Costa Rica 6, Thirteenth Day In Monteverde

Lucky Thirteen! It's been quite an uneventful day, so far. I was up at 5:30, finished a drawing, then started a new one, went up for breakfast at around 8:30, met a family from Austen, Texas, originally from India, a couple with their two teenage and tween sons. All quite enthusiastic birders. They seem quite interested in my art. Very nice people. I then went down for a nap of just more than an hour. I am doing this every day now, giving priority to rest. After breakfast I usually linger for another hour or two with my sketchbook, then I return to my room for a bit of a lie down. I am, after all, on vacation. I was greeted by another blue morpho butterfly as I was out walking, then I did a visit at a cafe nearby, but I'm off caffeine today, having had it three days in a row, so today I'm abstaining, with mild withdrawal symptoms, but I really don't feel like getting hooked again, much as I enjoy it. So, instead I had a batido con mora en leche, or a blackberry smoothie made with milk. The moras are rather like blackberries, but they're more a species of tropical loganberry that grow wild in the mountains of Mexico, Central and South America. They are quite lovely, and I always enjoy having batidos de mora or mora jam when I am visiting in Latin America. Folks are leaving me alone today, which works for me since I am a bit peopled out right now. And given how intensely social my work is, it makes getting away alone all the more needful. No, I am not an introvert. I am not an extrovert either. Rather a useless binary, I think, and a lot of people try to use being an introvert, or being an extrovert, as lame excuses for their behaviour. I do enjoy hanging out and chatting with Esteban and his parents, and the communication is one hundred percent in Spanish. I only have trouble with the language, it seems, while doing cash transactions in the store, as people often mumble, or don't clearly enunciate when they want my money, so I often have to ask them to repeat. Otherwise, no problem at all with the language. I did hear a lot of English today in the coffeeshop as an American girl college student really tried to dominate the atmosphere. Quite typical of a lot of the young privileged white folk I see around here, and they're all deplorable. I walked as far as the mall today to replenish my dwindling chocolate supply. It isn't cheap in Monteverde. Then I walked as far as the collective where I enjoyed a very cheap, tasty, substantial and very nutritious Costa Rican meal: beans and rice with cheese, salad, mixed cooked veetables of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and peppers, and some generous strips of plaintain banana. Now I am back at the bed and breakfast, and ready to call it a day. My body is still stiff and sore from yesterday's hike.