there is little to do except to harvest it.” this is a theme of farming concentrated on vegetables. not too much work. cows, even chickens and pigs, require more tending.

the hostel and restaurant thrive even though there is no accidental traffic to here. access is by a semi-paved often steeply pitched road.

we drove to a local hot springs fueled by the volcano. the water was not only hot, it was the whole river. the nearby volcano provided heat the water. it provided for a large private spa at 26 dollars a person and also for our free river access. we shared the hot river with 4 taiwanese, two local expatriots and two visitors. we talked about the tragedy in the gulf of mexico. they placed a high value on seafood and felt that the gulf was ruined for at least several generations. as we left it began to rain and visibility was cut down by the descending clouds. the volcano disappeared.

we returned to the essence arenal for an indian dinner. we passed a large group of mennonites on a tour. they were having a long picnic parked by a river. we speculated that they might be hoping to see the volcano which was now shrouded in clouds.

in his tom sawyer spirit chef isaac had us make our own naan. dinner began with a salad made from a mild radish like plant, chayote, which grew on the property. excellent. the main course had as a base the best rice i had had in costa rica. until now, the rice had always been overcooked, hard, and dry. costa ricans do not do rice well. this rice was perfect basmati. it complemented the nice vegetable curries, especially the one made of cauliflower.

we had bought a box white wine from chile. the house added to this with a present of a bottle of white, also from chile. we had wanted this wine our first night here. it was unavailable then because it was not chilled. this was their way of making it up to us. we retired to our rooms with a feeling of real contentment.

suddenly, just before midnight a large group checked into the essence arenal. the group was made up of adults and children. it was clear that there was no curfew here. a noisy pool party began. at one in the morning it was still increasing in volume. i put in earplugs and attempted to ignore it. it did not work well. i hoped that a rain would come and drive them all indoors. it did not come. at 2:30 in the morning a lower level of spanish jabber was still going on. at one point i told one of them “por favor, silencio!.”

there was one positive thing. i learned that roosters do sometimes crow past two in the morning.

the essence arsenal had been in first place among all the places we had stayed. but the main purpose of a hotel js to provide a quiet place to sleep. the essence arenal plunged in my ranking.

the next morning i awoke to an intense rain. i was relieved to hear that my neighbors would be gone that day! oh frabjous day, caloo, calay!

i was also cheered by a superb breakfast of vegetable quiche with a basil hollandaisse.
tonight’s dinner will be an italian night. we will make our own pasta. the neighbors will be gone. things are looking up!

our chef isaac, who i had thought of as an apostle of liberal thought and enlightenment, distressed me by showing me a negative biography of abraham lincoln. isaac had a favorable of opinion of this debunking of the lincoln myth. it was written by a proto tea bagger, nay, worse yet, a southern revanchist! even i who recognize lincoln for his appreciation for the strategy of attrition of southern troops, find little to agree with in the arguments for states rights. that sort of thinking needs to be put down again. keep grant, the slaughterer of southern troops, on the 50 dollar bill! and we should put sherman on some bill!

i find it difficult to comprehend how such a great cook could sympathize with such views. but that is what tea baggers are all about, a conglomeration of views, some of them quite liberal, many of them libertarian. there is an attachment to basic values, perhaps to sustainable agriculture, perhaps to old fashioned morality. unfortunately, old time franklin roosevelt new dealism is not part of this new wave of tea baggery. taxes and regulation are anathema, replaced by a wish to return to a simple agrarian society. it is all subject to manipulation by the corporatists and palins of the world.

because of the rain, we delayed the tour up to the volcano observatory. instead we went to a serpent zoo which also included turtles, frogs, lizards, spiders, and butterflies. we learned that there are three kinds of poisonous snakes in costa rica:

1) the vipers which have a hemogloban toxin. vipers include our own rattlesnakes and the local bushmaster. if you are bitten by a bushmaster, you have approximately 4 hours to get an antitoxin before you die, or at best, to have an amputation.

2) the coral snakes which have a neural toxin. again, you have 4 hours to get the antitoxin.

3) the sea snake for which there is no antitoxin. you will die.

we learned that many nonvenomous snakes actually kill and eat the venomous ones. on the whole the nonvenomous snakes are quicker than the venomous ones. they have to be.

we held snakes in our hands, from the thin spaghetti snakes to the enormous muscular python. the python was named lisa. if lisa should wind herself around you, instantly break her tail if you can or you will die from suffication within 5 minutes.

we saw the iconic galdi red eyed tree frog, bright green body with dayglo orange eyes and feet. he feels like a gummi bear. his skin is not toxic to our touch. but the blue jeans tree frog, aka the dart frog, red body with blue legs, has skin which is toxic to our touch. bright colors say: here i am, i am not afraid since i am poison. in the red eyed frog case, the color is a bluff. in the blue jean, it is a legitimate defense.

although the rain has depressed butterfly activity, our presence stirred them up and we small many fluttering about, including some lovely large blue ones that we had seen in the wild.

the afternoon gave us a break in the rain. we took a 40 minute hike up to the volcano observatory. we were near enough to hear the low level volcano grumbling. occasionally there would be a loud boom. we could hear and see volcanic rocks tumbling down. gray bands of rock, which may have been lava, descended the sides. we saw no red glow but this gray rock may have been hot enough to glow in the dark.

we made pasta for dinner tonight. you start with a hollowed out pile of flour. you crack an egg into the hollow and mix it with the flour until a springy dough is formed. you roll the dough into a thin circular sheet. fold this into three layers and cut it into strips. it is ready to cook.

immediately after dinner, i saw a red light at the top of the volcano. red hot lava!

after i went to bed a small social group formed in the proximity of my room. people were talking about their lives, each one trying to get in some validation of their existence. i went outside in my pajamas and requested that the social group not form here again for the second night in a row. i was thankful that they did cease.

this morning i awoke to the sound of roosters and howler monkeys. children in their school uniforms walked by. we are about to leave the essence arenal for the coast. the essence arenal is a really lovely place with a great view of the volcano, of lake arenal, with a great vegetarian chef, the staff all have cheerful and vibrant personalities, and the place is impeccably clean. it also has a lovely pool! most of the time it is quiet and peaceful. i had the misfortune to spend one night out of three in the presence of an obnoxious group which i call the costa rican mccoys. on the whole, the essence arenal still deserves to be ranked as the best place we have stayed.

we are about to check out and leave for our drive to the pacific coast. i contemplate the fact that howler monkeys and humans have over 99 percent identical dna.

goodby from the volcano arenal,

joe n

THE PACIFIC AND THE CENTER OF COSTA RICAN TOURISM

hello all: at the hotel essence arenal, they have flush toilets. but they request that you not put any toilet paper in there. there is a basket provided for that. the basket has no plastic bag to keep it clean.

my room was cleaned by a nice costa rican girl named lucy. she also did my laundry. i gave her a 15 dollar tip. my friends asked me why i was tipping her so much. i replied that 15 dollars was a small price to pay to anyone who cleaned up your shit.

i called alison via skype from the essence arenal. decades ago alison had visited costa rica with a group of birders. she told me of trucks barreling down the pan-american highway and of finding a nazi like motel on her trip. her suspicion was that this hotel had originated immediately after the conclusion of the second world war.

i mentioned to her that we had not yet encountered any nazis down here. chef isaac overheard this and said: “they are south of here in monteverde.”

our stay at the volcano arenal had ended. we checked out and drove around lake arenal to return to the pan american highway. as we drove along the countryside became more touristy, the houses more glitzy. it was like a central american version of southern california, but more lush countryside. jan’s uncle jim could have built these houses. the for sale signs in english indicated an international clientele.

we pulled off at a sign for a german bakery and restaurant. i saw cinnamon and apple kuchen. i ordered both. they were very good, close in nature to what i recalled from childhood. i added an excellent capuchino.

the restaurant menu included bratwurst, sauerbraten, and goulash. i sensed german authenticity. i had asked the girl behind the counter for “ein stuck mehr kuchen bitte.” she looked at me blankly. she spoke spanish and english fluently but no german.

the manager came over. he spoke fluent german. i saw that he was eating what looked like a classic german plate of cold cuts and cheese.

jacques bought some ham. it tasted salty and good, like a black forest ham. it was far above the quality of most ham in north american or in central america. perhaps we had found alison’s nazis or their descendents here. without having tasted the sauerbraten, i cannot be sure.

we drove on to the town of la cruz, passing brahma cattle and the cowboys on horseback who tend them. even though it was drier here, it was still lush green. it was as if the american west had been transported to the tropics.

a short distance out of la cruz, we took an unpaved road to the blue dream resort spa and kite surfing school on the pacific ocean. the owner-manager was a young italian genteman from verona. he looked like a thin version of the male model fabio.

nicaragua could be seen from the resort. nearby was one of the nicest beaches in costa rica. the white sand beach was almost deserted. only a red pickup truck broke our solitude. the surf was gentle. but one felt the power of the sea after the wave had passed. this outflow should be treated with respect. we were cooled by a gentle rain. the sun was not too hot. small fish jumped in the sea. either they were eating something or they were trying not to be eaten by something else. it was a perfect scene.

we returned to the blue dream for dinner. jacques and i tried to split two orders of whole fish and langostino. they ran out of the one langostino they had. we settled for two whole red snappers, one fried and one baked. excellent!

but we must try the langostino. jacques plans to cook a meal back at jan’s uncle jim’s place. i hope that can be langostino.

tomorrow we hope to go down to the beach to see a hot german girl
take kite surfing lessons. she was a typical adventurous young german, three months vacationing in central and south america with a friend and now concluding with a week alone taking lessons in the art of kite surfing.

the night was hot and humid but there were two fans and the doorways were screened so that the air circulation was total. for the lowland tropics it was comfortable enough.

oops! the next day comes with no wind. the hot german girl is confined to a lounge chair. she is reading a mary higgins clark novel. too bad! she had tanned and powerful legs. it would have been nice to see her in action.

i had a breakfast of some very good scrambled eggs, moist like julia child would do them, coffee, and a poor excuse for an orange drink.

we went down to the nearest beach where the kite surfing lessons would otherwise have occurred. across the bay we could see nicaragua. we could see no structures on the nicaraguan side. the full development of tourism had not yet spread to the home of the sandanistas. perhaps they should get rid of the fee to cross over the border.

the beach was a nice pebbly affair. since we had it all to ourselves, i went off by myself, took off my clothes and waded in.

i stood in the warm surf watching the frigate birds and pelicans soar overhead. a tern would go by and then some sort of duck like creature.

across the bay was an island which was a bird sanctuary. you could kayak out to it and be surrounded by angry birds. we did not do that.

out in the bay floated a flotilla of pelicans, safe here from any oil slicks.

do not worry. the world will continue for a long time to have these natural pristine places. here nature is safe and can be enjoyed by those wealthy enough to travel. nearer to home, reachable by the less well off, much of the natural world is doomed.

the estates of the wealthy will protect bits of the natural thus, nature can be confortably enjoyed by the proprietors. these estates, for example, that of the ceo of bp, will be well insulated by walls with razor wire and a vigilant police force.

of course, the mass of workers and their families will be always able to enjoy nature on television or the internet. they will never realize what they are missing. the corporate masters will see to that. i believe these techniques for distracting the populace were perfected long ago by the romans.

could it be that the bp oil slick will complete the destruction of the city of new orleans? the destruction was begun by hurrican katrina when it devastated the poorer black areas of the city. these have not been rebuilt. the more affluent areas of the french quarter and the garden district were untouched. the economic base of tourism was mainly intact.

but bp has now struck a blow to the culinary tradition of new orleans. the restaurants sustain the french quarter and the garden district. will the tourists keep coming to a city where the barbequed shrimp has to be imported from vietnam, where the blackened redfish is replaced by blackened tilapia, and where the acme oyster house has been closed down?

will jazz, mardi gras, and a temporarily successful football team be able to sustain new orleans?

we left the blue dream resort and kite surfing school. our destination was the rinconcito lodge near the national park around the rincon de la vieja volcano.

first we went through the elegant old colonial town of liberia. then we took a rocky dirt road past the town dump. the road went up, the countryside became drier, and the road more rutted.
we were driving on dusty clay between high walls in which were scratched the names of people and perhaps of youthful gangs. every once in a while we saw what looked like dayglo orange petrogliffs of bicyclists. dayglo arrows pointed the way. perhaps this was the route of an ancient costa rican bicycle race.

we entered an even drier landscape. it seemed like we were on the surface of the moon or mars or at least somewhere in utah used to train astronauts.

this bleak terrain did not continue forever. we entered a dry chapparal like terrain. it was deserted except for one guy on a tricycle contraption. he was pulling a trailer. he stopped to scavenge a roll of barbed wire and smiled as jan took his picture.

ah yes, “the unphotographed life is not worth living.” i believe plato said that.

the petrogliffs of bicyclists continued to frame the road. we reached a high plateau with a view. here there was a shrine, the sanctuary of sancta rosa de lima. it was a small affair enclosed by a barbed wire fence with a gate. through this gate was a water well with some kind of perpetual pump. it provided drinking water to whatever animals were being fenced in. we did not see them.

the shrine itself was a grotto with a statue of the saint. sancta rosa was flanked by two short native american dolls. next to the statue was an empty paint can. perhaps it was a religious symbol.

there was an adjacent gazebo with almost no roof. a primitive wood table with benches and charred stumps provided a pleasant place for our picnic. we made sandwiches with avocados, chayote, cheese, and bread. the first two were very good. the bread was wonder-ful. it could have won a silvercup. two bad puns from my generation!

we completed the drive to the rinconcito lodge. we are in the lower mountains. the setting has an african flavor. the lodge is an impressive place with a large reception area, well tended and lush grounds, and neat cabins, each with several rooms. we were given three rooms in one cabin, a situation designed for maximum piece and quiet. superb.

there was no internet here. jan and bob went off to a nearby town to phone about jan’s father’s health. he was mixing alcohol and coumadin, aka rat poison. the two do not go together well.

jacques went to take a 40 minute walk in the woods. i sat down in the dining area with my laptop and a cuba libre, a cold can of rum and coke.

we had a dinner of broiled fish, mashed potatoes, and green beans. it was accompanied by a tomato and lettuce salad with vinegar and oil. it was simply done and nicely so. it was very good for a lodge in the middle of the wilderness. this chef was no isaac but he had much skill.

it rained in the night. the resulting cool night was excellent sleeping weather.

we woke and went to the dining area past the fallen limes from the tree next to our cabin.
breakfast was coffee and gallo pinto, that is, rice and beans, with a fried egg on top. jan the vegetarian thought it was excellent gallo pinto. i remain unmoved by this national dish of costa rica. i have resolved to have only three fried eggs and coffee con leche next breakfast. there is no marmelade and they do toast very badly here.

we hired a guide to show us the sights. his name was giovanni and he cost only 50 dollars a day for all 4 of us. since this was payable to the hotel we resolved to tip him well.

we passed up the opportunity to peer into the crater of the volcano rincon de la vieja. this would have involved a 15 mile hike with a mile of elevation gain.

instead we chose to visit 5 fumaroles. fumaroles are vents which cool the volcano. we drove to the national park and gladly paid the 10 dollar per person entrance fee.

the first fumarole was a large pot of boiling water. the second was called the little volcano. in the dry season it consisted entirely of hot sulfur fumes but now in the rainy season it had filled with water and was a boiling sort of glacial mix.

the highlights were the true mud fumaroles. there were 5 smaller ones and one large one. they consisted of bubbling white mud and made distinctive sounds, the smaller ones like bubbling pea soup and the larger one like burping pea soup.

i was able to produce an excellent immitation of the 5 smaller mud fumeroles. i did it by expelling air through my rolled up tongue. even jan, usually intolerant of any interference with her recording of audio, liked it. she smiled when i augmented the natural sound. i do believe i improved it.

we encountered a raccoon like animal called a coati on the trail. this proud male approached us with a vertical tale which revealed decisive proof of his maleness. our guide ignored the “please don’t feed the coati” sign and pulled out some chunks of fresh pineapple. the coati liked the pineapple very much and seemed to have done this before.

we crossed a suspension bridge over the colorado river. this small stream is not to be confused with its larger and more famous namesake. in the nearby picnic area we encountered a whole family of coatis. these were all females and young. evidently the males avoid family life.

best of all, small white faced capuchin monkeys looked down at us with intent and hopeful eyes. unfortunately we had nothing left to give. the monkeys threw some seed pods at us to indicate their disapproval.

we also saw a small rabbit like rodent called an agouti. he seemed shy and did not interact with us.

when we reached the carpark, we gladly paid an extra 5 dollars a person to go to a waterfall where one could swim.

i regretted that i had not brought my sandals on this hike. when we reached the waterfall, i had to step gingerly in barefeet over slippery and pointed rocks which hurt my tender feet. i gave the guide reason to worry as i crawled over the rocks. i was very slow and i used both hands and feet to make progress. the technique had two virtues. one, it was a safe way to avoid falling and breaking bones. two, it took some of my weight off of my tender feet.

the entrance to the pool of the waterfall required jumping off a rock into the deepest part of the pool. bob and jacques did this eagerly. jan hesitated but she did it. i hesitated the longest before it did it. as i plunged into the deep cold water, i felt both of my calves get hit my mild cramps. i had to swim with arms alone until i reached shallower water where i could stand. jan said: “you don’t swim very well. do you?” maybe not but that was not the whole story behind my thrashing around!

just outside of the national park was a drilling rig and excavations for large pools. the electric company is constructing a geothermal facility here. when it is finished, it will be an industrial facility. it will provide cheap sustainable electric power and perhaps also a scenic gate for the national park.

we drove to hot springs. again, the cost was 5 dollars per person. there were 5 deep pools of varying temperatures. the level of development was just right. we chose the second hottest pool. the most hot was way too hot. this pool was perfect.

jacques often requires his own nudity to achieve happiness. after jan and bob left the pool, he felt free to completely strip. jacques had achieved his kind of nirvana. mine wasn’t bad either. these hot springs were comparable to the best i had ever previously experienced, the ones at liard hot springs far up the alaska canada highway.

we returned to the car. the leaf cutter ants were busy as usual. they carried there burdens over long trails and had discovered that the side of a paved walkway provided a super highway for the fast transport of produce.

during all our time in costa rica, including today’s forest hike, i have not found the mosquitos to be bothersome. jan has noticed some bites but she has found ant bites to be more painful. ants like her and their bites cause her redness and swelling. these may be army ants. the leaf cutters seem too busy.

on the way back to the lodge, we talked to giovanni about economic life in general and health care in particular.

the world wide economic downturn, especially the decline of the euro, is like to decrease tourism to costa rica. it may cost giovanni his job.

giovanni has never gotten seriously ill. he prays that he does not. it seems that costa rica has universal health care but at least for him it is not free. if necessary he will get treatment but he has to pay for it. i am not sure how much he has to pay and what the exact terms of payment are.

upon return jacques cut up some pineapple. like almost all costa rican pineapple it was sweet and delicious.

jacques had to admit that dinner that night was very good. it began with a mixed vegetable cream soup. the potent black pepper was an excellent substitute for the nonexistent hot sauce. the main course was a fish filet sauteed with garlic. the sides were rice and mixed vegetables. we had jan’s leftover red wine. the fish and vegetables were not overdone.

we leave the rinconcito lodge today. our goals are to visit a forest restoration project (a bob event) and to arrive in the town of santa elena next to the monteverde biological reserve. these are the last remaining swaths of cloud forest in costa rica.

before we departed the rinconcito lodge, giovanni took us on a short tour of the farm animals. there were perhaps ten horses for riding and one young foal. there was a cow and many chickens, complete with rooster. the lodge could supply many of its culinary needs.

it also had one pet, a young peccary. a peccary is a pig like animal similar to the javelina of arizona. this peccary had been captured and was still uncomfortable with humans. nonetheless, he had willingly returned after his recent escape.

we drove past a row of windmills and arrived at the home of william turley and angela sanchez, a couple who had come to costa rica from california. william was trained as a physicist and now did research on sustainable living. angela had been a realtor. now they both were realtors to earn the little money required for their lifestyle.

their passion is to regenerate the soil and to try to be as self sufficient as possible. they make a biodiesal fuel from a nut that they grow. they keep turkeys for meat, chickens for meat and eggs, goats for cheese, and a horse for company. the little chickens were disappearing until an overstuffed boa constrictor was discovered. the chickens were then moved to a protected enclosure reachable only by a ladder. chicks could hop up the ladder but the constrictor could not.

they were in the process of building an outside oven. in order to keep their house cool, it was wise to move most of the cooking to a sheltered outside area. but they were having great difficulty getting a local workman to start the job.

i noticed that this house, though isolated well out in the country away from people, nonetheless had iron bars on the windows and doors. it was a secure fort.

we drove to monteverde over a route which included many kilometers of unpaved road. the countryside was similar to switzerland. it was a cloud pasture on the way to the cloud forest in monteverde.

i have observed the great scarcity of signs on costa rican roads. driving in costa rica makes one appreciate the biblical injunction to have faith despite the absence of signs.

we arrived at our motel in the town of saint elena and took a walking tour of the town. this walking tour was very successful. i bought a postage stamp, a wonderful machete with a leather sheath, and a kilo of costa rican coffee.

jacques and i had a pleasant dinner consisting of a mixed seafood ceviche and a broiled fish filet with guacomole. the ceviche had a sweetness which was unusual and good. the tastes of fish and avocado combine well.

the town of saint elena was founded by quakers from alabama. they came to escape the draft in 1950s america. in order to preserve the area, they have discouraged the improvement of the access roads. yet development has occured and saint elena is a busting tourist town with many hostels and restaurants. over 200000 people, most young people with backpacks, visit it a year. buses carrying them arrive late into the night. it is costa rica’s main tourist attraction, probably because it is the original home of the zip line thrill ride through the canopy. you are suspended from a steel cable. gravity propells you through the canopy. there are brakes!

saint elena is a contradiction. lots of young people make it a bit of a party town. but it shuts down early. our hostel is filled with the sound of laughing loud young people until about 10 pm. in order to wake up early for hikes, birding, and zipping through the canopy, sleep is required. the night is quiet.

we are here for a hike through the canopy on suspension bridges. no zip lines for us old folks.

good night,

joe n

FAREWELL TO FAIR COSTA RICA


hello all:

we took our hike through the canopy of the cloud forest. it is called the sky walk. we hiked up to gain some altitude. it leveled off and we crossed 5 suspension bridges. the last and most impressive was 900 feet long and was 150 feet over the forest floor. it was a very stable structure. it had secure walls and a floor hanging from steel cables. the cable suspension technology made possible the three activities of the site: it supported the bridge crossings of our sky walk, the thrilling zip lines, and the sky trams which were like ski lifts.

our sky walk required energy since the start of the hike was uphill. but the walk allowed one to proceed at a reasonable pace, pause to take a breath, and to take the time to sight swallow tailed kites and green toucans. there was also vegetation to appreciate. i saw my first citronella berry, the natural mosquito repellent.

our guide had paid for his schooling by picking coffee. he described it as a happy time with much singing. the work was hard and the coffee bag was heavy. sometimes you had to carry it a long way. the slopes could be steep. you held onto the coffee plants to keep from falling down the hill. his description bore some resemblence to an idealized portrait of cotton picking in the old south. i noticed that our guide doesn’t pick coffee anymore. he prefers guiding on the sky walk.

i was happy that we did not do the other two options, neither the zip lines nor the sky tram. all three made up the full tourist package. the zip lines were the main attraction for the younger crowd. they were like amusement park rides. riding the sky tram would be the main attraction for older folks. but there are few such older folks around here. we saw one old lady with her granddaughter.

most of the clientele here are young, in their early twenties or nearly so. there is a large majority of women. costa rica seems to be the place for young adventurous women. they travel in pairs or in packs. they have company and it is safer that way. lone woman travelers are rare. our hot german kite surfer was an exception.

most of the young men are somewhere else. perhaps they are doing some serious rock climbing. young men too travel in pairs or packs. but the lone wolf is not uncommon among them. women are known to climb rocks but it is a macho game and there are not as many.

groups of helmeted young ladies wait in line for their chance to zip out over the forest. these ladies emit joyous shrieks as they are launched. this is a thrill which did not require male participation.

i had a nice capuchino at the sky trek cafe. it seemed the right thing to have in costa rica. the cafe sold a range of coffee drinks with quality and price close to those of starbucks. the capuchino was 3 dollars. it surprised me that a caramel machiato was a dollar less. logic says that it should cost the same or more. it is a capuchino with some added caramel.

we returned to saint elena. i went to the super mercado and bought more costa rican coffee to take home. when we emerged from the market, the town was enveloped in cloud. it was clear why monteverde is a cloud forest.
jacques bought some mortadella. the italians do not have to fear this competition! one should stick to fruits and vegetables for snacks in the tropics. pineapples, watermelon, cucumbers, cheyotes, and especially avocados all score high.

we are in the rainy season in costa rica. but this is the first time on our trip that it has rained hard during the day. the street in front of our hotel has become a raging stream. there have been some down pours in the middle of the night. it has made for pleasant sleeping. but such have not interfered with our activities. it is a relief to see daytime rain in costa rica. otherwise, it would have seemed unreal.

the eyewitness guide to costa rica has a picture of a road sign with the caption: “one of the rare road signs in costa rica.” we can testify to the truth of that along with jan and bob’s remarkable ability to find the way anyway.

as we left for our last activity in the cloud forests of monteverde, a van load of new arrivals to our hotel arrived. once again they were in large majority a bunch of attractive young women traveling together. later we were to see another such group outside of a nice restaurant. one of them was dressed in a flowing gown which would not have been out of place in the best restaurant in new york city. some of these women had come down to costa rica to do volunteer work and this was their party time. but something was going on that i did not understand. even freud said that he could not understand women.

our last activity was a guided forest hike in the night. many forest animals are nocturnal and are best observed by flashlight. a flashlight served two purposes, one, to see the animals, two, to avoid tripping over the many exposed roots.

the highlight was the two toed sloth right near the start. at first we saw just a ball of grey fur high in a tree. he was not moving much at all. we would see more of him.

we saw a tarantula guarding her eggs in a bamboo tube. a millipede ventured into the tube. fortunately it realized its mistake and quickly backed out before disaster struck.

we saw a small lizard and a small frog. we saw an insect well disguised as a leaf on a twig. his two toned wings, green on top and black on bottom, immitated the leaf. his legs immitated the twig. when we disturbed him he went into a convincing immiation. his camoflage was his only defense against being eaten.

we saw a sleeping blue crowned motmot. this cute bird has a segmented tail which it can swing like a pendulum, thereby fascinating small creatures which it then gobbles up. as it is with women, cuteness can be deceiving and dangerous.

as time passed, it grew darker. we returned to the sloth twice. each time he was more active and had moved lower in the tree. at the end, we could see his face and arms clearly. he was approximately 20 feet from us. he was peacefully eating leaves. occasionally we looked at us with mild curiousity. we could not have asked for a better view.

sloths usually move slowly to conserve energy. but they can move very quickly when pressed. they can eviserate a dog with a quick stroke of their powerful claws. but usually they are peaceable creatures. the united states could learn a lot from the way of the sloth. there would not be so many wars and we would need less energy. the gulf of mexico might still be unspoiled.

jacques was intrigued by the menu of a restaurant called el trio. unbeknownst to us, jan and bob had already eaten there twice. they liked its salads. it is ironic that they had been eating at a fancier place that us. since they have vegetable blinders on, it did not occur to them to tell us that the place might have good beef.

we resolved to go there for fish and our first taste of beef in costa rica. the fish was nicely broiled. it came with a salsa in which tomatos and guacomole were essential ingredients.

the beef was medium rare with two nice chimichurri sauces. chimichurris are an argentine invention to accompany beef. it is composed of oil and garlic with, perhaps, the addition of oregano or some chilis. it is not very spicy, just the way argentines like it. the beef was up to the high argentine standards. of course, an argentine portion would have been twice the size. but it was enough.

we each had martinis. mine was a ginger mint concoction and jacques was vaguely spicey.

this was the best meal we had in costa rica. perhaps the fact that we had been so long without beef had a lot to do with this judgment.

my three companions are on a guided orchid walk. i am content to sit here in the shade with some pastry and a cafe con leche. today we go back to jim’s place. i am content. i have damaged two sets of footwear which i will repair with superglue back home. my feet rest comfortably in sandals with socks to prevent chafing. at jim’s my reliable and comfortable clark shoes are awaiting me.

i have completed almost all my purchases. i have a real working man’s machete. i can hang it on my wall and cut pineapples and watermelon with it. it can be used instead of a shotgun to repel home invasion. it has a viciously effective look to it.

i purchased some bags of coffee and three bottles of a hot carrot and citrus based salsa called chillero. it is slightly thicker than a belizean version . it is better and it goes well with fish.

i still seek bottles of the orange liqueur salisca that martin likes. but i know that the latter can be purchased duty free at the airport.

we had two meals today, lunch at a costa rican restaurant on the panamerican highway and dinner at a denny’s near the airport. we had arrived at jim’s place and denny’s was his suggestion. he liked the senior meals. jim has been so nice to us. we owe him a lot. at the very least, he should have the right to choose the dinner restaurant.

for lunch on the highway i had a good pumpkin soup. i shared chicken and a hamburger with jacques. it was to be our second best meal of the day. the breakfast of pineapple and watermelon in saint elena was the best.

the dinner at denny’s was a disaster. the waiters had a shift change and messed up the order. the chili i had ordered was not available. they tried to assert that i had ordered beef vegetable soup. the salad they gave me was totally american. there was nothing costa rican about it. they tried to give jim a grilled cheese sandwich instead of the chicken he had ordered. even with better organization, what you get at an american chain restaurant is often overpriced and pedestrian, just like it is in america.

tomorrow perhaps jacques can find some seafood and cook us a fine going away meal. i suggested that we stop at a highway fruitstand. it was just for cultural interest. we did not have to buy anything. but of course we did. the unknown local fruits were too interesting and cheap to pass by. among these were avocados of different types and a small orange hued pineapples.

accordingly, breakfast was a cornucopia of fruit.

jacques scavenged for mangos and made mango smoothies.

he sliced up the large round guayabana to reveal a delicious sweet and sour pulp with large embedded seeds. it was messy but very good. i liked the texture. jacques and jan favored seed free smoothies.

we popped open a grape like fruit to reveal a large seed encased in a sweet pulp. it was good but there was not much pulp per pop.

bob enjoyed it all and added a classic bowl of cereal with milk.

i made some of jim’s 1820 brand coffee and was inspired to purchase more of it for gifts to friends. it is half the price of the more high faluting brands. and it is a very good dark roast. jim’s children fill their suitcases with bags of it.

in alujuela’s zoo, we saw gorgeous red macaws, green macaws, and blue macaws. unfortunately man tries to improve on nature. he has created hybrids with a variety of colors. the zoo strongly disapproves of these creations. they are genetically unstable. they are not even pretty. they look unnatural.

i had my first close up view of a toucan. i had seen them flying high in the air or perched high in a tree. i could now appreciate the beauty of the plumage and the colored beaks of these birds. they are iconic for costa rica.

we saw a huge crocodile, lying still with a wide open mouth engaged in heavy breathing, in a closeby pond lurked their smaller relatives, the submerged caimans with only their heads above water. we had seen them in tortuguero.

there was a puma and an elegant oscelot. there were even a few african foreigners such as ostriches and tortoises.

there were many other animals, mostly local. for some unknown reason there were no sloths, neither the two or the three toed. i do not understand why they omitted these costa rican natives.

there were capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys. there were playful squirrel monkeys and an extremely cute marmoset with tufted ears. but there were no howler monkeys. perhaps they were too noisy.

the vegetation highlight was the so-called dumb cane, also called the lottery plant.

when we returned from the zoo, we discovered that our key no longer worked to unlock the front door to our cabin. the key would not turn the lock. it could not be removed.

an hour later, jan and bob succeeded in opening the back door. jan used her thin wrists to reach through a fence and to unlock a padlock. bob improvised a safety line for the required key.

then jim’s friend carlos came over and removed the lock on the front door from the inside. the mechanism of this lock had been invaded by ants. their presence had been sufficient to keep the lock from turning. jim and i blasted the lock with raid. the lock would now turn but the key was stuck again. no matter. jacques and i would be gone tomorrow. until then we could keep our valuables safely on our person.

the ants who had clogged up our lock were not the busy leaf cutters. these guys were too busy defoliating the trees on jim’s estate. they even work at night.

the world of ants is alien to our human world. millions of individuals united in a common purpose. we reply with chemical weapons of mass destruction. does it seem to the ants that they have awakened the fury of an angry god? human arrogance assumes no form of consciousness in any species below the level of dog or dolphin. but is it so? what proof is there?

american politics would seem to indicate that fear can induce antlike behavior in humans. perhaps we are not so different from the ants.

jim took jacques and me to the local price smart. it was a costa rican clone of costco or sam’s club or bjs. the business model was exactly the same, bargains on electronics, tires, clothing, garbage bags, and food in large quantities. it did have large plastic bags of several kinds of seviche. fish seviche, shrimp seviche, and mixed seafood seviche. seviche is not available at costco. our loss.

i was searching for bags of 1820 coffee. not there. jacques had the serious task of finding fresh shrimp for dinner. the only available shrimp was precooked and frozen. jacques chose salmon instead.

for salad, jacques bought some tomatos, green onions, and cheyote.

we also stopped at the local super mercado, pali. jacques bought some pasta for dinner. i bought three more bags of 1820 coffee and two more bottles of chillero hot sauce. i was now well stocked.

jacques cooked it all up as a nice salmon with peppers and chayote over spaghetti. rather good! we have all become fans of chayote which is a sort of crispy cucumber without seeds.

jim added some powerful panamanian rum. bob added the nice cocoa butter free chocolate. we all felt well satisfied. costa rican cuisine has ended on a high note.

in the morning, jacques spread antifungal cream between his toes. i learned that horses also sometimes need antifungal cream in large quantities. jacques confided to me the little known fact that vaginal cream is the same stuff. and it is much cheaper. it is rather like the fact that coumadin and rat poision are the same thing. but this is useless information since it is dangerous to swallow rat poison. in this case the dose is critical.

we say a fond farewell to the ever marching leaf cutters. we sit for a while by jim’s pond watching the muscovy ducks assert with flapping wings and loud quacks their territorial claims. it is time to leave.

jim takes us to the airport where we pay the 26 dollar exit fee. jacques gets some 10 dollar church’s fried chicken. overpriced but quite edible. i get a 3 dollar capuchino. fairly priced and rather good.

i sit contemplating the view of the mountains. i am content in the knowledge that they sell coffee and hot sauce at the airport for roughly three times the price i have paid.

goodby costa rica, hasta la vista,

joe n