Fifth Time In Costa Rica, 1

Gentle Reader, I am giving the trauma theme a rest for a while in order to keep you up to date on my time in Costa Rica. Writing this post is going to be a bit of a challenge because I am in the living room of the bed and breakfast where I´m staying, surrounded by other guests, all old well off Americans and Canadians carping about their health and making other small talk typical of well off rich White North Americans visiting a tropical country. Oh, I just heard that some of them are vegetarian, maybe they´re also a bit interesting. Well, isn´t everybody? In the meantime I´m wearing the earplugs till I´m done writing this. I don´t really feel sociable with this kind of people, probaby because we don´t have a lot in common, and really, it is kind of difficult explaining to other visitors about my reasons for being here. I am not a bucket list tourist, and neither am I interested in what staying here is going to do for me. I do feel a certain connection with the people who live here, or with a lot of them anyway, and I don´t even bother looking at tourist sites, or whatever, because I´d far rather simply be here, observe people, talk to them, make friends if possible, and simply enjoy the real resource of Costa Rica, which is the Costa Rican people. Today, I went for a long walk, taking one of the main roads till it led me well out of Alajuela, the small city by the airport where I´m staying. San Jose, the capital, is nearby, I think around thirty miles or so, but I´m not really sure. There wasn´t anything really interesting to see, just neighbourhoods and shopping strips and tons of tropical vegetatioon. There is something about the beatiful leaves and flowers that really transforms very ordinary and often shabby buildings and gardens. People are reasonably friendly. One fellow even patted me on the shoulder when I said hi to him (in Spanish). I also saw some catle egrets in a field hanging out with...cattle. They are lovely birds, a type of heron, pure White and a bit smaller than our great blue herons. Altogether, it was a three hour walk, and yes, it has been a bit warm, today. I am impressed with how much people here seem to interact with each other. there aren´t that mahy phone zombies here, which I find refreshing. I found a small vegetarian café, run by an Asian family, Chinese, I think, or Taiwanese, as I Heard them speaking Mandarin to each other, but their Spanish is also very good. I had vegetarian sushi, they seem like nice people and I´d like to return. I also found a beautiful courtyard garden in the cultural centre, which also appears to be a music academy. While seated on a bench in the shade with my sketchbook I Heard different people from respective rooms practicing cello and trumpet, and then a young woman practicing her flute in the garden. They sounded rather interesting together, though they were practicing from different spaces and there was a weird sense of counterpoint that appeared to work. Lots of parrots in the trees. The ambience in the room has changed somewhat, there is a family here now. Lots of coming and going right now. I´m going to sign off for now. These people are driving me a bit nuts and this is a very difficult computer, hence the errors and poor formatting. Sorry.