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Published: August 11th 2008
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cow frog
by the contemporary art museum I left Puerto Rico on saturday. I want to say thanks to everyone that made my stay so awesome and interesting. I hope we all keep in touch, and I'll see many of you in September or in November when I go back to Puerto Rico. I already miss it!
There was a going away party for me on friday night, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Thanks to Maria for hosting us, for better or worse.
On saturday, I got all the way to Fort Lauderdale, and then they cancelled my flight. Eh! They put me up in the airport Hilton and gave me tickets for food. It wasn't so bad. I got some work done on my grant, which I sort have been putting off due to my extreme travel stress right now, and the sheets in the hotel were really nice. It was a king sized bed too - very nice. I went for a morning swim.
The breakfast was a buffet. Actually, I had an odd realization there. With all of that food available, I ate as much as humanly possible, and then horded away some extra things for the rest of the
day and the coming night. It was weird, because I had plenty of money for food from spirit airlines. The truth is, I've spent so much of the last year on very little money - in New Haven or in South America - that I've become like a greedy scavenger that takes as much of everything possible at any opportunity as long as it is free or nearly free. I fact, I ate so much food yesterday, I was stuffed and sort of uncomfortable most of the day. Ick. I'm nuts. What's more, I have a fear of not being able to find food I want. That is, I got used to not having certain things, so I take them just because I don't know when I'll see it again (like oreos). Basically, I reminded myself of the guy in the book Life of PI. He survives being adrift at sea in a little boat, and then he developes weird hording behavior at the very end - the police give him cookies while they interview him, and he just keeps them in his pocket for "later." Creepy.
Well, anyway, I got on the plane. Its only a few hours
flight, and for anyone that needs to know, I'm on Colorado time. The hotel I had tried to make a reservation at for the night before did not get a hold of me, so there was no one to pick me up at the airport. I tried to take a taxi to the place anyway, but the tazi driver told me it was full, after he called. Actually it was at this point that things sort of sucked because this guy was scamming me. Taxi drives get paid money to tell kids that hostels are full and that they know a better one to take us too - the other hostel owners pay them to do this. I asked him to bring me to another hostel from Let's Go but he took me to another part of town. A bad part of town, and when we pulled up a guy on a bike was right outside of my door, like 10 feet away, just staring at us with no one else on the street. I forced the tazxi driver to take me to the second hostel I had requested and after much putzing about - the guy was a real asshole - he took me there. Asshole. The hostel I ended up with was more expensive than I wanted and also did not include breakfast. Eh. But is does have a pool and it showing Ratattoui (sp?) tonight. So that is ok. Oh. And also the taxi driver overcharged me by almost double. Sometimes its hard to argue with them if you don't know what the real price is because you haven't been there before. I hate non-honest people. Its so terrible.
That morning, I walked San Jose, and exchanged some money. Its really not that great of a city. There are some cool old fort relics, and and interesting mix of old and new, technelogically advanced and not so much, but really its not that great. I looked it up and the city is about the size of minneapolis. So there you go. Except I think Minneapolis is pretty awesome. Anyway, without much to do, I went to the art museum. They have a tiny little contemporary art museum, which was currently showing only two artists. Actually, I thought the art of one of them was pretty spectacular. A cross between pop art, comics books and Dali. Most of his art was of smaller bodies composing larger ones. Which looks pretty creepy, but beyond that, is pretty philosophical. The larger bodies were always in bad shape and the little ones were pretty happy (well, in most cases). Its the tragedy of the commons, or altruism, or what ever joint effort there is. Sucks. Makes good art though. For dinner I ate at taco bell. Cheap and delicious. Then I checked out the market. It was facinating like markets everywhere. They sell absolutely everything in those places, in raw form. It all looks so inviting. The dried herbs, the bins of spices, the gold fish for pets (?), the records, buttons, and lace. Whatever you want. In a tiny little space. It would never happen in the US, it would be a fire hazard.
The next morning I got on a bus and went to the rainforest. First, three hours to san isidro. An adorable little town, where I had two hours to buy groceries and take a load off. Then, two hours on a little school bus over un paved roads heading up a mountain. YUCK. But I got off ok and was met by the Cloudbridge people, and I'm just fine.
The place up here is absolutely excellent. The housing is wonderful and comfortable, even though there are mice that you cant' get rid of (at least they are cute mice), and the forest is beautiful. There is hot water, a stove, internet (obviously), electritcity, and plumbing. Everything a girl could want. We drink the water as it comes down from the mountain. We are very close to the continental divide (although I don't know how far away you can get from it in Costa Rica... not far I guess).
Basically, I get up early, and go for a four to five hour walk in the reserve looking for monkeys. I've only seen them once, and I hope I see them again, or I dont' know what my "project" here is all about. Ha ha, I can only do the best I can I suppose. Tomorrow I am going out with a local guy, and maybe he will have some helpful things to suggest. Although seeing them that once was a huge feat! No one had seen monkeys for a month (but maybe they were really trying, I don't know). So it felt good to find them. I stayed with them for a half hour, and they were playing far away in the trees. I took video, but is increadiably unspectacular - its so far away it just looks like dark blobs against a white background. Oh yeah, and it was spider monkeys I saw. Another first for Kelly - never have seen those in the wild.
In the afternoons I read and write, and work on my project some. I'm really sleepy in the afternoons, I get up early, and its a lot of hard work. Since we are in the mountains the climbing is a lot of up and down, and its a real work out! Also, it rains every afternoon, like clockwork. In the morning it is sunny, and in the afternoon, its cloudy, and by about 3 its raining on into the night. I'm having the hardest time getting laundry to dry, so I might just be really dirty for a whole month.
For groceries, I walk back into town - a couple miles walk down the mountain. The town, San Gerado, is one street - a soccer field, a school, a church, two resturaunts, and... the grocer... and that is about it. Nothing to fancy here. There isn't much to choose from at the grocer either, and I'm really starting to miss having fresh fruits and vegetables. Sigh. I'm being such a putz, I'm not here for very long. Anyway, most nights I make beans and rice or pasta with sauce. I have a bunch of onions so I put them in everything.
And otherwise, I'm just surrouded by an emense (sp?), lush, imposing, brilliantly green forest, that is itself, held in the clouds. And its pretty intense.
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