Hmmm...I knew that would get your attention. Actually, I´ve been ruminating lately about how I seem to be the only solitary traveller I have met in this bed and breakfast. The rest are all couples, and this is so unlike my experience of Mexico City last year where I met tonnes of lone travellers as well as couples, groups and families. It makes me wonder what it must be about this bed and breakfast where I´m staying, or maybe it´s a feature about Monteverde and the Cloud Forest. Sort of like a romantic get away and what can be more romantic for some people, I suppose, than the jungle? Think Tarzan and Jane...and Cheetah? Nope, better leave him offset for a while. Reward him with extra bananas. Boy, too. Most of the couples here seem pretty wrapped up in themselves and each other and of course I would not dream of disturbing them, as long as they do their couple thing quietly and don´t otherwise frighten the horses, or the sloths, or the parrots or the monkeys.
This all works for me because I´m here essentially for solitude. This trip has taken on the dimensions of a retreat, as I expected, and I feel that in some essential ways I am getting my ducks all in a row here. I sometimes wonder, too, if this is why so many people who come here, come here for only a short time, perhaps three or four days at the most. Once they´ve seen the jungle and the lovely birds and strange animals there really isn´t much else to do here, unless you want to really know this place and the people who live here. And if you are willing to give the extra time to know yourself and where you are going in life. Not easy, and small wonder few of us are usually equal to the task. But, speaking for myself, it needs to be done and it´s getting done.
The weather is hugely improved by the way, sunshine today and yesterday, nice temperatures.
I walked into Santa Elena today to buy nail clippers. While the rain was falling nonstop the humidity was so intense that the ones I brought here with me disintegrated. I had to cut my nails with my hair-cutting scissors (for those of you who didn´t know, I have been cutting my own hair for the last twenty-eight years. I bought the scissors in a drugstore in Edinburgh in 1991. One of the best investments I ever made.) I stopped in the Ranaria, or the Froggery, as I call it, which is basically a frog museum and information centre in Santa Elena. I unfortunately didn´t get beyond reception. First of all they wanted twelve dollars for the privilege. Well, if I want to look at frogs I could always go to Quebec. Ooh, that was a bit politically incorrect, wasn´t it. Reminds me of my first visit here to Monteverde in 1994, when I was sharing a table with a variety of folk in a cafe. Two of them were from Quebec. A visiting Mexican innocently asked what part of Canada Quebec is in. I not so innocently replied, ¨Oh, somewhere in the centre.¨ The Quebecois girl went ballistic and I had to tell her not to worry about it, since I´m from Vancouver where we don´t really worry about Quebec and separatism and where the second language is Cantonese, not French.
Anyway, back at the froggery, I mean the Ranaria, where I decided to pay anyway, and offered the fellow a ten thousand Colon note (equivalent in value to a twenty dollar bill) He didn´t have any change. All I had besides was three thousand colones, leaving me short by four hundred colones (confused yet? Don´t worry, so was I for the first three weeks here). He tried to speak to me in English, assuming that I´m a unilingual American. I replied in Spanish until he figured it out, then he suggested I go somewhere to find change and come back. Twelve bucks to look at a bunch of frogs? Don´t think so. I went for an extended walk instead to see parts of Santa Elena I hadn´t before (italics not intended, blame this computer)
Lots of hostels, cheap tourist hotels and guest houses lining the rubble roads here. I ended up in the pharmacy where the pharmacist appeared perplexed that I was speaking to him in Spanish but I finally got a nice pair of nail clippers for the equivalent of eighty cents.
They just finished playing on the stereo next to this computer ¨One Night in Bangkok Can Make a Hard Man Humble.¨ Hmm...I wonder if there´s a message in this for me.
Yesterday I visited another forest reserve. This is the least expensive, only five bucks Canadian, and worth it and more. Saw lots of leaf-cutter ants carrying their little bits of green leaf pieces like proudly hoisted banners in a parade. Fascinating creatures. I believe I explained in my previous visit here that they take the leaves back to their colony where they all chew it up together and grow this lovely lace like fungus that they eat. God, Nature, Evolution, what ever you want to call it (I use all three names, myself) is something marvellous, eh? I really felt nervous with the poor little ants because they were everywhere and I didn´t want to step on any of them, leaving me feeling like a neurotic Janist (a Hindu sect that regards all life as sacred and they certainly go out of their way not to step on ants). On my way back, on the road I saw what appeared to be a moving drawing of tributaries of a river delta, then I realized it was an ant colony migrating. Fascinating, there must have been seven columns of them and they looked rather like a map of the Nile Delta. Today, on my way back to the bed and breakfast, I saw some howler monkeys, three of them crossing the road by means of the tree branches overhead. I tried to watch from a discreet distance, as they have been known to urinate and defacate on people and throw branches at them. Pretty grumpy, eh? They´re bigger than Capuchin monkeys, less agile and kind of ugly if you ask me.
Well, this is all I´m going to bore you with for now.
Today I went back to Santuario Ecologico, one of the smaller reserves that I visited previously last Monday, since I only had time and energy to explore half of it the first time. It did not disappoint and I sat for a while at an improvised picnic table overlooking the forest and the valley writing in my journal. There are lots of agoutis (a large, beautifully coloured rodent, sort of like a cross between a rabbit and a deer, but with small ears, no antlers and maybe a bit bigger than a rabbit. They are a rich golden brown colour and quite timid. Lots of coatimundis as well. I think I already discribed them, like a brown raccoon with an extra long tail and extra long nose. After a while the silence was kind of ruined for me by the sound of snare drums in one of the schools nearby. Then I reminded myself that I am in their country and that I have no right to expect that things are going to ordered specifically for my enjoyment. I learned afterward from Esteban that there are a few student drum bands in the area and they are likely practicing for some celebrations next month, likely related to the Christmas season. I also visited the Butterfly Museum again, first time since my last stay here in 2010. A young American woman from Oregon who is here studying environmental sciences gave me a very extensive and informative guided tour, showing me live tarantulas, a small scorpion (apparently they have infrared vision so that to each other they are a bright lime green colour, which is how they show under infrared light. I learned about the asthma bug, a small bug that has been successfully used in the treatment of asthma. Apparently over a course of several days or weeks you put a couple in a glass of milk and drink it. You do this every day, gradually increasing the dose, and the antihistimines that they release is supposed to treat the asthma. They have a strong, peppery taste which is why birds avoid eating them. She invited me to taste one but I declined because I´m a vegetarian. I saw again the giant hercules beetle, which is one of the world´s largest insects, about five inches long with a huge horn growing out of its head. Apparently the mails use their horns in combat over females and will use their horns to slice off their combatant´s head. I learned more about the leaf cutter ant. They have a colony on the premises and I saw the fungus that grows out of the leaves that they chew up. When they are walking with their pieces of leaf, smaller ants often piggy back and inspect the leaves for quality control, and any leaf that is flawed or blemished they will discard before it reaches the colony. Also they are so interdependent that if the queen dies, the entire colony dies because the many pherenomes that she releases helps keep them alive and oriented. I again saw the beautiful jewel scarab beetles, which are pure iridescent gold in colour. She then took me out into their four butterfly gardens with a couple of containers with butterflies in them that had just emerged from their chrysalis indoors, and I got to release them into the gardens. I could swear that I could see joy in their flight as they flew into their new freedom. I learned more about the blue Morphos, which are kind of like the rock stars because of their huge size and their stunning iridescent blue colour. They´re alcoholics! They feed on rotten fruit and the alcohol content makes them all sozzled so they have this wonky kind of flight, kind of like they´re staggering in the air. I wonder if a twelve-step program would help.
On the way back I saw a cow parade on the road, some thirty or so dairy cows walking from one pasture to another, carefully avoiding cars and pedestrians.
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