Costa Rica 6: First Day In Monteverde

This is my sixth time here, and it rather feels like coming home now. Of course, I don't live here, and probably never will, which also makes Monteverde such a lovely place to visit. I suppose this wouldn't be much different from Vancouver, a beautiful place to visit, or, so I am told, but really when you live in one of the most coveted cities in the world, it is easy to get jaded after a while. It is rather like being married to an extremely beautiful person, and living with them, you alone are going to come to know their every flaw, until they cease to appear beautiful, and you find yourself bitterly complaining about that dumb blond you are shackled to, whether that dumb blond should happen to be your partner or Vancouver. Everyone else simply is not going to get it should they hear you complain about your beloved's many flaws and imperfections, and simply their eyes are just going to glaze over. I do have to admit that the bloom has for some time now been off the rose for me as far as Monteverde is concerned, but where else am I going to see toucans, quetzals, motmots, and other wonderful birds in their wild state? Well, those birds also live in other places, but I am kind of lazy and I often like to stick with what I already know, besides which, I have friends here now and I really enjoy seeing them. The trip over here yesterday was fairly uneventful, except that I nearly missed my bus, and that woud have been a disaster, given that I would have to wait again till the next day, and there was no assurance that there would be a vacancy for me at the bed and breakfast I had just left. I had the same cab driver as last year, and it was nice that we remembered each other. He is a very friendly, warm Christian man with two kids, 11 months and 8 years old. Last year, when Juan Carlos drove me to the airport eleven months ago, he mentioned that his wife was just about to go into labour. I really savour these wonderful human connections. The bus ride was smooth and uneventful, but for eighteen kilometres uphill of a rocky and unpaved dirt road near the end of the journey. This place is very isolated. Even in Costa Rica, in some ways it's like being in a different country. The pace of life is much calmer and people appear less driven. It is also quite expensive to live here, I am told, so a lot of Ticos never make it here, not even to visit, the prices being so high by Tico standards. But there are also a lot of people of average or modest means who have lived in the area for generations and they are not about to let foreign investment or creeping gentrification or globalization drive them off their land. The people here are very deeply and viscerally connected to this place. I'm so far staying well within budget, without depriving myself too much, though in a couple of days, to reward myself for being good, I will likely eat in a nicer place. People are generally friendly and kind here, and there is an abundance of tourists and very pale looking students from various northern points, whom all seem almost universally unfriendly. A lot of the tourists are okay, though, and generally have better manners than some of the life forms that I am told inhabit all-inclusive resorts. Last night I visited with the family who own the bed and breakfast, sitting around their kitchen table with them for a snack and a chat. This is very much a privilege, and I am not going to take them for granted. This morning, following breakfast, I was working on a drawing and had a nice chat with their seven year old daughter, the kid I have been trading art with on each recent visit. I was showing her a bit of my process for doing art. She seemed very open to my ideas and was absorbing well. She seems like quite a bright kid. I also told her mom that I am open to helping her or anyone she knows with English, for the price of some Spanish conversation as well. Great deal, eh? And since I will be helping them with good Canadian English, their first assignment will be on how to master the word, "Eh?" Today I went for a long walk into the town, Santa Elena, and beyond, then tried a road previously unknown to me. There was a hand-painted sign on the roadside with the words "No es que su carga se hace caer sino su manera de llevarla" or it isn't so much the burden that makes you fall, but your way of carrying it. As I believe that I was purposely led to take that road, I am going to receive those words as wise counsel for me during my stay here. I saw some lovely and interesting birds, chiefly a lot of very hungry hummingbirds clustering around the flowering vine outside the window during breakfast, and later in the trees a troupial. You will have to look it up on Google if you want to see what they look like. The wind is very powerful and strong, and rather cool and it roars like thunder in the trees. This place has a wild and savage beauty, and I am confident that Monteverde will successfully resist and overcome all the human depredations that threaten this magical place. Of course, here they are also seeing climate change. It has been much dryer than usual, and with a lot more wind than usual for this time of year especially.