voy en bici por la playa. aqui pasandola...

A rapid segue into current events... from Puerto Jimenez to Dominical to San Jose... on a plane to Florida (aka Hell) for a month... on a plane to Philadelphia to Delaware ... drove across the U.S. - Pennsylvania, Maryland, the greasy nauseating midwest, Kansas (surprisingly beautiful), Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and arrived on July 3rd at my new home here in Escondido, southern California. I go to Tijuana almost every Saturday. I am "settling" in, I have a new job at an Internet marketing firm as of two weeks ago (and it kicks ass so far). I haven't partied since Costa Rica, and I have been hanging out with a bunch of Christians. So the days go. It's way past my bedtime.

Paz y amor

Backwash Beach, Matapalo

I have arrived back in reality, a bit jungle-worn and infinitely more content as of late. Last week I left Cerro Osa, bound for Puerto Jimenez with all of my belongings and a burning fear that I would be returning to Florida within the week. I was pessimistic about securing a new job as a gringa without a work visa. I ended up running into the owner of the internet cafe in town, who I was working with at Cerro Osa on the hydroelectric system, told him of my trials and tribulations on the mountain, and that I was scouting some work. The next day I started work... a general description of my new job, back to web site management, doing some part-time lodge management out near Corcovado National Park when the manager takes his 4 days off per month, and managing reservations for hotels, tours, flights, etc. It's nice to have independence from the work environment and most importantly access to communication and a social life. So, there are infinitely more things that have passed since I've last updated, I'm not sure where to pick up the pieces, but it's been a long day of translating and my brain needs a massage. I'll make a half-ass attempt to fill in the holes on what's happening down here in fantasyland, and keep up with this thing again.

~Buenas noches~

Vamos a Panama :: March 8, 2006

Puerto Jimenez a Golfito

Caribbean-bound, onward to Bocas del Toro

flying over the primary forest

alvaro's cessna 206
formerly tapir and monkey

Sirena station, Corcovado National Park

the landing strip

Pacific Ocean

I hope my sappy, vomit-worthy e-mail found you all well. A quick addendum here will have to do for I am pressed for time. It´s quite intriguing how the dynamics of a place can change with the addition of new people. Not only did we have ten of the Shitamas with us for the holidays (they left yesterday), but two of them have stayed to work until June. Marico and her lovebird Loren are 22 and 24, respectively, and my opinion of my living situation again has turned around... you´re probably all sick of me changing my mind, but you must be used to it by now. Marico has an iPod (i got to hear one of my favorite tunes, Etta James - If I Can´t Have You and some Marvin Gaye... how sweet it was), and also we are awaiting the container this week from the states (which is passing through customs in San Jose right now), which has a bunch of goodies on it: a bose stereo system, two bicycles, a kayak, a portable bandsaw mill, lots of cookbooks, a computer... basically most of the things that I´ve been missing. I´ve also had more work to do, and we started a grand gardening project that keeps me busy and loving life. Yesterday we transplanted 100 birds of paradise, and there´s an infinite amount more to do. Today I got to ride the quad into town to do some errands (and I haven´t been online in almost two weeks so it´s quite a treat)... a beautiful, hour-long drive through the rainforest and along the Golfo Dulce, passing monkeys and morphos is just the usual. I have been eating like a queen and have free reign in the kitchen... pizza from scratch, spanish rice, homemade alfredo sauce, fresh fish, on and on, I love to cook... So, all-in-all I still am weary of the snakes (though we haven´t found any terciopelos in two weeks), and it´s something I´m willing to live with. I went for a great seven-hour hike on Friday with Zach (one of the Shitamas) and we didn´t see any snakes...

So, about that hike. We decided to hike down the Cayunda River that´s accessible just below the house. Since we´re both pretty much insane, we jointly decided when we arrived at a waterfall (only about 6 meters high) that, instead of turning around, we would jump in the pool below with no chance of getting back up that way and we would instead continue hiking on all the way to the Pacific Ocean (which at the closest point is 4 km from the house). There are a few reasons this was probably not the smartest idea... we didn´t bring any snacks (though we did have water), we had no idea how far the hike would be, we started hiking a little late in the day (around 11 a.m.), and the only form of light we had was a lighter (for smoking spliffs in the rainforest, of course - sorry mom). At what seemed to be about 4:00 p.m., heading east (remember, we were looking for the Pacific ocean), with only two hours of light left, we seriously contemplated the fact that we would be left to sleep on the banks of the river with no lights (and the moon had set earlier in the day so we were shit out of luck on that front). Anyways, we luckily didn´t hit any mangroves (with crocs) and the river was relatively shallow most of the way (though we had to climb down a few waterfalls)... we found a trail to the main road around 4:45 p.m. and oh my how good it felt to take off my soaking socks and rubber boots. My feet were mushy... so now, all we had to do was get back to the house. We ended up walking about a half kilometer up the road where we found Adrian Forsyth´s property. We walked up his road and found his house. This house was sooo nice, right on the ocean, beautiful dark wood shutters, high bookshelves, spiral staircase, swimming pool... a modestly rich tropical home. If Adrian had been there I´d imagine he´d have been smoking a pipe in a lightweight silk robe on an armchair reading a book about beetles. Anyways, we scared the crap out of the caretaker´s wife, curlers in her hair, the only one on the property. We had been snooping around through Adrian´s open house, exhausted and dirty as hell, looking for someone so we could use the radio to call for a ride. Anyways, all worked out and then we went to Puerto Jimenez and hung out with Erick and partied at the disco. Gotta love it here.

Well, it´s almost 1 p.m. and the grocery store will be re-opening. Hope you all have a happy and safe new year´s eve...ciao.