Costa Rica 17

Let me begin with this public declaration.  I have found my missing pen.  It was in my jeans pocket all this time.  I have mentioned this to the manager and the chambermaid is exonerated.

I have just witnessed one of the more spectacular of the many spectacular sunsets that seem to occur here every day.  Sorry, but I have no images to furnish, Gentle Reader, and you are simply going to have to apply your imagination.

I had a lengthy chat at breakfast with the youngest son of the family here.  He would be twenty and speaks flawless English.  His accent is actually Canadian and I even told him, in Spanish, that if he was in Canada (he has never been to Canada or the US), no one would know he´s Latin American, nor even care, since everybody lives in Canada.  He says he learned English at school here in Monteverde and also from his many English speaking friends and acquaintances in the Gringo community here.

I walked into Santa Elena today, stopping to work on a drawing in the bakery cafe.  Two different women, one British, the other American-Australian stopped to comment and asked if I was selling any of my drawings here.  I tend to be noncommital when this comes up, and just say that it isn´t a stated goal but I am open to the idea, so, who knows?  At a supermarket in Santa Elena I bought different packages of nuts, raisins and chocolate covered peanuts and raisins to add to my dwindling supply of trail mix.  I try to bring a big container of trail mix with me when I travel since I can never be sure of the nutritional balance I´m getting while on the road. 

Later, in the soda, I chatted for a while with one of the ladies who works there.  She was curious about my art materials, since she hasn´t seen this kind of variety of colours in Costa Rica, and I told her, all in Spanish of course, how you can get almost anything in Vancouver.  We also talked about blackflies, and wasps and venemous snakes. 

It´s been a cool and damp sort of day and a lot of people were dressed like it´s winter and they were in Canada.  It really wasn´t that cold, perhaps sixteen or seventeen degrees and I was out in my shirtsleeves.  The sun did come out for a while and it was spectacular.  It rained quite a bit last night and this morning, making the road muddy for a while in places, but much better than all the dust the last couple of days and the strong winds and the big vehicles blowing it into our faces and eyes.  The wind is always strong here.  It is awe-inspiring!

So, Gentle Reader, your humble scribe is sore from hiking and climbing hills, tired and almost out of things to say tonight.  God bless all of us.