Costa Rica 6, Fifth Day In Monteverde

Nothing noteworthy today. I am still waiting for word about whether they will give me the same deal as last year for the cloud forest reserve, where I would have to pay only once, then all the other visits are free. Till then, I'm not going, since it does cost around twenty-seven dollars Canadian to get in, and my budget is pretty limited. likewise for restaurants. I eat mostly at cheap places, from time to time dining in a nice establishment as a treat. Everyone here, or almost everyone, seems to want your money. Monteverde has turned into one huge cash grab since becoming world-famous. This has been, of course, inevitable. Costa Rica is not a rich country, and the tourist industry seems to have turned otherwise lovely people into bottom-feeding hucksters. I am glad to say that some Ticos, for example, my hosts here at Mariposa, are above this. Likewise a lot of the people I encounter on the road or elsewhere. But there are still a lot of sharks in this pond, unfortunately, and it really seems to be the inevitable fruit of global capitalism. All money, zero ethics. And a lot of this, naturally, comes from foreign interests. An estate just down the hill has added three very aggressive guard dogs that come rushing and barking and growling at anyone who happens to walk by. This never used to happen here. On my first trip here in 94, the dogs were all friendly! But I think the beauty of Monteverde, similar to Vancouver, has also attracted a lot of wealthy, and ethically challenged, parties, who keep trying to buy everything up, transforming this place into one big money laundromat. I really hope it doesn't get worse, in either place. I spent the morniing in the bed and breakfast where, after breakfast, I finshed a new drawing,, then walked from here to Santa Elena and back again, stopping first for a cold drink in a cafe where I finished the drawing, then later in a new resturant for a late lunch or early dinner. It wasn't much and today I have spent maybe around ten bucks, and if I get hungry later, there is lots of trail mix and chocolate in my room. They are gradually putting in more sidewalks on the main road here. It is a very slow process and, I imagine, the government is very seletive with its generosity for such projects. The only thing that really kills me are the long hikes up very steep hills to get to where I want to go. I think that most of us hate walking uphill or up stairs, even though it's supposed to be good for us. Even if I'm doing very little on this trip, I from time to time just remind myself that that is exactly what I am here for, very little, and I will happily let the consumer tourists bust their backsides rushing around like idiots to see and do everything, while I simply continue to relax at a healthy pace.

Costa Rica 6, Fourth Day In Monteverde

It's been raining off and on all day. This is not a bad thing, and for a couple of reasons. First of all, Monteverde has been having an exceptionally dry year, so the moisture is much needed and appreciated. Secondly, it hasn't been raining hard, just a light drizzle. Thirdly, the sun has been shining almost constantly. Fourthly, with the wind, it has been very refreshing to walk, and the drizzle is so light that an umbrella is not needed. And fifthly, there was one constant rainbow that I was walking towards for over an hour while on my way back to the bed and breakfast from Santa Elena. There is a friend of the family here who has a craft store and art gallery in Santa Elena and she is interested in showing some of my art. I will try to meet with her this week. This whole day has been rather pleasant. I had a nice visit during breakfast with a couple from New Jersey. The husband is from France, and he is the one I heard speaking Spanish in a French accent the other day. Very nice people. They have a landscaping company and they seem to be totally stoked about the the birds and the natural beauty and diversity here in Costa Rica. People are for the most part nice and friendly here. The only unfriendly people I have encountered, so far, all seem to be American students. At a couple of different cafes servers have been particularly interested in talking to me about my art, since they see me working on something when I'm there. It's also just nice that people want to reach out and chat like that. And the Spanish practice is a bonus. The sunsets here are particularly glorious. I only wish you could see them, and I don't have a camera or phone, you know why, so please let's not start on this again. I have never seen a rainbow last so long as the one that was there for more than an hour during my walk back, this afternoon. The only sad thing is that no one else seemed to even notice it, which is kind of too bad. I guess people have their priorities. I for one have never been able to not notice something so beautiful as a rainbow, and this must make me a bit odd. Well, I could do worse, I suppose. I also got to meet and pet a friendly cat on my walk, and I saw another morpho butterfly today. Lots of tourists here, of course. I chatted a bit with a table of friendy Germans of a certain age. They all seemed to have a nice sense of humour. Yes, I did say they were German! I am every bit as surprised as you, Gentle Reader, but, hey, half my DNA is German, and I turned out okay. Well, sort of. Right now I am seated in the reception area of the Mariposa with the laptop that Esteban has been so kind to lend to me while I'm here. I also am allowed to keep it in my room, but when I get back in the late afternoons and early evenings after dinner, I like to work on it here in the reception area, since the human contact is rather nice, something that one appreciates while travelling alone. All for now, folks.

Costa Rica 6, Third Day In Monteverde

I exhausted myself today. There is a huge hill that goes down to San Luis, a small farming community nearby. I'm not sure of the distance, but it is very steep and it is even a bit of a challenge walking downhill. I went anyway. San Luis is like something out of a surrealist landscape, or a novel written in magic realism. There are green pastures with cows and trees whose branches are covered with moss and bromeliads, and forest areas as well. One can walk an entire road without encountering a human soul, which really intensifies the magic realism. There is also a forest trail that I explored a bit of last year, but didn't go very far, since I was alone, in an isolated area, and who knows what could happen. Snake bite, sprained ankle, falling down a ravine, they are all possibilities and they do happen to dumb, reckless solo travellers, like me, who don't even know the area, nor have shown the courtesy of at least first informing their hospitality providers about their mad adventure. Guilty as charged. I happened to be on the grounds of a small university campus, the University of Georgia (don't ask, long story), and came out on the Casa de Profesores, or the professors' house. It appeared to be unoccupied, so I sat in the shade of the porch and rested for a while. I didn't finish the trail because it got very steep going down a ravine and I didn't want to have to make the huge climb back up, nor did I want to put myself at any further unnecessary risk. I did come out on another network of trails to the botanical garden. It turned out that my presence was unauthorized, but that didn't seem to matter, since I was the only one present. On my way back up the hill I encountered Esteban and his Mom, Luz-Mery, who are members of the family who are my hosts here and we chatted a bit. I assured them I'd be okay, then they drove on to visit some relatives. It was very steep climbing going back up the hill and I tried to do it in segments, stopping to rest on a rock or a shelf of dry turf on the way. Almost everyone driving by would smile and wave, something that never happens in Canada, and it is nice that people here are so welcoming. When I arrived at the lookout, I sat for around a half hour on one of the two benches, just resting and taking in the view. The mountains on the right are dry and parched looking, the ones on the left are all lush and green from the clouds blowing in from the ocean, so this gives an idea of the various micro-climates here. On the way down I had also stopped at this lookout where I chatted for a while with a young local couple who were on their way to the weekly soccer match down in San Luis. Even if the climb was hard, it is a cool day, sometimes with clouds blowing in carrying enough cool drizzle to refresh, but not to make everything too wet, and the wind has been cool and comforting. I saw another blue morpho butterfly today, and this one flew back towards me, as though to say hi again. Look them up on Google. They are positively enchanting. I am back now in the bed and breakfast, typing this post in the reception area, and I'm also sticking around just in case Esteban's dad, Rafael, who just speaks Spanish, might need someone to translate for him should any non-Spanish-speaking guests need anything. So far, so good, and one of the couple who did come in does speak Spanish, with rather a thick French accent (please don't ask, I couldn't begin to describe it). All for now.

Costa Rica 6, Second Day In Monteverde

It's been rather an actively inactive day. I tried to explore a road above the bed and breakfast, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere, so I did some roadside walks, stopped to look at a herd of cattle, saw a morpho butterfly, then a blue crowned motmot, a beautiful and common bird in these parts. As I do not have a camera or a cell phone (because I do not make a living wage), and something happened to this page a couple of years ago so that I cannot add images to my blogposts, I am afraid that you are going to have to look for the images. A bit of a loss, I fear. But enough minor complaints. Even though I have to accept certain trade-offs and sacrifices in order to make these trips, they're still more than worth it. I know, some of you think I deprive myself, I am sure, but since when did having a smart phone become a necessity? Those things are luxuries and I don't care if some of you are addicted to your little tech toys, because in the long run, you could easily live without them. It's all about priorities, I suppose. But some of you, like me, will remember a time when all we had was rotary phones and TV and we still did okay. Yes, dear, we also had toilet paper in those days! And the wheel had already been invented and fire had already been discovered. So, this is what travel without a phone is like. It can be a bit inconvenient, since there are no convenient apps at my fingertips. On the other hand, I think this lack also leaves me more open to my surroundings, and more inclined to engage with those around me. And on this trip, it seems to be happening in spades. I really can't understand travel without engaging with the people who live there. I know, a lot of people do this, and I have ranted on ad nauseum about it, and I am ranting some more. Yes, it is great and lovely to be able to get on a plane and fly halfway across the world and arrive at your destination the same day you left your own country. And it is also wonderful seeing places, sights and things that even a couple of generations ago would have been beyond the reach of some people. And, yes, I know that some people prefer to travel just to see things and not necessarily to engage with people. By the same token, I also trust that you are aware that there is a certain rule of etiquette regarding how we treat our hosts, and when you are visiting a foreign country, this makes you a guest in someone else's home, and, like it or not, every single person who lives in that country, even the poorest and most wretched, is also your host. This runs completely against the grain of consumer tourism, and I really wish that more people would travel with the idea that they are guests in someone else's home, and with a desire to learn, engage and contribute. Of course this is going to be easier if you already speak the language, but for heaven's sake, Gentle Reader, at least give it a try. Okay, you can stop yawning now. So, what else did I do today? I sat on the long balcony of Cafe Caburé, where I sat with a coffee and a brownie and salsa de mora, which is a sauce made fron a local wild blackberry. The view from this balcony is stupendous, lots of trees and lovely birds. Tourists come here a lot. I had some really enjoyable conversations in Spanish with the server, who is a young woman living in the area, and also with the owner, who is Argentinian, and also likes to do some language exchange with me. After another long walk, I returned for an early dinner, and had to bring back to the bed and breakfast half of my pizza, which will serve me for dinner tomorrow.

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.

Costa Rica No. 6, In Alajuela

I didn't do a lot today. I slept poorly and went back down to sleep between 4 and 8 am, but managed less than 2 hours, so altogether, I had less than six hours, but still not too bad, considering. This often happens, and I'm sleeping on a harder than usual mattress, so my back gets a bit sore. I spent breakfast mostly visiting with the young Nicaraguan (he's 20), who lives and works here. He is also learning to put more cheese in my omelette. He is in Costa Rica for better work opportunities, much as people come to Canada from elsewhere for the same kinds of reasons. Then the new owner of the bed and breakfast came in and we sat and chatted for a while, all in Spanish. He is in his thirties, married with a little boy. I could tell he was from San José, the capital city here. I have spent enough time in this country so that I can now tell the difference. Josefinos, as they like to be called, are pretty slick and smooth and sophisticated, and they are very adept at getting what they want. He is a nice, agreeable sort (the previous owner, whom I saw today in the afternoon, would care to differ, but I'll tell you about that a bit later, Gentle Reader) and we seem to get on well. Following breakfast, I went for a long walk through Alajuela and beyond (I started with some quiet time in the cathedral, which seems to have become my starting point while in Alajuela) and found myself in some rather gritty neighbourhoods. Then this younger, hard-bitten looking guy in a muscle shirt tried to get my attention. I excused myself politely in Spanish, and quickened my pace a little. Then a woman, evidently a sex worker, tried to get my attention (as I suspect the guy, maybe her boyfriend, might also be), and I picked up my pace some more, of course after politely declining. When I don't feel quite safe, I don't tend to hang around. A bit later, I gave some coins to a disabled man seated on the pavement, then a much fitter looking fellow held out his hand in my face and asked me for, or demanded from me, a dollar. I told him he would have to check with the fellow I just gave to, and kept walking. By the way, I don't mind visiting different neighbourhoods, since this helps give me a better idea of how people live here. In a way, it's like adding fibre to my diet. By the same token, I only wish that more people visiting Vacouver would actually visit the Downtown Eastside, which is also known as Canada´s Poorest Postal Code to help round out their perceptions of my fair and dumb-blond city. I really hate the kind of consumer tourism that gets promoted everywhere, especially ads that feature all-inclusives that show actors and models, all of them flawlessly good-looking, or probably flawlessly photoshopped, dressed expensively and impeccably, dining, dancing, swimming, gambling, getting pissed to the gills, and doing all the lame and vapid stuff that all-inclusive resorts are notorious for. I really gag at this kind of advertising, since 1. very few people are that young and good-looking and ostentatiously well-off, 2. they are never anywhere near as happy as their fake smiles and laughter would indicate, 3. they merit compassion rather than envy because they and everyone else are expected to swallow that kind of dangerous and soul-destroying Koolaid. Even if I did look like those people (and to tell the trth, I'm glad that I don't), I still wouldn't want to be there. Give me regular human beings any old day, just the way that God made them. After returning to the bed and breakfast for a short rest I went to the same cafe at the mall as yesterday, for a cold drink on the patio while beginning a new drawing. The previous owner of the bed and breakfast, a Canadian like me, came over to say hi and we ended up chatting for some time. It turns out that according to him he was shafted by the new owners. I am not going to take sides, since I do not know the details. This is one of those nuanced narratives where no one seems to win. Especially given that my Canadian friend is the perceived other in this equation. Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle, and really, since when do all of us conduct ourselves like impeccable little saints in the game of life? Certainly neither Canadians nor Costa Ricans, nor anyone else. For example, today I saw quite a lot of visible homelessness, but until Canada, a first world nation, gets its act together and starts taking better care of our own disadvantaged, we have no right to finger wag. And the beast goes on. Lovely weather today, Gentle Reader. Hot and sunny, but the strong wind all day has cooled things rather nicely. By the way, here's a little metaphor to play with your minds a bit. When you walk through any residential neighbourhood in Costa Rica, or in any other Latin American country, you will notice that a lot of the houses are protected by metal bars in front, so almost everyone seems to live behind bars. I'm not quite sure what to do with this one. Tomorrow, I am on my way to Monteverde, and the place where I'll be staying is not protected by bars. All for now, ducks!

Costa Rica no. 6. Arrival

This is my sixth time here in Costa Rica, my sixth time in Alajuela, and it will be my sixth time in Monteverde. Thrilling. I have visited other spots in this country, but I also feel a strong connection to these two places. I'm also kind of lazy when it comes to travel, and if a new place works for me, I am very likely to keep coming back. I am not a bucket list traveller, and as well as being lazy, I am also prone to forming relationships, lasting friendships if possible, with people who live in these places. This also squares very soundly with some of my core values, which are about valuing persons over experiences. This is not user-friendly, and I am not user-friendly, because I really am opposed to the consumerist mentality that seems to have engulfed nearly everyone who lives on this planet. Way too many pigs at the trough. My one concern about writing a travel journal this time is that I don't think that many of you are going to find it very interesting, Gentle Reader, unless you are each going to be willing to forget about novelties and focus instead on the human lives that surround us wherever we might happen to go. If there is a theme to this trip, then it's probably going to be focussed more on some of my own perceptions and observations. I am also treating this trip, as I tend to do with all of my travels, as a kind of do-it-yourself CBT, or, Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy. Which is to say, I am taking some of the kinds of situations that usually drive me up the wall at home in Vancouver, and I am going to try to put a different cast on them while I am here in a foreign country. Well, the challenge is on, ever since both my flights yesterday. I am very used to insulating myself from others, which is kind an urban coping strategy that afflicts anyone who lives in close proximity with others, and I happen to live downtown, and I hate being reminded that others are also nearby. Anyone who has flown economy class already knows that most first world of problems, which is being crammed face in ass with complete strangers at 37,000 feet in the air. This, I think, is why a lot of plane passengers won't even talk to the person next to them. But I decided some time ago to not be that way, and for the most part I have been pleasantly surprised. I haven't made any best friends forever this way, and often my neighbouring passengers and I have only exchanged a few friendly words. Sometimes the conversations have lasted nearly the entire flight. It really doesn't matter, because I think the near proximity, especially if people are sleeping next to each other, does something on a deep level that connects us to one another, whether we happen to like it or not. On both my flights to Costa Rica yesterday, I exchanged hardly a word with my seat mates but, especially on the second flight, there was a sense that we liked each other and were quite comfortable close together, a young Australian woman who spent most of the flight sleeping, on my left, and a young Quebecois man on my right who spent a lot of time on his laptop. I am further testing out this theory here on my first day in Costa Rica. But this also means giving others a chance to come around on their own terms and to build on that. For example, the Slovenian family at the breakfast table that spoke entirely their native language. But there was a friendly vibe there, plus, I think that only the wife spoke English. Then there was the young Costa Rican guest seated at my left, too involved with his precious little phone to give me the time of day, or so it seemed. Then I just asked him a couple of leading questions and we had a really interesting conversation for the next thirty minutes or so. Among other things, we talked about Costa Rica's status as one of the few, if not the only, country in the world that doesn't have a military (it was abolished in 1948). I suggested to him that that could be the reason why the people in Costa Rica seem so relaxed and friendly, because they aren't living under the stress of militarization. He agreed with me, then added as a caveat that that could also be the reason why some young Costa Ricans, especially men, tend to be rather lazy and irresponsible, because they lack discipline. Any of you, my Gentle Reader, remember how if any young man seemed like an irresponsible good-for-nothing, then what was needed to cure him was two years in the army? Well, I do sort of agree with that, given that there is nothing like having a sargent on steroids breathing fire down your neck and otherwise busting your ass for you day after day after day. I even wonder if here in Canada, we should institute for young men between ages eighteen and twenty, two years of compulsory community service, but not military. I really fail to see a silver lining in teaching people how to kill, but on the other hand, some asses need to be kicked, and kicked rather hard. Alajuela is a small city, quite laid back, quite gritty, but also full of flowers and fragrance. It gets pretty hot during the day, temperatures often rising above thirty, but it is often breezy which cools things down a bit. I visited the cathedral, where I sat in the middle, between two open doors and enjoyed the cross current of cool air and the sweet fragrance of flowers from the adjoining gardens. Then I explored the market, where I bought new earbuds, since the ones I brought with me broke on the plane. It is your classic indoor Latino market and you can get almost anything there. It looks rather like what the Granville Island Market purports to be, but still isn't, not even after forty years of trying. I took a long walk in the sun on a road leading into a rural area, then on the way back stopped in a patio cafe at a mall for a milkshake and coffee. Later, when I tried to order coffee, I had to try three times, and still didn't get the waiter's attention. Finally, I asked a customer who was evidently a friend of his if she would ask him for me (Spanish fluency really has its rewards here). He was embarrassed and a bit grumpy at first but quickly got over it after I humoured him a bit. Of course, I also could have taken it personally and too seriously, but really, what's the point? After I returned to the bed and breakfast, following an early dinner in a local Mexican restaurant (don't ask), a Canadian visitor from Toronto asked if I could translate for her and the staff, who doesn't speak English, which I did and it worked out well. I have told staff that any time I can help this way, just let me know. Then, my laptop stopped functioning because the battery is suddenly dead and they don't have the right kind of cable here for plugging it in, so it looks like I'm back to relying on the kindness of my hosts for internet access. Fortunately they are very kind here. Really, as i get older, I am really treating these trips abroad, and by extension life itself, as performance art. All for now.