Fifth Time In Costa Rica, 19

It´s been drizzling all day, since last night. Not really a heavy rain, and often there is still a lot of sunshine, and this gives us a lot of rainbows, so it is a day full of rainbows, which for me indicates a day full of hope. On my way back from supper I actually passed through a rainbow, then underneath another one. There is something special about this. This is uncommon weather here for March, and it all looks like climate change. It´s usually hot and dry. Still, the drizzle, or llovizna (pronounced yo-BEEZ-na, or if you´re from Argentina, zho-BEEZ-na, and if you´re unfortunate enough to be from Spain it will sound something like yo-BEETH-na) has been something quite enjoyable to walk in, never really getting you soaked, but cooling and refreshing to be in, even if you´re just out in shirtsleeves as I have been today. It is a bit on the cool side. Hmmm...I just asked Uncle Google, and it says that it is twenty-two degrees right now, but I´m sure it´s less than that. And there is quite a wind blowing again. I woke up after not quite enough sleep, again, though better rested than the last couple of days. There have been a lot of friendly guests here at the bed and breakfast, lately, me among them. Today two German guys who just arrived offered me a ride partway to the cafe I was on my way to. It was a very short ride, but enjoyable. They are from Cologne, a city I have visited, and they seem very nice. Wow, friendly Germans today, and friendly French people here, and bang go the stereotypes! After breakfast and staying to do some art, I was feeling uncommonly tired, so I returned to my room and rested for about two hours. This seems to be an important feature that I often neglect while on vacation, and I´m sure we´re all guilty of this, especially if you´re a consumer bucket list tourist and you have to fit in one thousand places to see and four hundred things to do and eight hundred different places to visit in just twenty-four hours or there will be nothing worth putting on Facebook, or on my blog! I think this is also why I´ve been feeling symptoms of depression today (not one of my diagnoses, in case you´re wondering!). Quite simply, I should be resting more and doing less. Less is more. It was quite lovely, just enough chocolate next to me to keep me quiet as I drifted off into a very profound slumber, then woke up and simply wanted to lay there, looking at all the sun glistening tropical splendour in my window from the huge garden outside. It was just after ten thirty when I pulled myself off the bed, then did a long walk, a mile and a half uphill as far as the entrance to the reserve. I stopped at the hummingbird gallery. Honestly, the visitors just don´t respect the birds, but have to zoom in on their personal space with their bloody cameras and telescopes. No wonder there aren´t as many hummingbirds as there used to be, and I wouldn´t be at all surprised if eventually they all get scared away by those idiots. But I don´t want to blame them too harshly. I have mentioned already on these pages how incomplete and empty a lot of the tourists here appear to be, and with their incredible hunger for beauty, they almost lunge like starving cretins at anything lovely that flies. This makes me, a chronic bird lover for as long as I can remember, wonder how empty in some ways their lives must really be. I mean, I expect that they all have lives, families, loved ones, occupations and hobbies and everything, but I can´t help but wonder about the spiritual hunger and emptiness that so many of us suffer from that makes us lunge mindlessly and stupidly at any object of beauty in our grasp. I have long beleved in the importance of respecting birds and other wildlife, and I only wish that some of the nature guides here in Costa Rica, and elsewhere, would try to reinforce this idea for those poor barmy birders. Maybe some of them do, but it just doesn´t sink in. We just went through a particularly stormy patch the last few minutes. The wind was really blowing and it got quite dark here with the clouds and rain. The storm seems to have passed for now. After walking to the reserve I backtracked and just continued walking in tranquil places where I had a lovely visit with a flying morpho butterfly. Try to imagine a brilliant electric blue light pulsating in midair and you´ll get an idea of how they look when they´re flying. I also saw a lot of cows. One had escaped from the pasture and was contentedly grazing by the highway. I spent almost three hours in the Café Caburé, enjoying a brownie with ice cream and coffee while working on a drawing, and watching the tropical forest and the thousands of different shades of green in the leaves, through the mist of the falling drizzle and the varying sunshine. I had some enjoyable chats with two of the waitresses working there. It´s been very quiet today, and this seems like a perfect note for concluding this page. A hug from Monteverde.