Costa Rica 6, Eighth Day In Monteverde

I didn't do a lot today, but I'm not here to do a lot, so, after breakfast and an hour and a half or so working on a drawing, I went down for a forty minute nap and didn't leave the compound until noon, which is okay. I'm not hear to empty my bucket list. Heck, I don't even have a bucket list! During breakfast, I met a nice Scottish couple from Edinburgh and we had a pleasant chat. Then with a Canadian couple from Huntsville, Ontario. They were married in Costa Rica years ago, and the husband was first here in Monteverde in 1995, one year after my visit, so we were able to commisserate about how much has changed here. They were trying to identify a huge species of moth that they couldn't get any search results for, much as I haven't been able to find out the identity of a very unusual looking wasp that I saw only one time in the Cloud Forest nine years ago. It could even be, as I mentioned to them, that we actually saw new and unidentified species. Who only knows? I walked about a kilometre or so down a side road, which is very pastoral with cows and pastures and trees. I am also most likely to see a morpho butterfly there (the giant blue ones), and today I was not disappointed. Then I continued along to another coffeeshop. The manager or owner started talking to me in English, so I asked him in Spanish, ¿Porque piensas que hable Ingles?, or What makes you think that I speak English? He got it right away, and then we had a laugh about it, I told him that English is my mother tongue but they would have to guess what country I'm from. we all had fun with it, then after, one of his staff sat and visited with me for a bit and told me about his involvement in a symphony orchestra and that he pays viola-cello. We had a very interesting chat about classical music. He and his coworker indicated that they would like to practice English with me, so I said okay, but the price is going to be a few sentences in Spanish. I had a lovely cup of coffee, even more expensive that what we usually pay for it in Vancouver. When he heard me complain good-naturedly, he charged me the local price instead, which is around a buck less, and yes, ducks, there is in Monteverde a price for the locals and another, and higher price for the tourists. For me, this is a bit ironic, given that I certainly no longer feel like a tourist but I have come to view tourists here as the other, which is kind of dumb, given that I am also an outsider here, but I don't really feel like an outsider. But I don't exactly feel like a local, which I certainly am not. It's kind of an in-between place, or should I say, it's neither nor. But this has been my experience almost everywhere, ever since I was a teenager, kind of a sense of belonging and not belonging, of being everywhere and nowhere and somehow none of this is experienced as a contradiction, nor even a paradox, but as a perfectly natural and rational state of being. It might be easier to try to explain the Holy Trinity. No wonder I drove my psychiatrist nuts. So after a lovely cup of coffee, a lovely slab of chocolate cake (and it was lovely), and a lovely chat with the lovely staff, I resumed my lovely walk where I stopped for a lovely rest on the lovely bench at the new lovely lookout point. Isn't it all lovely? Okay, as soon as you've stopped screaming and calmed down a bit, ducks, I will resume writing, and I promise to stop using the word lovely for a while. Suddenly, a young woman sat down right net to me. it felt a bit odd, but I don't think she was trying to pick me up, she just wanted to chat with someone. So we had a chat in Spanish. Turns out she's from Santiago de Chile. Really nice lady. I resumed walking and stopped in that place ib the mall for a bite to eat. The server seeed to be in a bd mood, and I am trying to not take it personally, since one never knows with people, but I had a good cheap meal, then walked back. I also befriended a couple of animals on the way. One is a beautiful calico cat with a short tail who loves to be petted. Then, on the way bck, there was a smallish hound dog walking just ahead of me. He looked like he might be part beagle. Since I have often been attacked or threatened by aggressive dogs, I am generally cautious about befriending a strange dog, so I just kept walking and let him be. Then, as I passed the estate with the three vicious guard dogs, they started barking and threatening both me and the small dog. He came over to me, and I sensed he was looking for consolation, so we made friends and he followed me to the bed and breakfast, really a very sweet doggy, but I think he´s found his way home. One other insight, Gentle Reader, that I wanted to share with you from yesterday, but since the post was already so long that I didn't want to bore you further: When I was in the cloud forest yesterday, I found myself thinking about how all this glorious tangled diversity of glorious and complex life, of which we are members, all comes from the dirt. We are all expressions of dirt. This is such a humbling concept. It reminds me of the creation story from Genesis, where it says that God made us from the dust of the earth, then breathed life into us.