Thanks for the comments and messages, everyone. Sorry the weather in Paris and elsewhere (Adelaide's drought) are so bad. Please keep in touch. I loved Tortuguero! We had three river trips (see my photos) and I had fun at my hotel. Spent some time reading in a hammock and "playing" in the waves. I say "playing" because it was very hard to swim. Lots of waves and a very strong undertow, so nobody goes in more than waist-deep. Modestro "drove" us back this morning (3 hours) by boat down the rivers and canals to Moin, the port of Limon,where there were [View Full Entry]

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I'm now at Tortuguero National Park, where I'm spending two nights in a room right on the Caribbean. I have some wonderful photos, but these will have to wait since this computer is very slow and it would take hours to upload them. Yesterday, I came to the coast yesterday in a minivan which belongs to Modesto Watson, who is a Nicaraguan who's lived 30 years in Costa Rica. He and his American wife Fran have a small tour company that takes people on the waterways of the Park. We drove to Mion and then got into a boat. Modesto is [View Full Entry]

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Well, I arrived in Costa Rica safe and sound on Saturday and have been staying near here since then at the home of my friends, Susan and Harry Liang, whom I met at a party in Paris about five years ago. I couldn’t believe the number of tourists -mostly Americans--at the airport. Apparently, 2 million people visit this country a year, whereas the total population of Costa Rica is only 4 million! I had to wait about an hour in a long, slow-moving line just to show the immigration agent my passport. Luckily, my friends had sent Marvin Alvarez to [View Full Entry]

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Before talking about my trips to "Chichi" and Guatemala City, I'd like to give some information and impressions about living and studying here. Not knowing exactly how to go about settling in here on my own, I went through (and paid the $150 donation they asked for) the Proyecto Mosaico, which is a German NGO with an affiliate in the U.S. (www.promosaico.org). In addition to giving me a cultural orientation session, they found me a family to live with ($75 a week for a room with shared bath and 3 meals a day except on sundays), a good language school, and [View Full Entry]

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This morning I changed families. I liked the family where I was and will be returning to stay with them when I come back to Antigua for Semana Santa, but I wanted to have another experience with a different family in another part of town for this coming week. The new family is composed of Lucky Morales and her husband Jose and their three grown children who still live at home. I met one of the daughters at lunch; she is a forest engineer. The other one is a dentist, and the son is still at university studying to be a [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to Lago de Atitlan was really great--except for the shuttle bus ride up there. We had to pick up a lot of people before leaving Antigua, the seating was uncomfortable, and the roads very windy. But we arrived safe and sound in Panajachel and then took a boat across the lake to San Pedro, where Margie's two friends were waiting for us. Our dormitory room in a lakeside hotel run by a Spanish couple had a view of the lake and was large and comfortable, and we spent the weekend "chilling out". It was so nice to see the [View Full Entry]

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Thank you all for your messages and comments. It means a lot to me to keep in touch while I'm here. And Happy Valentine's Day a todos! Just to keep you up to date...Sorry the photos will have to wait till next time, as I've been out all day and forgot to bring to this Internet Cafe the cable that allows me to upload photos from my camera. As I think I wrote previously, I'm going to school from 8 to 12 every morning at the Ischel Spanish School. My teacher, Reina, is very patient with me, as I make a [View Full Entry]

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Hi, It´s now 5 PM local time in Antigua, Guatemala. I've been here for two full days. but before I describe my trip and tell you about Antigua, here are some photos of my last days in Boston. My trip to Antigua was eventful, as I almost missed the connection in Miami because my flight from Boston took off late due to ice on the wings. Luckily, however, the Miami flight had arrived late from Jamaica, so I made the next flight to Guatemala City. Then upon arrival in Guatemala City (more than 3 hours late) I discovered that American Airlines [View Full Entry]

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Here are some photos of my stay in Boston which will tell you what I've been up to in the last few days. What you won't see is the theater performance Pam and I are going to see tonight: It's called "Bread and Puppet" and is done by seven puppeteers from Vermont who'll be accompanied by a local Boston brass band. And yesterday afternoon I saw a movie: "In Bruges", a rather violent thriller but with excellent acting and beautiful shots of the Belgian city. I also had a lovely dinner the other night in Brookline with my friend Mia, whom [View Full Entry]

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A few last photos from Canada [View Full Entry]

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